Sex at 24 Frames Per Second - Film Review

FROM MR. & MS. MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 ISSUE.

Playboy Magazine produced a documentary titled Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003) that was written and directed by Kevin Burns and Steven Smith. It gives the viewers a brief glance at the relationship between Sex and Hollywood.

In line with its producer’s characteristics, the film gives the audience a review of Hollywood’s sex goddesses from Theda Bara and Alice Faye to Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich to Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansefield to Gina Lolobrigida and Sophia Loren to Elizabeth Taylor and Raquel Welch to the James Bond girls up to sexy comedienne Cameron Diaz.

Of course, Playboy boss Hugh Hefner is one of the interviewees. Director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct and Showgirls) and Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) and actresses Sharon Stone and Raquel Welch are among those interviewed for the film.

NOSTALGIC TOUR

The documentary brings us on a nostalgic tour of Hollywood, showing us film clips from the silent era to the present times. We get glimpses of the naked bodies (PG-rated only) of the stars of bygone eras like Theda Bara and Heddy Lamarr. We get to hear once again the sexually witty one-liners of Mae West like when she quipped, “When I’m good, I’m very good; when I’m bad, I’m even better.”

We get to see the all-time G-rated love team of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Under the Hayes Code (the very strict censorship code Hollywood invoked upon itself), the actors, even if they play husband and wife characters, were not allowed to be seen together in one bed. Even married couples were required to have separate beds! To get around that, Hudson and Day got to say a lot of double-entendres and the directors used a lot of split screen where they can be in say, separate bath tubs yet share the same movie screen (and viewers’ minds) at the same time.

Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor got the biggest exposure. Marilyn represents the tragic sex goddess while Elizabeth represents the sex goddess as a celebration of life.

MARILYN MONROE

Milestones in Hollywood’s cinematic sex history like The Valley of the Dolls, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice were acknowledged. And so were the ground-breaking X-rated films Deep Throat and Beyond the Green Door at the height of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s. But understandably, Caligula, produced by Hefner’s rival, Penthouse’s Bob Guccione, was mentioned quite negatively.

MARILYN CHAMBERS starred in BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

ROSE-COLORED GLASSES

Like Playboy magazine, Sex in Hollywood is presented through rose-colored glasses. The innocence of pre-Code Hollywood was mentioned but the hypocrisy of Hollywood under and after the Code was glossed over.

The legal battles between the movie producers and the State over Censorship were not mentioned at all. And it presented Hollywood as if it were at par with Europe in terms of presenting sexuality on-screen.

LEGAL BATTLES

The First Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the enactment of any law abridging the freedom of speech or press. But censorship remained.

In the 1960s, the film version of Lady Chatterley’ Lover was banned in New York. Fortunately, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling. Justice Stewart, in his ponencia, noted: “What New York has done, therefore, is to prevent the exhibition of a motion picture because that picture advocates an idea…Yet the First Amendment’s basic guarantee is of freedom to advocate ideas. The State, quite simply, has thus struck at the very heart of constitutionally protected liberty.”

Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flint gives a good picture of how the battle for censorship was waged between the anti-censorship activists and the State.

SEX IN EUROPEAN CINEMA

The documentary tries to give the impression that Hollywood is as sexually advanced as European cinema. Nothing can be further from the truth.

By the mid-70s, sex in European cinema became ordinary fare. Before Jane Fonda starred in Barbarella, she already made a number of sexy films in France. When Sylvia Kristel as Emmanuelle burst into the movie screens, European cinema was already showing sex in cinema as a matter of course. The top ingredient of Emmanuelle was not the story or direction; it was the sheer charisma of its star, Sylvia Kristel. I saw the movie in Paris and people really queued up to see the film.

I remember the time I went to see Caligula in a mainstream cinema in Paris. When I entered the theater, the film already started. Before I took my seat, I looked up at the screen and was shocked at what I saw. The film starred Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren and Sir John Gielgud. I thought I went into the wrong cinema. I stood still for several seconds until the usherette brought me out of my shock. She kept on repeating, “Service, M’sieur.” She was waiting for her tip.

