While I would like this particular post to sound all scholarly n’ shit, I am not writing my thesis, and this opinion is supplemented merely by my own personal knowledge of the history of “ladies of the night”.
Last night as I was out with some of the girls I mentioned that I was watching the first season of Games of Thrones. I had read the book as well as my friend, who made the comment that she thought that the show was “over-sexed.” This is often a common complaint I feel when it comes to shows on HBO and other networks of its kind. HBO, Showtime, etc. are not held to the ridiculous rating standards of the MMPA who think it’s more appropriate to have someone watch a bloody decapitation than an intimate love scene between a couple.
Bottom line it got me thinking of this phrase, “over-sexed”. Obviously my friend meant in her comment that gratuitous sex scenes took away from the main story line to try and win viewers with skin. I on the other hand went directly to the historical context. Game of Thrones is shot in essentially a medieval time period, where pretty much if you where a woman you didn’t have that many “job options.” I think sometimes people forget that your options for activities back in the day were fairly limited to work, reading (if you could), dancing around the maypole, hunting (if you could), and drinking (except the monks). This left ample time for sex. People were as faithful to their partners as Rush Limbaugh is sympathetic towards liberal politics. Sex was and even previous to that time frame was and had been a big effen deal. The Roman Empire was famous for its brothels, bath houses and prolific use of women as sex slaves. It was a business much like it is today but far more common and in a way respected. Selling women was on par with selling spices. An example of oversexed Romans can be seen being executed very poorly in Caligula, do not czek this out unless you want waste 3 hours of your life watching Malcom McDowell sodomize someone with a Crisco fist.
Take another show from HBO not that far back in time, Deadwood (RIP!). One could argue that this show was also very over-sexed as the main location of the show was Al Swearengin’s whore house and some of the main characters prostitutes. The 1800’s saw a great deal of advancements for women, prostitution became more regulated and the job itself now carried more risks with the introduction of sexually transmitted diseases centuries earlier. But once again you need to look at the context of how it is being portrayed and whether or not it becomes gratuitous or necessary to complete the vision of re-crating a time period. A Wild West town, Deadwood South Dakota was filled with shady characters and prolific drinking. The circumstances and characteristics of this location are, I think, inherently prone to enjoy, embrace what have you, sex, free sex, sex you pay for, whatever. Essentiality, If you want to make your “period” show believable you’re going to need to show some skin.
Oversexed is a more deserving term for modern movies. Comedies such as Super Bad, Road Trip, Revenge of the Nerds, American Pie, (really any movie where the main characters goal is to get laid) exhibit the true qualities of what the phrase is about, people that are obsessed with obtaining it, not people that are already doing it.
In conclusion (yes, the most overused essay closer ever!), I think…..oh fuck this conclusion you already read what I wrote up there! You get the point! I have always wanted to say that at the end of a paper J
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