So I saw the poster for Lars von Trier's new film Nymphomaniac (or is it Nymph()maniac? Or even Nymph({¡})maniac? Very clever) on the wall of a tram. Have you seen it? Here:
Now I'll be honest – I found myself annoyed. I seem to oppose seeing and/or having to look at people coming on my tram wall. Who knew? I've nothing against people coming in general; in fact, I hear it's quite nice (boom boom!).
And let's get one thing straight immediately: I haven't seen the film. I also know nothing whatsoever about the film, except I did look at a few of the posters on google as I was searching for an image to rip for this post. So I'm being a total dilettante, or is it a counter-dilettante, as I'm cultivating a disinterest in something I know nothing about? Whatever, I need to get to the point. What I, to my surprise, found myself annoyed about was how come*, in this day and age, can we have images of men of all manner of ages, shapes and levels of beauty in the throes of the little death, whereas, apparently, to fuck and come women must surely be a) beautiful b) (hence?) able to come without any unsightly facial contortions (can you do that, girls?) c) young, with the notable exceptions of Connie Nielsen, Uma Thurman and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who, in spite of their unfortunate age problem (all three are vaguely my age) manage to look fucking lovely, unmarred by their age – if anything, quite the contrary, growing more gorgeous as the years go bye-bye.
I mean, it's the same as in porn. There are all sorts of guys fucking their balls off over there, on the playground of online adult entertainment, but pretty much the same rule applies there as on Lars's poster: beautiful women coming "sexily" only, thank you.
I don't know. O tempora, o mores. Or maybe I'm just annoyed as the poster hasn't that much eye-candy for a largely-heterosexually oriented woman? Moreover, such a woman who is both aware of her own growing years having so far not taken away any bit of desire or ability, possibly quite the opposite, and somewhat acutely aware of the fact that her growing years and growing desires and abilities don't necessarily add up to her being accepted as a sexual being.
Ah well. I'm sure I'm not the only one to be going "down with this sort of thing" – but I did think it unprovoked, as it were, by any truck-driving macho female-rights activists, I'd just like to point that out. It can actually also piss off someone who's seen and, so help me, done a fair bit, and not just politically-correct things.
*Pun intended. Boom boom!