While Caligula was shown in Europe just like any mainstream film, it was banned in the United States and created a huge controversy. In the documentary, Bob Guccione said that he just wanted to portray how life really was in Imperial Rome. This, to me, is very important.

The Roman Empire had been inculcated in our minds as “The Glory that Was Rome”. It was the epitome of European civilization. When I was young, I thought of the ancient Romans as the Caesar of Rex Harrison or the Anthony of Richard Burton or the Brutus of James Mason or the Calpurnia of Diana Rigg. After watching Caligula, I researched into Roman history and was shocked at how barbaric it was. And yes, ordinary Roman and Greek soldiers were naked except for their shields and spears! Those who had ranks wore an upper armor but no skirts. Only the commanders wore skirt armors.

ROMAN FOOT SOLDIERS in CALIGULA

Recently, for the Athens Olympics, a film was made about the ancient Greek Olympics. Many people complained that it was not realistic. Many people now know that the ancient Olympians wore nothing at all.

It is quite remarkable to think that in the cradle of Western civilization, during the times of “The Glory that was Greece” and “The Grandeur that was Rome”, people actually go about their business stark naked and sex was not taboo.

EXPLICIT SEX IN CINEMA

The documentary did not delve into explicit sex. It ended by saying that by the late 1990s, sex was again being celebrated in Hollywood. While some interviewees said that Hollywood is hypocritical, the documentary itself is hypocritical. It tries to give the idea that sex in cinema today is exemplified by comedies like The Full Monty (1997) and Something About Mary (1998).

This Playboy documentary even ignores its own Playboy Channel on cable which features steamy sex and full frontal nudity.

Explicit sex in cinema has been around since the 1970s but such movies were usually shown “underground”. The one that started it all in mainstream cinema was the Franco-Japanese film In the Realm of the Senses by Nagisa Oshima in 1976.

European cinema has been pushing the envelope further to the edge since then. In 1986, one of my favorite actresses, Maruschka Detmers (Prenom Carmen), shocked the world by giving her co-star Federico Pitzalis a fellatio, which was shown uncut. The brief scene was totally gratuitous. The film was mediocre and it did not help Detmers’ career at all.

In 1998, Denmark’s top director Lars Von Trier made The Idiots which included explicit sex scenes. In Switzerland and Germany, it was rated only R-16 and was even shown on Australian TV uncut.

In 1999, Catherine Breillat outdid herself when she directed Romance X with Caroline Ducey, Sagamore Stévenin, and porn actor Rocco Siffredi. The film contained “unsimulated” sex accompanied with heavy philosophizing.

In 2000, Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi co-directed Baise-Moi, a film that showed explicit sex throughout the film. The film is anything but erotic.

In England, respected actors Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox starred in Patrice Chereau’s Intimacy (2001). There is also a fellatio scene. While Detmers and Pitzalis were young and beautiful, Rylance and Fox were middle aged and average-looking. Yet the Intimacy fellatio scene appeared more intrinsic to the film than the one in Detmers’ movie. Rylance is the Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater while Fox (An Angel at my Table) is an established New Zealand actress.

Mainstream British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom upped the ante with his 9 Songs (2005). The film’s actors Kieran O’Brien and newcomer Margo Stilley performed unsimulated sex which was shown in its entire splendor.

Cult director John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006) contains graphic sex but is also innovative, provocative and presents several perspectives on sex. It won several awards in international festivals.

Shortbus lead actress Sook-Yin Lee found out that having sex on screen may be dangerous to one’s job. Her bosses at Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) fired her because of her sex act in Shortbus. Lee was a host of a radio program. The public and several celebrities like Francis Ford Coppola, Julianne Moore, Gus Van Sant, David Cronenberg, and Yoko Ono rallied to her support until CBC relented.

THE SEXUAL SUBJECT

In the documentary, Hugh Hefner said that his magazine’s centerfold is their way of saying, “hey, good girls want sex, too.” While Mr. Hefner isolates himself in his mansion with a bevy of bunnies, the rest of the word has grown up. World cinema has grappled with the sexual subject in all its manifestations.

