Scenes of Erotica #1
December 1, 2005 | Category: Erotic Cinema, Sexblogs
I fantasise about a brothel
Where a head is separated from a body
By a guillotine-like contraption before the blade comes down.Of course, there’s no blade.
I wear a silky red skirt that billows up and rustles.
And those silly trappings that give men a hard-on.It’s proof a hard-on doesn’t mean they love us.
Such is the dialogue that plays over one of my favourite scenes of erotic cinema. It’s not especially long, no more than a minute from start to finish. It appears in the film Romance, a French discourse on the nature of sex, attraction and sexual identity, for both women and men. Directed by Catherine Breillat, it’s art house cinema whose use of explicit sex scenes caused some controversy at the time of its release in 1999. It’s a film that seems to polarise its audience: from what I can tell, people rarely feel ambivalent about it.
But this isn’t meant to be a critical appraisal. I just want to talk about this one scene.
The protagonist - Marie - is fantasising about being in a brothel. She - along with several other women - lie on trolleys arranged around the circumference of a circular room. The room is bright, almost sterile; given the trolleys, the setting is reminiscent of a hospital ward. Each woman is tended to by her husband or partner.
Bizarrely, the women have only the upper halves of their bodies inside the room. Their lower halves - everything from the waist down - protrude out into a dark, circular corridor, as though from the openings of pipes. The corridor is smoky; the dominant colour here is rust. Industrialised decay. The women all wear skirts, which are bunched up around their waists, revealing legs clad in stockings and suspenders. Men are able to wander around the corridor, perusing the women on offer. One man settles himself between Marie’s thighs and begins to tongue her sex, and on her side of the divide, she responds by gripping her boyfriend’s hand. As the camera returns to the corridor, the audience sees numerous men: a few voyeurs, some walking around, some standing still. The sound of the women’s pleasure echoes around the chamber. Some of the men are fucking the women, while others stand naked, masturbating, awaiting their opportunity. Marie’s expression is one of almost abstract pleasure. One impatient male - cock hard and bulging - pushes his way through the crowd to replace the man already fucking Marie. He greedily feeds his cock to her, and then spills his seed across her belly.
As I said at the beginning, not a prolonged scene. No gradual building up of tension. Rather an exquisite, revelatory explosion, almost brief enough to miss. Its impact upon me the first time I witnessed it (in a cut-for-UK-TV version) was profound. That impact doesn’t seem to have lessened, despite several subsequent viewings. I have a fair understanding as to why. The scene possesses elements that appeal strongly to my own sexuality: voyeurism; the no-nonsense directness and anonymity of the sex; women with an insatiable desire for cock; the prospect of your partner being pleasured over and over by voracious strangers. There was a part of me that would have relished the chance to be one of those men, offered the choice of anonymous cunt to pleasure. But more than that, I wanted to see MW in Marie’s place, to watch lean, hard strangers rutting between her stockinged thighs as she moaned endlessly with pleasure. It was as though the film had found the dots inside my head, joined them up to create new and exciting vistas for me to explore in my mind.
The film contains far more sex than that contained within the brief montage I’ve described. For those amongst you with a passion for ropes and restraint, there are a couple of scenes that may well appeal to your tastes, and I wouldn’t discourage any liberal-minded adult from undertaking at least a single viewing of the film. There are men who’ve derided it as overly feminist, women who’ve decried it as misogynistic in the extreme. Perhaps it’s both; after all, what better way to start a debate? All I know is that there are plenty of people of both sexes who consider it a crafted piece of cinema.
Myself, I find the film slightly pretentious, not to say a little too detached, a little too bleak in its depiction of sexual politics. Are things really that bad? Romance is never going to be one of my favourite films, though I’ll admit to finding it at times intriguing, and mildly erotic.
Except for that one scene. One I’m sure that I’ll remember for a long time.
11 Comments
Trackbacks
Leave a Reply
-
Search
-
Erotic Cinema Recommendations
Comments Total
Get your Badge!
Things to See
Things people said....
"...happens to be the best erotic blog out there, you will not find a higher quality erotic sex blog."Uncool
"...perhaps the best male erotica writer in the blogosphere."
Polyamorously Perverse
"...finally a male erotic author who knows how to describe nuances of sight, sound, smell, texture, who knows how to build up a story, build up tension and who finds all the right words at the right time. And finally an author who can balance so very well along the fine tightrope between erotic writing, plain smut, romance and sensuality..."
V (a reader)
"...one of the standout ’strictly’ male erotic blogs that are out there, and I highly recommend it."
Dark Scribe Speaks
"This is fine erotica, well written, very sexy, all packaged in a nice blog format that makes me jealous."
Sexy Blog Reviews
"...ladies, you'll be feeling pretty oversexed after you read this..."
Nattyboo
"I absolutely love Easily Aroused...the way he writes makes you feel as if you are right there, a part of the story..."
20 Something Girl
"This guy can write..."
Merz1
"I’ll admit it. I have a thing for English dudes ... and I love The Whisper of Nylon by Easily Aroused"
TGP
"...if you’re looking for something to distract you from the monotony of real life and hope it involves spanking, the ripping of various items of clothing, hot lesbian sex, hot hetero sex, naughty wives, naughty husbands, and the occasional pair of thigh highs, then I sincerely suggest you check out his exceptionally well written blog..."
When the Lights Go Down…
"Call that a Blog? (Ladies, your attention please - you will thank me ) This is a Blog!"
Ms Hermes
"This guy is basically incredible. Literally."
