Lesbian sex: under the covers

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Written by Jamakaya
Aug 25, 2010

I finally saw “The Kids are All Right” and have mixed feelings about it.

The movie, which has gotten great critical reviews, revolves around a lesbian couple (played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) and their teenage kids who are thrown into turmoil after seeking out the sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) who made them possible.

No movie with Bening, Moore or Ruffalo is without some value, because all of them are excellent actors who choose interesting parts. And director Lisa Cholodenko is a veteran independent filmmaker with an interesting lesbian character study (“High Art”) to her credit.

I liked the humor in “The Kids are All Right” and I liked some of the mundane details of family life, like the boredom of hearing an old story shared too many times and the pilgrimage to see the kid off to college. To the extent that “Kids” humanizes lesbian and gay families among mainstream viewers, I’m pleased. What I found cringe-inducing was its unbalanced depiction of sex and its negation of lesbian sex.

I understand that “Kids” is about a long-term couple, whose long-term status and busy household makes the desire for and pursuit of sex more challenging for them. That is a realistic portrait. But let’s look closer at the scenes related to sex.

Early on, the lesbian couple gleefully plans to have sex by watching their favorite video, which turns out to be gay male porn. While watching said porn, the Moore character, invisible but bobbing under the covers, tries to pleasure the recumbent, distracted Bening. The scene is played for comedy and abruptly curtailed. When their confused child asks why they watch gay porn, one of the women mumbles something about the complexity of sex and acknowledges that it might seem “counter-intuitive.” Uh, well, yeah mom.

Later, the son and his friend rifle through the moms’ bedside table, finding the porn video and a dildo. A bathing scene with the promise of intimacy between the two women is interrupted by a phone call. Then we see Moore aggressively kissing Ruffalo and repeatedly, blissfully, having sex with him. The heterosexual sex scenes are above the covers, in the nude, vigorous and extended. After their first session, Ruffalo asks Moore: “So does this mean you’re not a lesbian?” “No!” she replies, appalled. The audience around me was audibly, understandably confused.

I am not a lesbian sex cop. I don’t care who sleeps with whom or what they do together. God knows, I’ve had a variety of adventures and misadventures in my life. But I do love movies, and I love women. In 2010, it is disappointing to see that lesbian sex and passion are still missing in action, under the covers, and/or male-identified in Hollywood films.

There have been few lesbian leading roles in mainstream features over the past 30 years. “Personal Best,” “Basic Instinct,” “Chasing Amy,” “Monster” and “Kids” come to mind. In all these movies the reputedly lesbian character sleeps with a guy (or guys). In two of them, she ends up with the guy. In two others, she’s a serial killer. I suppose it’s progress that we’re not still killing ourselves, like in “The Children’s Hour,” but it sure is aggravating.

Note to Hollywood producers and writers: Lesbians fall in love with other women. They frequently have passionate and fulfilling sex lives. Most do so without the need for male partners or even artificial male appendages. Lesbians also have affairs but when they do it is most often with women, not men. And, trust me, there is enough drama in lesbian relationships to fill dozens of feature films.