Cinema offers us representations or versions of reality. When it comes to sexual activity, the manner and limits of representation in mainstream cinema continue to be passionately debated.

Sexual Kung Fu: Transcendent Orgasm

by Jamal Ashley Abbas


To come or not to come (?), that is the question that concerns practitioners of Taoist sexual kung fu. In Taoism, the life force energy is hugely concentrated in the male semen. The conservation of this energy is thus imperative. For monks, celibacy is the traditional way but there is a more practical way – the path of the Seminal and Ovarian Kung Fu.

Western Practice

Although the Judaeo-Christian tradition relegates women to the background in terms of sexual

prowess, Western practice through the ages shows otherwise.

In Greco-Roman mythology, Zeus/Jupiter punished a mortal seer for daring to say that women were the better lovers. The seer reasoned that women could enjoy sex better and longer because they could come or have orgasms many times more than men could.

And the best proof for that is Singaporean-American Annabel Chong’s record-setting feat of having sexual intercourse with 251 men in 10 hours. The feat was done in January 1995 in Los Angeles. It was documented by video and was recognized by the Guinness Book of World

Annabel Chong

Records.

While Western (and Western-influenced) men blame Eve for the Fall of Humankind from Eden, they would not acknowledge women superiority in terms of sexual endurance and stamina. The amorous exploits of Don Juan, Cassanova and their like are kept alive in literature, films and other mass media products.

Eastern Concepts

The Tao Te Ching is the bible of Taoism, which was compiled around 400 BC, two centuries after the death of its foremost proponent, Lao Tzu. By following the Tao (the Path or the Way), one can achieve harmony in the Universe. The Way is the balance of opposites – the Yang, the Male or Active Principle and the Yin, the Female or Passive Principle. Man is mostly Yang and Woman is mostly Yin. To achieve harmony, Man needs the female force while Woman needs the male force. The exchange of these Life Forces occurs during sexual union and peaks during orgasms. 

The Book of the Tao predates other famous sexual treatises like the Kama Sutra of ancient India, the Ananga Ranga of Mughal (15th/16th century) India and the Perfumed Garden of Muslim Arabia.

What sets out the Tao from the other tomes is its concept of the seminal and ovarian fluids as storage of the vital force or qi (pronounced chi). Both males and females ejaculate during orgasm. But while the males spew out their semen-essence, the females retain their bodily fluids within and even get the males’ fluids. Thus, while the males lose their vital energy, the females get even stronger from their own orgasmic secretions and the males’ powerful seminal fluids.

Sex Hormones

Sex hormones are what transform girls into full-bodied women and boys into muscled and bearded or mustachioed men.

Most of the sex hormones are produced by the testes and the ovaries. The principal hormones produced are the testosterone for males and estrogen for females. But the adrenal glands, which sit atop the kidneys, also produce sex hormones. The adrenals affect the body’s metabolism, the chemicals in the blood and certain body characteristics as well as the individual’s coping mechanism against physical and emotional stress.

Modern research has shown that men with high levels of testosterone, high sperm count and viscous semen are more immune to diseases than men with lower testosterone levels, low sperm count and watery semen.

On the other hand, Western medical science has established that women enjoy higher immunity and resistance to diseases (example, there are much more men with AIDS than women), recover more quickly from sickness and generally live longer than men.

Sex hormones are steroids and can be considered as great medicine against diseases and aging. Sex hormone production is best stimulated through sexual intercourse. Thus, the Tao prescribes ways to enhance the process of love-making.

For women, hormone production also happens during pregnancy. But for males, sexual intercourse is the only way to produce hormones in good amount.

However, ejaculation in males throws away all those precious hormones away. If, for example, the enhanced production of sex hormones by the adrenals is not ejaculated, they would enter the bloodstream, and would do their stuff like preventing hair loss, skin wrinkling, poor muscle tone, arthritis, rheumatism, impotence and other disasters associated with aging. (Sex stimulates secretion of cortisone in the adrenal cortex and thus prevents rheumatic pains.)

