{"id":740,"date":"2013-12-01T09:05:10","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T09:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=740"},"modified":"2018-05-23T15:55:27","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T10:25:27","slug":"reel-review-of-sex-and-desire-what-mark-obrien-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/reel-review-of-sex-and-desire-what-mark-obrien-taught-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Reel Review: Of Sex and Desire: What Mark O\u2019Brien Taught Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cToday I ask if I\u2019ve found a place among the rest, who studied, read, wrote and passed the test in cap and gown. Today I hope you see a man upon this stage.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In his opening monologue in the film \u2018The Sessions\u2019 (2012), Mark O\u2019Brien encapsulates in a single sentence his anxieties, insecurities and latent desires of \u2018hoping\u2019 to live as someone not defined by his disability. Inspired by his path breaking 1990 essay titled \u2018On Seeing a Sex Surrogate\u2019, the movie, \u2018The Sessions\u2019 follows O\u2019Brien, a poet and a graduate from Berkeley who is living his life within an iron lung due to complications from polio.\u00a0 The heart of the movie lies in O\u2019Brien\u2019s relationship with Cheryl, the sex surrogate he hires for six sessions, which the movie transforms into a profound and joyous exploration of sexual desire that makes the disability just an innocuous facet of O\u2019Brien\u2019s much more candid, multifaceted personality.<\/p>\n

Our movies have usually had a dull, staid way of highlighting disability. They usually begin with focusing on creating an immense empathy for the protagonist followed by the said protagonist\u2019s awe-inspiring \u2018resistance\u2019 to structures that intend to keep them chained to their disability, and finally conclude with a rousing sentiment of appreciation and gratitude to the protagonist for having paved the way for many others by their sheer courage and conviction. Such approaches not only make the disabled person an object that invites pity and sympathy but alternately try to convert them into a poster child for heroism.<\/p>\n

The Sessions keeps it simple. Two adult individuals, one of whom happens to be disabled, engage in a mutually satisfying sexual relationship that is not limited by any grand ideas of love or romance. Thrown in are O\u2019Brien\u2019s intense albeit hilarious conversations with the Catholic priest, Father Brendan. \u2018My penis talks to me, Father Brendan\u2019 says O\u2019Brien and on being informed of the latter\u2019s decision to see a sex surrogate, the priest remarks \u2018I have a feeling that God is going to give you a free pass on this one. Go for it.\u2019 While reams have been written and volumes have been spoken about religion\u2019s oppression of sexuality and sexual desire and deeming as blasphemous any expression of sexual pleasure, \u2018The Sessions\u2019 is unique in its humane treatment of the relationship between a believer and his priest and the tacit understanding that religion and faith may not always be the best answers to life\u2019s more complex realities.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, through the lens of this movie, becomes an active sexual being, who craves human contact and pleasure and intimacy. The sex is aesthetic and moving and sensual and erotic and challenges the predominant, pervasive ideas of \u2018acceptable\u2019 normative sex being one which is necessarily \u2018able-bodied\u2019 and thereby \u2018more\u2019 beautiful and (usually) heterosexual. To most, the movie will be a fresh perspective on the relationship between disability and sexuality, subverting the dangerous ideas of both \u2018passivity\u2019 and \u2018resistance\u2019 that tend to be usually ascribed to people with disabilities but to me, the movie is no grand socio-political statement but is, simply, about the universality of desire and human intimacy and that all bodies have the potential to be or want to be \u2018sexed\u2019 bodies. I am reminded of one of my favourite parts of the movie where Cheryl points out to Mark after one of their sexual encounters \u201cYou’re a fully fledged male homo sapien endowed with a handsome and substantial penis which now has a proven track record.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was struck by how the film addressed the fluidity of sexuality and sexual intercourse. Avoiding any and every stereotype that shape our understanding of that effervescent idea \u2018love\u2019, the movie makes sexual desire a humane, possible, accessible to all and alternately an awe inspiring yet possibly ephemeral idea, that does not have to be limited by societal dicta. The spontaneity, humour and warmth of the relationship between Mark and Cheryl challenges and subverts our, often, restricting ideas about love and relationships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cToday I ask if I\u2019ve found a place among the rest, who studied, read, wrote and passed the test in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":11248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,12,3,86],"tags":[66,57,103,1574,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-video","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-the-sessions","9":"category-review","10":"category-dec13-sexual-rights","11":"tag-desire","12":"tag-disability","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-sexualities","16":"post_format-post-format-video"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11247,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/11247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}