The infamous self-sucking scene of Shortbus (2006) illustrates the first point this blog is about

Even though I try to be extremely critical to the imagery of the homosexual sadness I never considered the erasure of the sad young man figure from any cultural text as some anti-homophobic move (the only move it suggests is towards some disco grasshopper figure and yet - those often seemed to be the saddest ones). The things I'm interested in are those very sad figures; I think of them as intricate, invested with diverse meanings and functioning differently from one another. Ok, their critical understanding is my (now it starts sounding really pathetic) principal academic goal.

So I've got that idea about some important connection between masturbation and melancholy. It came from reading Laquer’s brilliant The Solitary Sex and he got there a really groundbreaking fifty pages on why masturbation was that "unnatural" in 18th century. He argues it was about the work of imagination and its ability to produce any kind of desired objects (and that "unnaturalness" had nothing to do with the anti-reproductive or out-marital status of self-abuse whatsoever). So I got enough of Freud and Judith Butler before and read their something on melancholy (in a basic form looking like ego = lost or repudiated object-choices) and that connection of melancholy to masturbation was already there. And still I knew masturbation was by definition the only sexual practice available for a person who is lonely and sad; Morrissey was the best illustration, he was obviously the one who is lonely and sad but the level of voluptuousness he emitted in his self-exposure onstage (shirts taken off plus you can pick up any lyrics line, any goes well) left me no doubts - he is the one who jerks off like crazy and probably crying afterwards.

I still have this idea as theoretically underdeveloped and there are too many shaky points in there. Still, the recent visualization of masturbation coupled with sadness in John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006) motivated me a lot to work in that direction and, actually, it was the trigger to start writing this blog. In the first ten minutes it gave me self-sucking and tears and in the coming hour and a half one of the most interesting images of homosexual loneliness and melancholy.

Let’s start from the point that I really think this movie is sophisticated, politically relevant and visually stunning. I watched it three times in one week already and even made the unbelievable gesture of once sitting next to a friend of mine who doesn’t speak any English and translating every word of it (it has happened only two times before: one was Now, Voyager and the other was Christophe Honoré’s Ma Mere). The latest remark from the ex-boyfriend (who was to busy with downloading some bi-way-to-Prague stuff to sit through the whole movie but saw the initial montage sequence and following 10-15 minutes) exposed how this movie works with me at that basic but extremely persistent cinematic level of inviting the spectator into its logic of desire. ‘So you are into that guy (Paul Dawson as James) since he’s got long hair and can folder himself for self-sucking’, - he said meaning I can’t avoid getting a crush on the guy who is both obviously referent and similar: ok, I still can suck myself (is that possible to learn to speak about that without that touch of transgressive confession The History of Sexuality style) even though I missed some yoga classes recently. I violently protested insisting that my guy is the blond one for sure (Jay Brennan as Ceth) only to grasp that very moment my ex-boyfriend is right in a way: I’m into James because James is ‘into’ Ceth, even if in that weird melancholic manner of his, and the latter is no less sad (one can even say Ceth is the one who is really sad in the movie) than James. Making this initial remarks over the work of desire both within the frame and between me as viewer and the movie’s protagonists, I will go further introducing the sad young men of Mitchell’s Shortbus and me writing this (eventually, I would like self-sucking to be left as my only tangible attribute and, still, I admit that then it would be obnoxiously pathetic as for the first post).





James first. He’s introduced filming himself while pissing in the bath and then masturbating and coming into his mouth. Then he cries (watching the movie for the first time I wasn’t sure if he actually laughs but ok, he’s definitely crying since he seems to wipe his eyes afterwards). Later on this self-sucking scene works perfectly exemplifying his desperate need to stay alone even while living together as ‘the Jamies’ with his I-love-everybody boyfriend whose name is Jamie. I couldn’t resist thinking he is performing his sadness in a way, meaning I got no feeling there was some inceptive condition making him sad but the desperate need of being sad. It is just perfect if not textbook performance of the malaise with ‘would you mind if I taped myself talking about this’ self-filming obsession, teenage trauma of My Own Private Idaho overdose, street hustling, plus overall melancholic attitude that is all-pervasive and easily readable in every single look and gesture. Furthermore, as we discover later, James’ crisis is the one of depth since he is fully impermeable functioning as the disturbing exception of not-everybody for Jamie who, as we already know, loves everybody but not even allowed to fuck James. The weird finale: thrived on masturbatory/melancholic self-absorption, James is eventually fucked by the one who is really determined in disturbing his seclusion, that voyeur guy who has been watching him for two years and eventually warded him off the suicide. There might be a discussion if he’s got any redemption afterwards: he never gives up his martyr appearance even in that post-coital smile.




Now Ceth. He’s more like a scene guy, smiling, flirting and getting laid. Ok, he’s also the hottest out there and no wonder he participates in the therapeutic threesome of the Jamies. One can debate his scale of his sadness but his loneliness is pretty obvious since, even using his fabulous mating gadget, he only attracts the near-dead impersonation of Ed Koch (quite a hookup yet rather transient one, at least because of being half-cadaver). The scene of Ceth talking to the ex-mayor of New York (Alan Mandell) and then kissing him is arguably the most poignant movie episode. And this is when the Jamies notice him and take him to their place; next two episodes are Ceth singing “Soda Shop” and Jamie singing “The Star Spangled Banner” while Ceth is with James’ dick in his mouth. The fact that the guy is getting laid just after he performs the tearjerking scene of exculpating a sixty-something man brings the hint that Ceth gets able to function in the logic of someone else’s desire (here, to be that therapeutic ‘third one’) only as he proves he is sad enough. I was always sure of myself being attracted to those who are sad, lost or just got enough of pallor and I’m wondering if someone sees that those are contagious (is that possible at all to represent sadness without infecting with sadness?) and excite desire because of their sadness and through their sadness they in a way spread.

In the whole debate over the status of the explicit sex scenes of Shortbus as pornographic, I think I would argue that there is the other thing in the movie that makes it in a way pornographic. If to draw the line of pornography, as it’s usually done, by suggesting its ‘exciting’ function of representing sex (we show sex to make you horny), then Shortbus is pornographic at least in its employment of sadness/desire dynamics. The logic of its contagiousness and excitement is eventually the one of a guy masturbating in front the video showing another guy masturbating. The best thing is that Shortbus re-enactment of this scene – in Ceth’s desired sadness or James’ melancholic auto-fellatio – makes it even more interesting cinematic work, and thus not only honest movie in its authentic sex performances but faithful to the logic of desire they follow.