A few elite Hollywood women had a sex party recently. I know you’re bummed you weren’t invited, but from the looks of it, you didn’t miss much.
In fact, you would have probably had more fun staying home and enjoying sex with your loved one rather than gazing at the glossy, Instagram-perfect shots of the soiree. Unfortunately, when people treat sex as something between a to-do list and an Instagram outing, it makes the whole thing cheap and boring.
According to Hollywood Reporter’s “What Happens At a Black-Tie Sex Soiree for Hollywood Wives,” sex parties like this are not uncommon nor for the pedestrian. Christine Chiu hosted the event, an “exclusive night of frank sex talk and female empowerment” which reads like a bachelorette party met “50 Shades of Grey” in a one-night stand with bored, wealthy, middle-aged women.
50 Shades of Nay
The elegant event—“guests wore gowns”—reads as told to a Hollywood Reporter writer by Sarah Magness, an invited guest and producer of “Precious.” Its dinner boasted a menu of aphrodisiac foods, oysters the first course. Dr. Holly Richmond, a “sex-pert” (heh) discussed “the details of what a Los Angeles sex therapist does and does not do” and “how successful women tend to like degrading sex” and other ideas. The women were then introduced to purveyors from a local sex shop selling wares that include feathered whips from the now-famous “Fifty Shades,” and a nude dancer who embodied “perfection.”
The author closes, “While savoring each bite [misplaced modifier alert], our fearless sexual leaders demonstrate the proper way to spank your partner while opening a case of electric shocking devices for stimulating your partner. I am overwhelmed by the evening and what has been an eye-opening experience. It has challenged the simplicity of my sexual existence.”
Sounds oh, so sexy, doesn’t it? I almost couldn’t wait to put my negligee on after reading this.
Hold up: When did the subject of sex—not actual sex, mind you—become a to-do list at 7 p.m. on a Friday night? Sex is not a party, and to cast it as such moves it beyond the realm of love, commitment, pleasure, and procreation and into a dual venture that is part performance (and a kitschy one at that) and part to-do list, ticking off sex talks, sexy poses with friends, feigned shock, and a whole lotta performance anxiety. In the article Chiu says, “We should not be a 7 in the bedroom or an 8 in the kitchen — we have to keep ourselves at a 10, 10, 10 across the board, right?” Jeepers, where’s a feminist when you need one.
What’s Wrong with a ‘Simple Sexual Existence’?
Of course Hollywood has done this for years onscreen. It was only inevitable they would go public after no doubt attending parties like this behind the scenes for years. But to go a step further, and publicize the event as if it were Brad Pitt’s son’s birthday party or Will Smith’s anniversary celebration seems overly gaudy and cheap, even boring. Hollywood has oversexualized sex so much that a party with a woman demonstrating how to use sex toys is yawn-inducing, when in fact sex should be anything but dull, public, or Instagram-friendly.
It seems like it would be more fun, more exciting, and yes, even more sexy to just have sex rather than to hear about what sex therapists do with and for their clients. Not that I’m opposed to opening one’s eyes and expanding horizons, but just because I read cookbooks like magazines doesn’t mean I want to watch a person eat every single bite of a meal.
I suppose in the world of the Hollywood elite, where bank accounts swell, health-care concerns are really just a hashtag, and any bodily “flaw” can be fixed by a surgeon, one might have time and energy to pursue the art of Sex Via Instagram. But sex as an adornment, a beautiful picture taken at just the right angle, not only casts we sexual beings as mere objects of art, but the event and the photos taken at it as an artistic venture. But sex among normal people is not an artistic venture nor will it ever be, no matter how many shades of grey Hollywood configures.
Throughout the article and in a slideshow at the end are glitzy, beautiful, perfectly choreographed photos of the event. From the red roses adorning the dinner table to the nearly nude dance, it was clearly a visually stunning event to behold.
But sex is so much more than swoon-worthy Instagram photos. Human beings are inherently sexual creatures and to participate in a stagecrafted venture doesn’t parlay knowledge as much as it cheapens what should be a private, pure, healthy act of love between two people. Not only was Instagram not made for sex, but sex wasn’t made for Instagram. If Hollywood tried to keep it that way, it would be a lot sexier.
