One has been wondering about VH1's new documentary about virgins. I was hoping that it wasn't along the lines of "the 40 year old virgin"- which came out when I was in school, and didn't seem to showcase this life path in the most acceptable light.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, at Brent Bozell's wonderful article on the topic that just came out today. It is clear, when you look at the turf war that is talking place in American popular culture today, that the franchise of chastity is still a fraught and contentious topic. So, the work continues.

Anyway, do please read what Mr. Bozell, has to say below, when you get the chance :) I will post this disclaimer: Brent is the founder of the Media Research Centre, an American conservative organization, and I am a little surprised that such a topic is exclusively the preserve of the Right, although even the Right is divided- there are Ron Paul conservatives, paleoconservatives, which all differ, sometimes radically enough that they cannot be encapsulated by any one project. Still, as a further aside, I had rather hoped that women on all sides of the political spectrum could benefit from this kind of insight, and that it would not be conflated with potential positions on other issues :)

When the cable network VH1 planned a news special called "The New Virginity," an abstinence backer might have felt optimistic that teenagers and young adults were going to get a refreshing jolt of publicity about the option of premarital celibacy. That is, unless you looked at the network's promotional fine print.

Words have meanings. So when VH1 promised to explore the "roots of our current obsession with chastity" as it's advocated by popular teenage celebrities, you knew the fix was in. They suggest these stars just cannot be sincere. Instead, playing to "virgin mania" is just a marketing scheme: "Virginity doesn't stop celebs from looking and acting provocatively -- playing both sides with impressive marketing results."

Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

Now, I suppose it's possible that some parents and agents of teen stars are in fact conducting crass marketing exercises on the side. But those really aren't the ones who bother today's sexual libertines. It's the sincere virginity campaigners that truly drive them crazy -- so nutty that channels like VH1 are out there warning the public that every purity pledger is a fraud, or weeks away from becoming a fraud.

Virginity "appeals to parents who feel that their kids should only buy books, TV shows, movies, or CDs from stars who have good morals," said jaded New York dating columnist Julia Allison. Speaking of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, Jared Shapiro from Life & Style magazine added, "There was several hundreds of millions of dollars in sales waiting to be sold to children all across America and all you had to say was 'virgin.'"

Aw, come on. Not everyone is as callous as the guardians of today's pop culture. Parents whose children adore the pop stars on the Disney Channel are not hit over the head with "virginity" lobbying in Disney-produced TV shows, movies and CDs. These products are simply made safe for pre-teen children, with the subtle assumption that perhaps the whole teen sex vs. virginity debate is best left to the rest of the entertainment universe. And somehow, there's something ... wrong ... with that?

VH1's designated experts on virginity included Jessica Valenti, the feminist author of a book called "The Purity Myth," which neatly matched the channel's assumption that purity can't possibly be reality. Biology is destiny. Lust always wins. "There's now an iPhone application that's a purity ring that you can have on your phone to show that you're a virgin. I guess it's actually kind of useful because once you lose your virginity -- like most kids who take virginity pledges do -- you can just trash it."

Why wouldn't VH1 match the cynicism of Valenti with an author who has sincerely championed chastity? Take Dawn Eden, the author of "The Thrill of the Chaste." She would make a wonderful spokeswoman for -- and defender of -- chastity.

Here's the surprise: They did interview Eden last fall in New York. Here's the end of the surprise: They left her on the cutting room floor. She was informed with the usual cliches from producers that "the big guys above us" took the show "in a different direction," as they say. Translation: You were too good.

"I'm not surprised. This also happened the last time I did an interview for this type of program," she told my colleague Tim Graham. "It was clear that they were looking for a caricature of an ultra-right-wing evangelical, not a three-dimensional woman who had discovered a happier lifestyle choice."

Eden is not a caricature of an "ultra-right-wing evangelical." She came to the idea of chastity at age 31, after working in her 20s as a rock journalist. She was born in a Reform Jewish household as Dawn Eden Goldstein, dropping the last name when she became a writer. Chastity came naturally -- or as VH1 would insist, anything but naturally -- as a new spiritual commitment as she came to embrace the idea of Christianity and the Catholic faith.

She found the questions she was handed suggested a clear bias, like this one: "Teenagers have been horny since the dawn of time, no?" And "Critics say abstinence-only sex ed leaves kids clueless about sex. ...Talk about the agenda of abstinence-only education groups. What dangers does this kind of teaching pose?" Then there was: "Is it creepy that young girls are pledging purity to their dads until they are passed on to a husband?"

Even as they thanked her for participating (and getting censored), VH1 producers marveled at the "obsession" they could find in the media on the topic of virginity. So who's speaking honestly and prayerfully? And who's just cynically exploiting the topic?

VH1's whole concept should be turned around: Why should the advocates of premarital virginity be accused of insincere marketing? Especially by Viacom's "music video" channels that have long made their billions by selling the coolness and inevitability of sexual corruption to teenagers?

