Tips and tricks to making love while watching movies
Jesse Colautti | Fulcrum Staff
I HAD PLANNED the night perfectly. My parents were out, my girlfriend was coming over, I had bought the supplies at the convenience store, and I had set the mood in my bedroom with candles. You only get to experience your first time once, right?
To be honest, when we first started, I didn’t like it. I mean, it was unlike anything I’d really seen before, and it was kind of slow. After the first hour, though, it really started to pick up, and by the climax right around the three-hour mark I was completely enthralled. And then my girlfriend ruined it.
Right at the moment Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo, she suddenly started to kiss and undress me. I tried to resist, but to no avail; despite the Academy Award-winning cinematography right in front of us, my girlfriend mounted me. Realizing there was no dissuading her, I tried to finish the ordeal as quickly as possible, but it was too late. By the time I had successfully manoeuvred her off of me and into a cuddle, it was all over. Boromir had been killed, Frodo was crossing the river with Sam, and the fellowship was broken. And that was that: my first viewing of The Lord of the Rings was spoiled forever.
Trying to balance a love of cinema with a sex life is challenging to say the least. Everyone says they love movie nights in, but in reality, when two young people with raging hormones are trapped in a dimly lit room together, the movie experience suffers at the expense of more corporal desires.
Don’t get me wrong, sex is great and all, but when you’re a film fanatic like me, you take your viewings seriously. I give people dirty looks for talking during a movie, let alone moaning. Pausing the movie totally sucks away the whole mood of the film—you might as well just skip to the ending.
After grappling with this problem for a few years now, I’ve come up with some basic dos and don’ts for selecting a movie when there’s a danger you might reach a climax of your own.
First, no documentaries. Is there anything more ethnocentric than fucking while watching the mistreatment of orphans in India? It’s just not very respectful. Plus, you might develop some strange psychological-association thing where every time you do it, you think of the mass killings of dolphins in Japan. Trust me, you want to avoid that situation.
Second, no award winners. You don’t want to reduce intricately woven plots, well-written scripts, or breathtaking performances to mere background noise as you go at it like animals. Would your pants be on as you stroll through an art gallery taking in a gorgeous Picasso? Let’s hope so.
Third, no foreign films. It’s going to sound like nonsense if you don’t pay close attention to the subtitles. Now, some people might have a thing for certain languages, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but leave the movies out of it. Put on some Rosetta Stone or foreign-language news station—at least that way you might learn a thing or two.
Lastly, avoid watching movies with your celebrity crushes in them. This could go either way, but generally I advise against mixing fantasy with reality. Emily Blunt may be the girl of my dreams, but the key to our relationship is that I’ve never spoken with the woman. This way I can idealize and imagine her in all her refined perfection. When I’ve tried to mix that with reality, it’s gotten messy. Incorrect names were said, sides of my face were slapped repeatedly, and now every time I see my future wife on screen, I can’t help but associate her with getting spit on.
Good movie selection can be reduced to a simple strategy: Keep it mediocre, predictable, and simple. You want a movie that doesn’t require or deserve your constant attention. Anything with Matthew McConaughey or an actress who used to be a singer is usually a good place to start. If you really can’t stand lowering yourself to this sullied level of cinema, then choose a movie you’ve already seen. That way you won’t mind missing parts of it, and you may even already know the best times to get the obligatory sex over with, in order to not miss anything good.
No matter what you do, never have sex during The Lord of the Rings. It’s just sacrilegious. The Hobbit, though? Fair game.
