Have you watched ‘Dying for Sex’ yet? No? Why? Why have you not watched it? I’ve pondered why people wouldn’t like the show. I’ve mostly done this because I want so desperately to refer it to literally everyone and anyone that I come into contact with- on a daily basis.
I want to scream from the rooftops its brilliance. The acting! The dialogue! The storyline! All of it. It’s truly spectacular. And before you grow increasingly concerned, I have no desire to throw spoilers into this post. I am not going to ruin anything for you.
Though certainly, even watching the trailer will tell you that to commit to watching this show, you are leaning into a story about a woman who is dying from Stage 4 cancer and her best friend. Also, sex.
And perhaps that’s why I’m hesitant to recommend the show to others. Not because I have an issue with sex or sexuality, but because so many people do. I know this narrative has been shared over time, so I’m not sharing anything revolutionary when I tell you that many, many Americans are incredibly repressed when it comes to sexuality. We talk a good game, but the reality of the thing is a far cry from our outward persona.
Give us sex in the form of tits and ass and love stories around the holidays but skip the raunch. And if you are going to give us the dirty stuff, then clean it up first, or make it so depraved that we question the sanity of the character(s) who are engaging (and we are meant to do so). Sure, watch Sex and the City or _________, but take nothing to heart, understand they are just characters (caricatures), and whatever you do, do not try anything like that at home, privately or otherwise.
Even more challenging than general sexuality are the specifics that relate to women or those who identify as women. Our bodies, our needs, our wants. We can joke about it, but the reality is that we’ve branded the desire to discuss women’s bodies and needs in mixed company a major faux pas. And knowing that makes so much in our world make sense, like why we don’t have enough information on women’s bodies and sexuality with respect to different hormonal changes in life (particularly menopause but also including perimenopause and puberty). If we see things as they are, it’s logical that lubricant has primarily been branded a tool for men’s sexuality, hormone replacement therapies are so unadvertised, and most vibrators are shaped like male genitalia (focusing on the trad sex aspect, and not the pure pleasure point of view).
Male sexuality is comfortable and a given. Boys will be boys and men will be men and all that jazz. And yet, when we even start to talk about women’s sexuality, it seems as though we have to whisper and also, tread lightly. We don’t even take the time to explore the nuances of women’s sexuality, to understand some of the primary differences between men and women in this way.
And I’ll tell you something else, it really is not helping the cause of women that this country seems to be embracing this wholly misogynistic and demented trad wife paradigm. I mean, I don’t need to say this, but we all know that I deeply respect the institution of marriage and parenting and even staying at home to take care of your children. What I can’t abide by is the sentiment that this is the only path for a woman and somehow, those roles trump all others and without that path, women are lost and worthless.
I am single and childless. It was not always by choice, but now it is, and I embrace that fact pattern. Actually, I do one better, I don’t consider it at all. It’s irrelevant to me. I know married women who have children, married women without children, single moms, divorcees, widows, and everything in between. Never have I placed the value of another human in their ability to meet the expectations of our antiquated and exclusionary social constructs. Have I felt less than because of my less traditional path in life (by those standards)? Sure. I’d be lying if I told you no. That said, I always ground myself back in the knowing of the thing, which is that we are all unique, our paths are varied (in what they look like and how satisfying they are for us), and no one should be judged by anything other than who they are as a person and how they move around in the world in which we exist.
I am not alone in that thinking, but there are a staggering number of people, women and men, who seem to be stuck in a very old and backwards thought mode. And so, with that influence and particularly, with the notion that women’s bodily autonomy is being stripped away by the day, it seems as though we are further away than ever from a place where we can understand, embrace, and celebrate women’s sexuality.
We can condemn women for choices made in connection with their sexuality, but we cannot just leave the rest alone.
And maybe that was a big part of the show for me, the notion that the main character, played by Michelle Williams, couldn’t really start to explore her sexual needs and desires and even dysfunction, until she knew the end of her life was on the sooner of horizons.
What if we, as women, decided that we didn’t need a tragedy or incredibly stressful event to attend to all of our needs? What if the idea of our sexuality has less and also, more to do with our life choices? What if we could accept the idea that our sexual needs may not be met by the person who gives us everything else we are looking for, and maybe the satisfaction of those needs exists on multiple planes. And that can be as simple as finding the right sex toy or aid or human partner. What if we could, as women, understand that sexuality has less to do with strictly the act of penetration and much more to do with intimacy and identity and desire.
The show had so many gorgeous and funny and poignant moments for me, but perhaps my biggest takeaway was the idea that this woman was, for the first time ever, asking herself what she needed and then, looking for it. She was doing that in the face of criticism, an external lack of understanding by some of the people she loved the most, and a legitimate fear [of failure, amongst others].
I really want things to change for women in this country and candidly, around the world, but I think we are light years away from that change if we are still tip toeing around expressing the way in which we prefer to engage. Maybe the first teeny baby step is asking ourselves what we need. And then, what we want. And then, look at the spaces that exist between those two lists and also, the rest of all of it.
Let’s just start there and then move onto the sex parties. Eh?
X
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