I watched “The Girlfriend Experience yesterday, riding a wave of thinking I have been doing about the present state of our highly sexualized culture. I’m curious about the narratives, behind the narrative, Hollywood is producing about women’s sexuality in film. Perhaps because I am one of those ‘boring,’ few who thinks her medium matters. That people lift ideas from it. Could be presumptuous, so I invite readers to factor in…

I just feel, female sexuality is reduced to a few expressions to be considered ‘exciting.’ We must always be young, white, a little removed and uncaring (ultimate male fantasy…releasing them of the challenge of responding to a full bodied…able minded….fully feeling…woman) always interested in open boundaries, love high heels, thin, and fair-skinned whether we are white, black or  brown. We must be of the lighter variety, to have sexuality.

And if we are heavier (not thin) our sexuality is a joke (can only be explored via comedy) unless she’s being raped.

Over the years, young women have learned to affect the disaffected, disassociated, expression to be sought after because we’ve come to know it as the quintessential desired woman by a male. She must be emotionally inaccessible to be a man’s dream woman. There can never be too much thought, desire, feeling, expression, or she becomes ‘common.’ We even have books (The Rules) devoted to this, telling us how to express this ‘remove.’

The idea of this is in movies and all over the place in our lives. We repeatedly see men going for the woman  who no longer cares to express emotion, and the better at it she is, the more highly awarded. We saw this with the American version of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”  In half of the film the character of Lisbeth, is slightly less than a machine, her emotions tucked away cleanly (perfect for our men and society at large). What a badass character….most think. She’s not like….most women. She doesn’t want love. She’s not emotional in the least.

Many reviewers lent kudos to the actress who played her for being devoid of emotion, as did most audiences as they responded to the film. Similar experience reading reviews for  “The Girlfriend Experience,” a film I decided to watch yesterday.

In it, we see another disaffected character who cooly navigates her way through sex services, while cooly navigating her way  through her personal life (near emotionless).

She doesn’t even arc…meaning change…over the course of the film. She’s near icy, the entire time.

And no, she is not playing damaged this time.

The actress in the film is some kind of porn icon. Sasha Grey. Apparently she’s a really popular one.

And I’ve never seen a more emotionally dry, dead, bland affect poised as sexy. Yet this actress is spoken about as if she is the most beautiful, sensual creature since Elizabeth Taylor.

The movie was plotless, confusing and disaffecting as is the actress. Sensuality factor of -6.

But that may be the new bar.

This may be the ultimate fantasy now. A woman who doesn’t really care. Who isn’t there, shows no (messy) feelings that he will have to navigate (heaven forbid they have a challenge of another kind). But who are these men who want all this ‘safety,’ in women??

It’s a little like the lil’ ole lady who you visit that leaves the plastic on all her furniture? You can’t experience the furniture but it stays unaffected, like beauty set behind glass. Away from any possibility of being affected. Same difference here, we are not wanted.

Instead these men prefer an artificial experience of us. A cleaner one.

An anesthetized one.

It makes me think of the growth of the sex doll industry, sometimes termed ‘love doll.’ In Japan it has become more main stream. Men   rent them at brothels, take them out, have collections of them and share them with friends. But, we are not that far off, apparently this industry is growing in leaps and bounds here as well.

So while women get more and more skills to communicate with them,  a trend is emerging where they won’t have to communicate but can simply ‘get to it,’ lounge around silently, or order up a minimized experience of us, with the trimmings, but none of the fat. Sort of like having your baby short ordered without the crying and pooping.

Meanwhile, young women are buying into the hyper-sex vixen who doesn’t have an emotion in her body….standard. Many  straining to make love like their favorite porn actress while copping the values of not wanting, requiring or requesting too much. She aims to go about her business demand free. Conveniently polyamorous, hooking up replacing monogamy.

But as they become more of the male ideal, men  reach for a standard devoid of humanity. Their ultimate fantasy more and more plastic, if not totally.

Well, what about the opposite expression of women in media, where she is emotional, maybe even needy, sexual, robust in mind and conviction? Difficult at times, not a sex vending machine. Not sexy? Who says? Why not?

Answer:  Cookie-cutter stock answers of what that would look like.

Aka preconceived notion of unsexy pictured to play against …same ole notion of sexy.