[Greta Christina] On Watching the Same Ten-Second TV Spank Scene… Over and Over and Over
It seemed vaguely ridiculous at the time.
It seems even more ridiculous now.
Why — in a world where I have almost infinite pornographic material at my fingertips — would I find a ten-second spanking scene in a cable TV comedy series so erotically compelling? Why would I rewind and re-watch it a half a dozen times . . . and then fetch my vibrator, and watch it a dozen times more?
What is it about sex scenes in non- porno movies and TV shows, novels and comic books, that makes them hot? Not necessarily better than porn; but different, and different in a way that makes them special and exciting?
I’d like to say it’s how unexpected it is. You rent or download a spanking video, you expect to see a spanking. It’s fun, it’s hot, but it’s a bit anticlimactic. But you’re watching a regular old TV show — okay, on Showtime, but still — and you see a spanking? (Or a lap-dance, or blowjob, or whatever it is that floats your boat?) That’s a bit of a shock. And the shock of having one of your erotic buttons pushed out of nowhere can jolt you out of your TV- watching haze, and wake up your libido like a slap in the face.
Sure. Sometimes that’s true.
But in this case, it would be a filthy lie. The spanking I’m talking about had been heavily foreshadowed in the previous week’s episode. Heck, it had been highlighted in the “And now, scenes from next week’s episode” clips. I didn’t see the spanking come out of nowhere. I’d been waiting for it all week. With bated breath, and a twitchy hand on the remote.
So that’s not it.
It’s not the authentic feel you get from good acting, either. Usually when I rave about porn, it’s the authenticity that I rave about: the feeling that the performers have genuine enthusiasm and passion about what they’re doing. But that’s almost the exact opposite of what I saw here. In a spanking video, there’s a pretty decent chance that the people you’re watching are really getting off on it. In “Weeds,” these are highly- skilled, professional television actors . . . and while they did an excellent job convincing me of the characters’ passions, I have no idea how the actors themselves felt about it. That’s what makes them, you know, actors.
And I’d like to say that it was exceptional porn. Exceptionally erotic, exceptionally well-made. Something.
But honestly, it wasn’t. The scene was fine by spanking porn standards — it was certainly better- filmed and better- acted than most — but it wasn’t wildly extraordinary. And the actual spanking only lasted ten seconds . . . which is a pretty major downside for porn. The very fact that I had to rewind and re-watch it a dozen times was something of a hassle. It did lend a certain sleazy, drooling- pervert charm to the proceedings (especially when I was watching on frame- by- frame slow- forward); but it’s hard to keep a sustained arc of sexual arousal when you’re hitting “Rewind” every ten seconds. And while it was a good, hard ten- second spanking, from a purely porny standpoint it wasn’t all that and a bag of chips.
See for yourself. If you Google “Weeds Nancy Botwin spanking,” or go to YouTube and search on those words, you can see what I’m talking about. You can watch it here, if they haven’t taken it down already. But unless you’ve been watching the show and care about the characters already, it probably won’t seem all that interesting.
And that, I think, is the key.
That is what the ten-second spanking scene on “Weeds” has to offer that the overwhelming majority of porn doesn’t:
Caring about the characters.
You can get some of that in written porn, if you know who the good writers are. But for reasons that surpass my understanding, from a purely porny standpoint I’m a much bigger fan of video than I am of fiction. And alas, the overwhelming majority of porn videos completely suck at engaging you with the characters, giving you a sense of what all this sex means to them, getting you to give a damn about them.
But I already care about the characters on “Weeds.” I’ve been watching “Weeds” for close to three years now, and it’s an unusually smart and well- written TV show. So compared to any porno vid I’m going to watch, it already has a three- year head start . . . not to mention the considerable advantage that a well-paid writing staff will give you.
So when I watched Nancy Botwin get spanked, it was like watching a friend get spanked.
No, not a friend exactly. I don’t think the characters I watch on TV are my friends. But a reasonably close acquaintance. A friend of a friend. Someone I know a lot about and have come to care about from a distance.
And I think this is part of why people get so excited about sex scenes or kink scenes in non-porno TV and movies. (Apart from the celebrity fetish, of course; but that’s not my thing, so I can’t say much about it.) It’s not like porn, where nine times out of ten you sit through a stupidly- written, woodenly- acted pool- boy seduction scene that’s both unconvincing and unsurprising before you get to the “good stuff.” The spanking in “Weeds” had all the complex intensity and emotional depth that my own sex fantasies have . . . with the added treat of not being made up in my own head, and therefore being at least a little surprising and new.
And that’s something I’ve only gotten from a handful of porno vids.
This entry was posted on Friday, 1 August 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Friday, 1 August 2008 at 12:02 pm Infophile wrote:
You know, I think there’s certainly something to this theory. One hobby of mine is writing fanfiction, and I include a fair share of smut within it. Even though I include plenty of non-pornographic storyline in my work, the value of a pure smut fanfic would probably remain, simply because people have already grown attached to the characters involved. I’ve read both fanfic and original erotic writing, and it seems to me that’s there’s a definite qualitative difference between the two. Basically, the fanfic ones are about the characters, while the original ones are about the sex (there are of course exceptions; this is just a general trend).
on Friday, 1 August 2008 at 1:17 pm kc wrote:
Exactly!! That’s exactly it!