Feministing chosen to tackle the issue of unrealistic and uber adult cartoon representations for children in this post, a day or two ago :)

The Rainbow Brite phenomenon has been written about by a number of media sources previously and it has been extremely informative to see feminists beginning to discuss it as a relevant issue.

Have just discovered a very cogent article on ninemsn, one of Down Under's main news sites. Here is a description of the site on wikipedia: "ninemsn is an Australian 50/50 joint venture between Microsoft and PBL Media. It effectively acts as the website for both the Nine Network and MSN, and is one of Australia's most popular websites.[1] It is the default homepage for Internet Explorer 6 users in Australia, and the website that automatically appears when Australian users sign out of Windows Live Hotmail."

One of the associate producers, Nick Pearson, wrote about his choice to preserve his abstinence and protect his virginity, and why. Within hours, three hundred and fifty mostly supportive (although there were of course some detractors! :)) user comments appeared yesterday, and the maintainers of the site closed the story to further commenting because the site could not handle unlimited comments. Many people waxed rhapsodic about someone choosing to put such a lifestyle choice out there on a mainstream venue, held forth on the unnecessary stigma endured by virgins, and counted themselves among persons making similar decisions.

I could excerpt from the comments below, but there are so many that it would be well nigh exhausting. So take a peep, if you so desire- at the link above.

Saturday January 30 2010

Film directors can be very precious about their work. There is a reason why the "director's cut" tends to only make it as an added extra on the DVD -- only diehard fans can sit through their full, ass-numbing vision.

Neil Jordan, then, has gone against the grain by cutting a lengthy sex scene involving Colin Farrell from his new movie Ondine. Far from shedding tears in the editing suite, Jordan was unsentimental about losing the scene. "Sex scenes are embarrassing for anyone involved," he said.

Not all erotically charged scenes are as disposable; the plot of Jordan's Oscar-winning The Crying Game pivots around that scene of mind-bending nudity.

Back when the Hays Code confined Hollywood within a chastity belt of legislation, actors didn't have to worry about preserving their modesty. Now that sexual matters can be depicted much more freely on screen -- the 1927 code decried any kiss lasting over three seconds as "excessive" -- love scenes are all in a day's work for actors.

Getting paid to lie naked with Johnny Depp sounds like a dream job. We, the audience, see beautiful people writhing in a symphony of slick limbs and soft lighting. Just out of frame, however, is the sound guy holding the boom mike, the make-up girl waiting to panstick the actors' bottoms and the director yelling: "Grab her thigh -- now!"

Actress Victoria Smurfit has acted out her fair share of love scenes in a career that has spanned TV dramas and movies from Cold Feet to The Beach. The reality of filming them, she says, is not sexy at all.

"Usually by take three, I'm wondering what's on the lunch menu," she laughs. "They can be awkward. You talk about it beforehand, who's going to put what where, and you get on with the physical bit. Then you realise that you have lines to say -- there's the bloody dialogue to think about! It's more like stunt work than anything."

Like any stunt, sex scenes are heavily choreographed. This has two purposes: so that the camera can be in the right place at the right time, and secondly, to make the actors feel more secure.

When actor James McAvoy spoke to me about kissing Angelina Jolie in the thriller Wanted -- not as nice as "kissing someone you love" -- he referred to the rather more steamy scene he shared with Keira Knightley in Atonement. It wasn't fun, he said. But director Joe Wright made it easier by directing their every groan and grind.

"Joe was great because he set the boundaries very clearly. When you have boundaries you can totally go for it, you can get totally committed. Whereas if there are no boundaries, touching your hand to theirs might be too much, you know what I mean?

"You don't want to get too into it, you don't want to violate someone -- and I don't want to be violated either!"

As with McAvoy's experience of having to cling precariously to a bookshelf while ravishing Knightley, not all actors are afforded the luxury of filming their sex scenes in a bed. A new Irish film, One Hundred Mornings, has an uncomfortable scene where two of the actors have a loveless tryst up against a tree. Actress Kelly Campbell is looking forward to the film getting an airing at the upcoming Jameson Dublin International Film Festival -- it will certainly be more enjoyable than filming that outdoor romp.

"Invariably, it's always first thing in the morning when you film these scenes; it's half eight and you're in the nip," she says drolly. "My experience, though, is that directors are very respectful. Weeks before we shot the scene, we discussed it. I would approach it as a dancer would -- you break it down into movements and look at it in a mechanical way.

"Conor (Horgan, the director) was very specific which was helpful. He would shout, 'More vocal, less vocal, move your leg that way', and it's taken out of your hands and makes it easier."

Campbell certainly had no trust issues during the making of another film she has just finished shooting. In Sensation, she has a sex scene with Domhnall Gleeson, son of Brendan and a good friend of hers in real life. The director is Tom Hall, who happens to be Campbell's husband. Awkward, much?

"Because we have worked together and we are very clear cut about our relationships, it was actually easy," says Campbell. "I had more of an advantage because the scene we shot was outside the intensity of the schedule. We did it two months after filming finished because we all agreed it was needed for the plot."