Taoist Dilemma

The Taoists knew the importance of sex not only for procreation but also for health and well-being. The ancient Taoists therefore elevated the sexual act into an art form like a dance or a ballet. Even the terminology is very creative. The male organ is called the Jade or Coral Stem or the Male Stalk or the Turtle Head or the Heavenly Dragon Pillar.

The female organ is variously called the Jade or Coral Gate, the Vermillion Gate, the Jade Pavilion, the Golden Lotus, the Receptive Vase, etc. The Clitoris is called the Pearl on the Jade Step or the Jewel Terrace.

Sexual Intercourse is termed The Mist and the Rain or The Cloud and the Rain or the Delight of the Couch. Orgasm is referred to as the Great Typhoon or the Bursting of the Cloud.

But the males lose a big amount of qi or life force after every orgasm. Expending too much qi brings about aging. And for the aged, expelling so much qi/life force can be fatal.

Thus, the Taoists were faced with a dilemma: How can men have sex and thus produce as much qi but conserve it instead of expelling it? It must be noted that in a single ejaculation, a man loses more than 200 million sperm cells while a woman does not lose a single egg cell.

Controlling ejaculation

The solution to the dilemma was to control the frequency of ejaculation without reducing the amount of intercourse. The ancients concluded that on the average, men must not come more than twice a month or 24 times in a year.

The Book of the Tao illustrates the many ways of enhancing the union of the Yin and the Yang without depleting the Yang qi of the male. Sexual intercourse became a battle of the sexes where points are gained not by beating the opponent but by giving more pleasure to the other.

A Different Kind of Orgasm

An emperor in ancient China must have protested that long hours of intercourse would be boring without a climax – an orgasm. And so the Taoist monks discovered a way to achieve orgasms without ejaculation. They call it Drawing the Nectar Up to the Golden Flower.

For the man, the nectar is the semen about to be ejaculated and the golden flower is the Crown charka, the energy center located just below the scalp. For the woman, the nectar is her own fluids plus the essence of the male semen.

According to the Tao, the very potent semen does not have to go to waste. Both men and women can transform it into its essence – the ching qi or sexual energy – and draw it up towards the crown chakra to achieve a spiritual orgasm.

Mantak Chia, the Thai-born Taoist master who popularized Taoist sexual kung fu in the US and elsewhere through his numerous books and seminars, claims that he has made love thousands of times but ejaculated only once – to impregnate his wife, a medical technician and his co-author in the book Healing Love Through The Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy (Huntington, NY: Healing Tao Books). The couple even gave a seminar in Manila about a decade ago.

The Microcosmic Orbit

For the Taoists, the individual is a microcosm of the Universe. Everything is within. To achieve mind/body/spirit harmony, energy must flow along the microcosmic orbit (see illustration) and thus empower the various chakras.

MICROCOSMIC ORBIT

To achieve transcendent orgasm, before reaching the point of ejaculation, the male must direct the essence of the ching qi or sexual force upwards through the energy points situated along the spinal column until it reaches the crown chakra. Afterwards, the energy should be directed downwards through the major charkas until it reaches its point of origin – the perineum which is located between the anus and the genital. This completes the microcosmic orbit. And then the next round of lovemaking begins.

For the female, at the edge of orgasm (hers or his), she tightens her sex organs and squeezes the male essence out of the Male Stalk and combining with her own juices, she should direct the same upwards along the microcosmic orbit.

Each time the ching qi arrives at the crown charka, orgasmic sensations would occur. According to Mantak Chia, by the tenth “draw up the golden flower”, the couple or individual would achieve an orgasm that would be “spiritual or psychic and would be beyond time and space”.

A Taoist proverb says, “A Sage will practice the Tao. A fool will only admire it.” Which one will you be?

SARAH MILES & KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

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Published in Mr.& Ms. Magazine (with different pictures) February 2006