***warning: may spoil for movie shortbus
I saw the new movie shortbus with a few friends last night. One of the lines, so elegantly written I swear came out of Baudrillard's piece. I am just going to warn you there may be 'spoilers' because I'm going to set it in the 'scene'/context. It was like Freud was in there with Baudrillard.
The protagonist is 'pre-orgasmic', according to Freud neither experiencing a clitoral or vaginal orgasm. Accordingly if you did not experience the vaginal orgasm, "achieved through deep penile thrusting during coitus", was theorized to be a sign of immature sexuality (Rathus et al. 80). This measurement in maturity devalues women who have yet to experience an orgasm, ever despite participating in coitus. The protagonist claims that maybe the orgasm doesn't really exist because it is so elusive, and that it isn't reality because all women are obsessed with attempting to achieve it (the orgasm being a sign of the perfectness of the act of sex). That automatically made me think of Baudrillard, and made me the only one in the theatre laughing because maybe orgasms are hyperreal!
I think Baudrillard's theory is twistedly flawed in the sense that his argument makes 'perfect' sense. Maybe Baudrillard's argument isn't real, because it works out so perfectly. Why or what feeds our needs for this sense of perfection? A consequence of majority of things being socially constructed, the idea of an orgasm, then is not real defined by Baudrillard, because we are in search of the perfect sex --> with orgasm. Today we live in a very instantaneous society and expect things to happen for us right away like instant noodles or soup. However when such results are not reproducible we go crazy, out of our way to achieve the result; as shown by the protagonist visiting shortbus in attempts to achieve orgasm.
In relation to school.....I am not sure if its a false need that feeds my desire for an orgasmic A in grades. However, I do like to be on top of it in school, and I'm not going to lie, I do feel orgasmically amazing when I do get a 'perfect' grade and am on top of the class. There is a great song with the lyrics, "perfection is perfect hell"
Rathus et al. essentials of human sexuality. 2nd Ed. Pearson Education Canada Inc. Toronto, 2005.
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