Kate Winslet's husband Sam Mendes was more squeamish when he directed his wife in Revolutionary Road with her old Titanic squeeze Leonardo di Caprio, apparently removing himself to another room to watch their love "action" on a monitor.

Victoria Smurfit also found that familiarity breeds embarrassment. "I once filmed a scene with a guy where his brother was the director," she remembers.

"Every time the actor reached over to pick up his script, his brother saw a lot more than he probably ever wished to see. It was awkward. It can be fine sometimes just to meet someone for the first time, shake hands, on with the flesh-coloured pants and get on with it."

Intimacy between the actors -- whether familiar with each other or not -- is almost a moot point when the fake lovers are surrounded by a film crew. Even a so-called "closed set" can be crowded.

"You have to have a camera operator, a focus puller, a boom operator, and if the camera is moving, you have a grip," says Dubliner Dan O'Hara, who has just directed an episode of the risqué Channel 4 drama Skins, which returned to our screens this week. "You could have someone from the costume department standing by with a dressing gown. I had one scene which called for an actor to get out of bed naked, and within two seconds of me saying 'Cut' and coming out from behind the monitor, he had his boxers on."

Victoria Smurfit's first love scene was filmed in a bog -- she has a clear memory of lying in the mud on her back, staring up at the soles of the electricians' boots as they adjusted lights up in the trees overhead.

Daisy-shaped plasters for nipples, careful editing, nude-coloured thongs and spray-on perspiration: the sweating flesh we see on screen is a game of smoke and mirrors. Kelly Campbell says that most performers use a protective barrier: "Only the most gung ho actor will say, 'Whatever'."

If you're Marlon Brando, you might plump for underpants and Wellingtons. That's what the star insisted on wearing while filming a sex scene with Stephanie Beacham in The Nightcomers in 1971, forcing the cameraman to keep calling "pants" or "Wellington boots" every time they came into shot.

And what about this for a passion-killer -- the need to adhere to health and safety laws. When director Declan Recks was preparing a scene for the TV series Pure Mule, the art department had to make sure the kitchen table on which two characters were to have sex wouldn't collapse.

Most directors are happy to do whatever it takes to limit the scope for embarrassment. And while some A-list actors can afford to write no-nudity clauses into their contracts, most actors have to trust the director to get them through sex scenes with minimal trauma.

"Most Irish actresses won't reveal a nipple, or part of, for television and I wouldn't blame them in the least. It's a small audience -- and they're not getting paid enough!" says Recks.

Irish actress Pauline McLynn, best known for her role as the tea-mad housekeeper Mrs Doyle in Father Ted, this week appeared au naturel in the cult Channel 4 drama Shameless, where her sex-mad librarian got it on with anti-hero Frank Gallagher (played by David Threlfall, who also directed the episode).

"It's an odd experience, pretending to have sex with a strange man, and with another 17 people lighting your bottom and whatever else," McLynn told one internet showbiz website. "And you don't want to frighten the audience with the wrong angles!

"So I'd never been asked to do sex scenes before, and we did the one where the kit was off. Because that annoys me, when you watch shows where you think 'Why have they got their underwear still on? They've already had sex how many times?'

"So we did a nude one. It was possibly the least glamorous thing I've done in my whole life."

Just came across this terrific blog, authored by the woman who co-wrote So Sexy: So Soon; The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids.

There is a good review of the book here, on MSNBC online.

I found the following review online for a book that is going to be released at any moment; it sounds promising as it is a feminist treatise that declaims the sexualization and objectification of women as relates to their most contested site: the female body. Just as modesty serves to make a woman's body truly her own, in the modern world there are forces that would seek to exploit a woman's worth only through the lens of sex. Should this book become available in my area, I do look forward to perusing it :)

"Living Dolls, by Natasha Walter (Virago). This long-awaited book from the author of The New Feminism, who is also a leading campaigner on behalf of women refugees, promises to offer a rallying cry for the post-feminist era – an age when hard-won liberties are being sacrificed to a market-driven, sexualised vision of what women are today."

Writing in her blog in the winter of 2009, American parenting educator and therapist Mary Jo Rapini had this to say about public displays of affection among teenagers:

Whenever I go to Italy or Spain I love to watch mothers and daughters walking down the street arm and arm. I also love to see men in a warm embrace and kissing each other as a greeting. It seems right to me and whether that is because I am Italian or just very demonstrative I believe hugging and kissing are more important than guns and bombs. However, seeing two teens groping each other in the school hall or at my friend’s home makes me feel uncomfortable. My discomfort comes from a feeling that the teens are not respecting themselves or their parents, the school rules or anyone who is in the room. I am all for passion, but I believe there is a time and place, and in front of others is not the time or place. As children grow they learn by trying new experiences. Their parents guide them, direct them and then they develop a sense of right or wrong with regard to individual behaviors. Parents (my friend included) would tell her daughter if she had chocolate on her face to go wipe it off, she would tell her it was inappropriate to talk with her mouth full, but yet when her boyfriend comes over and starts kissing her, or pulls her onto his lap the parents freeze and don’t know what to say.

She then proceeds to give parents advice on how to deal with the situation :)