Sex is far from cinematic. For some reason, I’ve been cursed with the tendency to have it while watching movies. My sex life has become that of a strange Buzzfeed quiz. What movie or television show would your most recent sexual encounter represent?
Treasure Planet
Type of Encounter: Too Lazy to Orgasm
Situation: You sip a coffee twice as tall as his because you love sweet, indulgent drinks and he doesn’t care what he gets. He’s cute. You talk about school, traveling, his move to the United States, and the differences between undergrad and grad school. Something about the date seems to go well, until the minutes start to slog by. Every question about interests seems to get deflected, as if he doesn’t have strong opinions about anything. Strong opinions are what make you want to take someone home at the end of the night.
You decide that he’s not your type. Not physically (he’s too short and probably a power bottom) and not intellectually, but you go to his house anyway because he says that the bus passes close to it. He puts you on his couch, the type that’s heavy with old make out sessions and nights of eating pizza from the box. His television is a huge flatscreen; he’s a grad student living in an apartment the size of a coffin. He starts making out with you. Bodies entangle and your mouths clash together as the Disney logo appears at the opening of a film — his choice, “Treasure Planet.” He tells you that you may as well stay the night. Before you know it you’re both naked as animated space pirates fill the room with steel-toned battle cries. You end up getting him off; you realize that you’re nowhere near cumming.
You have no idea what the fuck is going on; you don’t even get to be little spoon. Parting with a kiss, you walk down to the Commons and stop at CTB, your phone at 10 percent. One breakfast sandwich and coffee to-go later, there’s a perfectly timed Green Street TCAT stop that takes you back up to Ithaca College. You walk of shame up to your dorm where you feel accomplished despite your lack of orgasm.
The Rugrats Movie
Type of Encounter: WTF Cuddling
Situation: You talked before you left for school. Six months later, over spring break, he contacts you and you reconnect. He really wants to cuddle and you’re intrigued. So, you sneak out of your house at 3 a.m. as he gets a hotel room, because he lives 25 minutes away. You can’t drive and risk your parents seeing the driveway without your car in the morning; you also don’t want him to be put out by driving you everywhere. This is the first time you’ve done something like this. Something about it doesn’t feel sexual to you. It’s rebellion at its weirdest. When the car pulls up to your house at 3 a.m., you’re armed with an overnight bag and the sense that you finally are doing something that is beyond your hometown, beyond your former life as a formerly-overweight high school guy with a loud voice and a backpack full of novels.
Getting a hotel room in your hometown freaks you out. He’s a pleasant guy. A hometown Hampton is silent at 3 a.m., but it’s spotless. You’ve never been in a hotel room with a single, large bed before; it’s always been two double beds to be shared between four platonic people, until tonight. Both of you take turns searching through Direct TV until you (yes, you) decide on “The Rugrats Movie.” Lying down leads to cuddling between you two. You don’t have sex, even after two hours.
Making out, on the other hand, happens a lot. The first kiss shatters all barriers between you two. Breathing overrides the sound of cartoon babies having adventures, which is a good thing considering that you’re making out to a movie you first watched in elementary school. Six a.m. comes and you two finally go to bed. Something about the act of being held is what you care about the most. He takes you home around 8 and you feel like it was impossible, kind of revolutionary. You make plans to someday watch “The Rugrats Movie” with this person for real. You have yet to do this. That’s okay, because you’re more than willing to actually watch the movie with someone new. The Rugrats made you a rebel.