Le Calme Avant l'Orage
"Read this girls, that is all I'm saying."
The Adventures of Miss M
"There are so many wonderful things to say about this blog that I don't know where to begin...Maybe the best way to say it is..He makes me want to have sex with him over and over and over again."
Speak Sexy
"EA has a wonderfully sensual quality in his writings (the sexy beast of a man, grrr!) totally unique in that he somehow balances the sexually provocative flavour of his writing style, fluid and deliciously exploratory, with intelligent phrasing, selective word choice, even his pacing is remarkably concise. Rather well done we think."
We Were Wolf
Fascinating info about this movie.
I immediately went to my netflix queue, did a search, and have added it to my list.
Here’s hoping you aren’t disappointed, Debbie. And that if you are, you decide not to bill/shoot me…
~EA
EA
This one completely passed me by, I have never heard of it. I will be seeking it out over the next few days.
BTW, nice reading at breakfast for one who just can’t seem to get enough these days.
Hi Suze.
When I started this blog, I never envisaged being read over cornflakes and toast. Do you think I should consider taking out an ad in the FT? Perhaps there’s a whole breakfast time audience out there, just waiting to be tapped into. It’s lovely to know that the post went down well with the Robinson marmalade though…
(BTW: can’t get enough of what these days?
)
~EA
Very Interesting film, I’ll have to look into seeing it for myself.
But here is my question for you - which end would you want to be on if it were MW? The end where you can see her face and watch her in the throws of ectasy? Or the end where you get to see the men using and pleasuring her lower half?
Excellent question, Shay. Do I only get one choice? The truth is, I’d want to experience both sides of the wall. Seeing her face, hearing her moans of pleasure would be delicious, and I guess that my own pleasure would only be amplified by not being able to see what was happening to her, who was touching her, tasting her, fucking her.
But at the same time, being the decidedly visual beast that I am, I’d want to be out in that rusted corridor, to watch what was going on below her waistline. To see the fingers on her, in her, the tongues, the cocks, penetrating her to the hilt, long and slow, hard and fast, to witness the line of naked men stroking themselves, waiting impatiently for their turn.
If I only had the one option, I’d choose to be inside the room with MW, watching her ecstasy, listening to her pleasure. But I’d keep looking at that wall, trying to visualise what was happening on the other side, trying to see through…
~EA
I’m smiling. I sat here and was eating breakfast cereal also. Interesting reading it was. The sense of detachment seems a bit much - but then it was a remembered dream and things can be so different in a dream, or a fantasy.
I had no idea that there were so many early morning sexblog perusers out there, Rosie. I tend to find that my more carnal desires become most alive when darkness falls…
~EA
Now EA - the time zone difference makes, well, a difference. But you know some of us can and do have carnal desires at many and various times. And those of us who work at home can satisfy those desires at many and various time. Enjoy that thought.
I think you’re just trying to make me envious, Rosie. And it’s working…
~EA
Somehow you managed to sum up every thought and opinion I have on this film: I too found this scene immensely erotic.
Overall it was a little too pretentious for my liking, but I enjoyed the fact that the movie stirred up so much debate: always a good thing for sexual politics I think.
I’d use that old ‘great minds’ chestnut - but I’m too aware that the jelly sloshing around between my ears wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny under the Trades Description Act. So I’ll settle for breathing a sigh of relief that I’m not alone in my opinions on ‘Romance’…
~EA
[...]Oh So Sexy Blogs. This site helped me focus on a bunch of sexy blogs. And get a load of this post. I love the idea of an erotic French film that made women cry “Sexist Shit!” and men scream “Feminist Crap!” — its certainly got alotta reactions.[...]
Congratulations to you. I like Halley’s blog, though I tend to read it sporadically and missed her today. She has a wonderful archived post about self-image that I have shared a number of times.
Thank you, Rosie. I was extremely flattered at being picked out by Halley…
~EA
I am one of the people who have not heard of this film. Your description and comments peaked my interest, and I look forward to watching it, to enjoy the scenes, to ponder any disconnect, and to think about what it means personally. For your words have started my mind thinking…about how our sex lives are viewed as split between the slut and the prim with hardly consideration in the middle (although that is hopefully changing as commentary increases)…how might our lusts and desires be enacted if our society did not value monogamy or if illness did not hinder?…what brings a person pleasure as they watch their partnered teased and fucked if they are not physically playing a role? Is this pleasure for all or just some people?
Some questions, some ideas, and a film that is now at the top of my to find list.
Some intriguing thoughts, Kitty. I hope that you’ll find some answers - or at least something of interest - in the film…
~EA
This film is pretty hard to get here, it’s uncut version is very graphic, so graphic that it was banned by the Australian Office of Film and Literature in 2000, usually films with sadomasochistic content score total bans, like Baise Moi, which I managed to see a couple of weeks before it got banned here, then again I didn’t find it erotic. I think S & M is more erotic in literature (Story of O etc) than in film, in film it tends to be a whole montage of senseless sex without any emotion or passion.
Romance stirred up a similar amount of controversy over here. IIRC, the UK DVD is currently out of print, and cut besides. The version I’ve seen is the unrated US Region 1. As to whether film or literature is the better medium for exploring and expressing S&M - I think I’m with you, but then I’m far from an expert on the subject…
~EA
Actually, her most recent film, Anatomy de L’enfer is quite erotic.
Haven’t seen Anatomy de L’enfer yet - I’ll have to look it up…
~EA