Erotic? What's That?!

I came across an interesting blog article called Where is the Real Sex? It's not on a sex blog per se, but the author brought up a good point, arguing that sex in American pop culture (music, movies, etc.) has lost its erotic appeal. Val concludes, "too many Americans are not afraid of sex but eroticism terrifies them." And I think I agree, though admittedly I haven't given this much thought yet.

To help me work through this issue I consulted the all-knowing Merriam-Webster dictionary online. According to this oracle, Erotic is: "of, devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire" or "strongly marked or affected by sexual desire." Hmm, sounds good, but what exactly is Desire? Apparently it's "to long or hope for" and "stresses the strength of feeling and often implies strong intention or aim."

So as I understand it, an erotic scene would be one that causes the viewer to become sexually aroused, but on an emotional level (hence the sexual love part) as well as a physical one, AND causes the viewer to want to have sex in such a manner. Based on this, I agree with Val, most sex scenes or suggestive videos do not meet these requirements because they lack the emotional depth for this kind of sexual appeal.

The flat sexuality that is often portrayed undoubtedly causes physical arousal for most people. It doesn't take much to make humans hard, wet, get to get them thinking about sex in its general forms. Like other animals, we're programmed to behave in these ways with the right stimulus. But are these images putting you in an erotic frame of mind? Is it making you look at the object of your sexual desire with love...or at the very least sexual respect?

Probably not. There is a difference between sticking your penis in someone, jostling it about for a while, and then taking it out verses actually experiencing the combination of nervous excitement, expectation, longing, and emotional catharsis that a truly erotic encounter can create. It's the difference between eating your favorite foods with a clothespin on your nose verses taking your time to fully breath and savor the bursts of flavor in every bite.

Knowing this, my question becomes, why are we taking away the sinfully pleasurable indulgences of our sexuality and constantly passing around the boring stuff? My only answer is that it's much easier to trigger our physical responses than our sexual emotions. (No I'm not going into the feminist women-as-objects-in-our-culture-debate here!) Showing a woman's ass bouncing around in a thong is very easy to capture on film. Making the viewer fall in sexual love with her and want to have emotionally passionate sex with her is much much harder.

But wouldn't it be worth the effort? Think back, and I'm sure there have been at least a couple scenes that have aroused all of you, not just your body. Weren't those the truly memorable ones? Didn't you replay them in your mind just to feel that incredible sexual craving again? Of course you did, because it's one of those rare feelings that make life worth living. It's passion. It's intensity. It's exactly what you felt when you first fell in love/lust.

And we're letting our creative laziness block it out!

So here's what I want you, my highly appreciated readers to do. Tell me in the comments section what movies, videos, etc. are really erotic to watch. I want to see them! I want to feel them! And I want to give credit to those artists who went beyond the physical to give us a glimpse of the real reason we love sex.

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