I’ve tried to explain to my boyfriend about a bajillion times why sex in real movies is so much better than porn, and that is always my explanation. Better acting does help though.
on Friday, 1 August 2008 at 1:43 pm Charlotte wrote:
I also thought about fanfiction when I read this essay. I read fanfic (and blog about it) and I think the comment above is right on, that good erotic fanfic is often good precisely because it is so focused on characters. Of course, there is a lot of not-so-good erotic fanfic, in which the conventions of mediocre porn override what we know about the characters and spoil both the mood and the story. But good fanfic is often very compelling, both as writing and as raunch, because we care about the people in the story.
on Friday, 1 August 2008 at 5:15 pm Tina Marie wrote:
I know, I know, not a big fan of fiction. But you need to go read “The Leather Daddy And The Femme”. It’s got spanking, hardcore S&M, hot girl-girl sex, hot boy-boy sex, crossdressing, and strap-on play. But you can get all of those in any of a long list of books.
What makes it special is the characters, who are lovingly written and fleshed out. Not only do you get a sense that the author (Carol Queen) really liked them, but also that she wanted you to really like them. At the end of the book, I wanted to go hang out with the cast of characters. Oh, sure, having sex with them would have been nice, but I’d have been happy to just spend Saturday evening drinking coffee with them. And, just as you pointed out, that makes all the sex scenes so much better!
on Friday, 1 August 2008 at 11:39 pm Greta Christina wrote:
I hadn’t made the fanfic connection before. But I agree: the thing that makes it effective is the three-year head start thing. You already care about the characters and have a backstory for them… so even if the fanfic writer isn’t first- rate, they can tap into the depth and resonance of character that already exist. Whereas an original story writer, even if they’re good, has to start from scratch. Interesting thought.
But I have to say, I have a minority opinion on “The Leather Daddy and the Femme.” A lot of people I know and respect love it, but I’m just not that crazy about it. I usually love Queen’s writing… but LTDATF is too utopian for me. There wasn’t enough conflict for there to be narrative tension, and anyway I just didn’t buy it. I think she liked her characters too much, and wasn’t willing to let them be (a) unhappy or (b) assholes.
on Sunday, 3 August 2008 at 9:08 pm gus wrote:
I completely agree that this scene is insanely hot, partly b/c MLP is so sultry & steamy. Then there’s her voice.
Did anyone else notice that all the blows that can be seen, which are the vast majority, are delivered to her left cheek, but in the following scene where she admires the work in the mrror, she looks at & feels her right cheek?
on Monday, 4 August 2008 at 10:07 am Ralph Zucker wrote:
finally some one who understands what I have been seeing and thinking about for years. that spacial little secret VHS tape mine.
I have all way felt that television shows, a specially prime time televison, contains a lot of erotic and sexually stimulating scenes. why doesn’t any body take these scenes and tweak it a little.
I have talked to people in the adult film industry, and mentioned to them what I am seeing on television. they tell me that the corporate heads of the adult film industry don’t want to do it.
they want to use the Andy Warhol theory of film making, that you should be able to make a film in the same amount of time that it takes to watch it.
they want a 99.99 percent return on their profit, it’s not about art, it’s about making money, “people don’t pay money to see art, but they do pay money to see people f__k. you want to look at art, then go to a museum to see the nudes.”
a well known adult film actor that I know has said, that he has all way thought of taking scrips from some of these old 1960s and 70s television sit. comedies such as, Threes Company, and Love American Style, and adding in adult content,
I have all ways felt that they could put a little more focus on the implied sex and nudity.
but don’t over do it, just tweak it up a little.
on Wednesday, 6 August 2008 at 1:37 am Cand86 wrote:
Oh my gosh. I love this post so much I want to marry it.
It reflects everything I’ve felt! As someone who has jerked off to both porn and [apparently] tame cable show scenes, I completely commiserate.
I also want to add that another element I really like is the ability for TV and movie sex to have a range of emotions. In porn, it’s either hardcore horny lust or romantic love- and that’s about it. All the other possible emotions that can be felt during sex- rage, anger, sadness, nostalgia, feelings of inadequacy, envy/jealousy, greed, and a million others much more subtle and complex, get their expression when the sex is rooted in the character and the storyline. It’s why I love watching sexually-charged shows like the FX lineup- Nip/Tuck, Dirt, etc., where the sex has fantastic meaning (although it can, of course, be just the whole skin=more ratings thing, too). For example from Nip/Tuck- when Christian and Sean have a threesome with an anonymous hooker who looks like Julia (Sean’s wife, who, it was just revealed, Christian once trysted with), it was damn hot (lots of nudity, sexy idea, sexy execution), but it had so many layers of emotion- they’re literally fucking out their anger and jealousy and coming together in more ways than one. Porn just doesn’t want to portray the fact that sex can sometimes be unsatisfying, and sometimes you come out of it feeling worse/more conflicted than when you went in.
Anyways, yeah. This was really good.
on Tuesday, 19 August 2008 at 10:47 am Ralph Zucker wrote:
I have all way felt that there is a gray area that exists between an “R” and “X” rated films. film producers are afraid to explore this area.
the “X” rating is not being used for what it was intended. the “X” rating has become synonms with porn.
the quality of an erotic is film dumb down, so that the film producer’s work wont be labled as porn. an “X” rating will kill a good film.
Midnight Cowboy was the first, last, and only main streem movie to receive an “X” rating. scenes were cut from the movie, because it was rated “X”. the art house, and erotic films of the 1960s and 70s got lumped in with porn.
the sexploitation, and European sex and horror films were being labled as being porn films, which they were not.
these types of erotic films never had a chance to evolve, and died out, because of the “X” rating.
I feel they need to give porn another type of rating designation.