(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)
What we have here is a tantra shrink, a psychoanalytic shrink and a women's support group counseling shrink, and together they cure (that's the implication anyway) a woman made frigid, compulsive, obsessive and I forget what else by her father's sexual abuse. This bit of glorification of therapy suffers from the sort of defect usually found in an action/adventure/thriller movie, namely that of illogic. It seems that what really caused all this harm was the penis, the father's mean staff. This is the lie. (A trendy lie, by the way.) However what is really being presented here unbeknown to the authors in an unconscious acting out is the glorification of the penis. This is consistent with shrink psychology since those guys still haven't freed themselves from the Freudian obsession with it, and it is consistent with the American patriarchy since the one thing so sacred in our society that it cannot be shown publicly (except in double X-rated flicks) is the erect penis. And it's the patriarchy that has exclusive possession of that. (Sorry girls!) Any dyke can tell you that this kind of psychology is a phony tantalization leading to the perpetuation of penis envy.
The problem with any attempt at sexual honesty in a public sense is it's really impossible because we are within the sexual system ourselves and subject to its taboos, no matter how we might try to break away. This restraint on true expression is most felt by the most highly socialized members of society. Highly educated and over socialized shrinks typically tend to be blinded more than others (hence society's penchant to make fun of them). And even if they could see the truth, they couldn't express it since they would be out of business. It is only the crazies and the great artists who can break free of the taboo system and see what's real and express it. What we have here is unfortunately not the work of a crazy or a great artist, but of highly sensitive, highly socialized members of the human society trying to make a living. Trapped and struggling to break free, but of course giving in to the propaganda and the straitjacket of the species mechanism. If you are a member of the society, you cannot tell the full truth about the society. You have to break free first. You have to move outside that society. And if you do, you probably won't care enough to express yourself.
We can see that the authors of this movie tried to break free and thought they really were on the right track, ah but, they smelled commercial success and in the end conformed to society's prejudices, society's taboos and fed us back the usual sexual BS. If somehow a sexual counselor were to really understand human sexuality and (more important) be able to transmit that understanding to others, he or she would immediately be condemned since the system itself, by its very nature, demands duplicity and hypocrisy. That is the most important single thing we can learn about human sexuality: the veil of illusion. Sexuality must be private and not public and as such any public pronouncement must be a lie. It's a hard truth to realize, but something known in the heart of every prude and Republican congressman (although not in their minds). When those with starry-eyed visions of telling it like it really is come close to the holy grail of sexual truth they falter. One might call it the magnetic repulsive nature of sexual knowledge.
Having said all this I applaud the attempt. Incidentally the sex scenes are very sexy and the three stars, Craig Sheffer, Sheryl Lee and especially Terence Stamp do an excellent job. Director Lance Young unfortunately sells out, but he had no choice. As Jesus said, he knew not what he did.
What we have here is a tantra shrink, a psychoanalytic shrink and a women's support group counseling shrink, and together they cure (that's the implication anyway) a woman made frigid, compulsive, obsessive and I forget what else by her father's sexual abuse. This bit of glorification of therapy suffers from the sort of defect usually found in an action/adventure/thriller movie, namely that of illogic. It seems that what really caused all this harm was the penis, the father's mean staff. This is the lie. (A trendy lie, by the way.) However what is really being presented here unbeknown to the authors in an unconscious acting out is the glorification of the penis. This is consistent with shrink psychology since those guys still haven't freed themselves from the Freudian obsession with it, and it is consistent with the American patriarchy since the one thing so sacred in our society that it cannot be shown publicly (except in double X-rated flicks) is the erect penis. And it's the patriarchy that has exclusive possession of that. (Sorry girls!) Any dyke can tell you that this kind of psychology is a phony tantalization leading to the perpetuation of penis envy.
The problem with any attempt at sexual honesty in a public sense is it's really impossible because we are within the sexual system ourselves and subject to its taboos, no matter how we might try to break away. This restraint on true expression is most felt by the most highly socialized members of society. Highly educated and over socialized shrinks typically tend to be blinded more than others (hence society's penchant to make fun of them). And even if they could see the truth, they couldn't express it since they would be out of business. It is only the crazies and the great artists who can break free of the taboo system and see what's real and express it. What we have here is unfortunately not the work of a crazy or a great artist, but of highly sensitive, highly socialized members of the human society trying to make a living. Trapped and struggling to break free, but of course giving in to the propaganda and the straitjacket of the species mechanism. If you are a member of the society, you cannot tell the full truth about the society. You have to break free first. You have to move outside that society. And if you do, you probably won't care enough to express yourself.
We can see that the authors of this movie tried to break free and thought they really were on the right track, ah but, they smelled commercial success and in the end conformed to society's prejudices, society's taboos and fed us back the usual sexual BS. If somehow a sexual counselor were to really understand human sexuality and (more important) be able to transmit that understanding to others, he or she would immediately be condemned since the system itself, by its very nature, demands duplicity and hypocrisy. That is the most important single thing we can learn about human sexuality: the veil of illusion. Sexuality must be private and not public and as such any public pronouncement must be a lie. It's a hard truth to realize, but something known in the heart of every prude and Republican congressman (although not in their minds). When those with starry-eyed visions of telling it like it really is come close to the holy grail of sexual truth they falter. One might call it the magnetic repulsive nature of sexual knowledge.
Having said all this I applaud the attempt. Incidentally the sex scenes are very sexy and the three stars, Craig Sheffer, Sheryl Lee and especially Terence Stamp do an excellent job. Director Lance Young unfortunately sells out, but he had no choice. As Jesus said, he knew not what he did.