If you happen to be in Uruguay next month…

Glyph says:

Hi David, I watched the linked preview clip, and another one that YouTube popped up automatically after this one ended.

As I watched them speak, I found myself sort of…embarrassed I guess is the word? Maybe this is partly due to some sort of residual American Judeo-Christian shame about sex, but I don’t think it was (I am really no prude, I am OK with whatever makes any consenting adults’ socks roll up & down).

I think it was rather a sort of embarrassment at witnessing others’ intimacy…like I was hearing these people’s secrets and I was never meant to. I am a pretty mind-yr-own-business-anti-TMI kinda guy; the private should usually be private, etc. So it felt uncomfortably like I was ‘eavesdropping’. (I know it’s not remotely the same thing at all, but I avoid a lot of so-called ‘reality TV’ for the same reason – Not My Business).

I know from the previews and the other things you have written about your film work that exploitation, voyeurism and cheap titillation are the farthest things from your mind – that your intent is to depict, in an artful way, real people sharing the sort of beautiful intimacy, communication and joy together that all human beings should be so lucky as to experience, as often as possible, in their lifetimes (and that in reality is probably so common as to be nearly unremarkable, if we didn’t have such taboos against depicting it publicly).

I guess what I am asking is, is my initial emotional reaction as a viewer (let’s call it ‘Intimacy Shame’ rather than ‘Sex Shame’) a common one in your experience? And, if it is, in your experience do those feelings persist throughout a complete viewing of the work? Of course, even if I remain uncomfortable throughout and after, I know that does not diminish the work in any way, and depending on why it makes me uncomfortable and what I ultimately get out of that discomfort, it may enhance the work’s value to me.

I guess what I am saying is, I am intellectually very intrigued by the project, but not sure if I am emotionally ready. 😉

Plus, as I have said, I find the concept behind the work laudable and fascinating, and I admire your bullheaded attempts to make the world listen on this front. And since nobody else had yet commented on this post (who’d’a thunk that sex sells everywhere but at the LoOG?), I wanted you to know that.Report