la ronde, and around, and around
My friend and fellow sex blogger Mikey Mongol attended the iNtuitons student production La Ronde with me last night—we were there to rah-rah (and ogle) a mutual friend, who was fabulous and genuine in her performance. The play is a 19th century German send-up about sex, lies, and syphilis, complete with poignant social commentary and more than a little simulated rumpy-pumpy. Yet as awesome as La Ronde was, Mikey and I found ourselves de-constructing the “fourth wall”—the tittering audience.
Mikey, a Penn outsider, was fascinated by the laughter during the sex scenes—the porn-like cartoonish Reverse Cowgirl scenes, the tender lovemaking, the (super hot, may I say) full frontal action – all of which were met by a cacophony of giggles and guffaws from our fellow observers. He theorizes that we laugh because we recognize our fellow jiggly, awkward sex selves—it’s the dawning realization that real sex ain’t glamorous that produces the cognitive dissonance of laughter. As they say, I’m down wit dat. Who can re-create Debbie Does Dallas in the privacy of their own homes? Heck, you could be Gisele Bundchen and still do this totally weird thing with your upper lip when you orgasm. It happens, it’s embarrassing, and embarrassing happens to be funny.
But could we also laugh because we’re uncomfortable seeing our Penn colleagues in flagrante delicto?
I mean, I’ve got no problems objectifying the cast members (and hoo boy, were they sexy mofos!) but I know it’s gonna be awkward if we’re, say, in line to make copies at Van Pelt and I can’t stop thinking about how pretty _____ looked in her Cosabella lingerie, or about how expertly _____ executed that reverse pile driver. I’m OK with ogling, all right with lusting—but to transfer that to the people who sleepwalk through 10 AM classes with me? Like, totally weird!
Call it a mother/whore complex, if you will. Or an experimental student theater/plain old Penn student complex. How do you reconcile campaigning for free sexual personhood and then getting all weird when you run into those totally free sexual people at Starbucks? Is this just a product of living in a compartmentalized society, or is it deeper than that—something more intrinsic in the human psyche?
Comments
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The Good Reverend, Mar 18, 17:15:
Or, saith John Tierney in the science section of the New York Times, we laugh because we want to signal to others that we are friendly and not hostile. So in this case…because we don’t want the other people in the audience to think we’re taking the sex too seriously?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13tier.html?ex=1331438400&en=d38e4cf7a53719f3
Jess, Mar 18, 17:18:
Great point! Mikey and I didn’t think of that. Do you mean that perhaps we wouldn’t want to seem to “into” the sex because it could make us sexually threatening? Or that we laugh because we want to share in the sexual discomfort as a means of fostering a connection?
Arielle, Mar 18, 18:51:
Aww, thanks!
And yeah, I tend to agree with what you say in the comment above – I think audiences laugh, especially in these contexts, so as not to appear too threateningly “into it.” (I say “these contexts” because college theater audiences tend to be acquaintances of the performers, so there’s a strange territory of how deep to go into a level of sexual openness and comfort and still remain “polite” company.)
Isabel, Mar 18, 20:12:
Kind of wishing I’d gone, now. I just didn’t feel like going out last night. (But at least I got some work done. Still, algebraic topology’s a pretty sad way to spend a Saturday night.)
and I didn’t realize Mikey had a blog.
Although part of the reason I didn’t go was because I thought, well, maybe I’d be too comfortable with it. I am a bit uncomfortable about how comfortable I am about sex, which is kind of mind-bending.
Mikey Mongol, Mar 19, 00:52:
What I didn’t really go into in my post, because it was beyond the scope of what I wanted to talk about, was that I think that the laughter also partially came from the discomfort caused by the cognitive dissonance between “I’m a naive college kid who was taught that sex is naughty” and “I’m a liberated modern college student and I shouldn’t think simulated sex is a big deal”.
Isil, Mar 19, 20:02:
Laughing when nervous pretty much does the opposite of what it tried to cover up.
I bet they did tons of hand rubbing, candy wrapper twitching and side glancing to catch up their peps reactions.
Shay, Mar 22, 14:01:
Maybe it did make them feel a little uncomfortable, especially if they were getting a little turned on by the play.
People don’t always like to be aroused in public, so maybe the giggles were an attempt to convince themselves that they weren’t getting all hot and bothered.