The Ontological War

As with all increasing realself people, Ann and Graham in Sex, Lies, and Videotape express their current ontological thoughts and emotions through their sex lives. One example of their doing this is when they each say they are the most sexual when they are by themselves.

Ann tells her therapist:

Ann: I mean, I’m sure he probably wishes that I would initiate things once in a while, and I would, except for it just never occurs to me, and … well, the few times I have felt like it I was by myself.

And in the café Graham tells Ann “something personal”:

Graham: I’m impotent.

Ann: You’re what?

Graham: Impotent.

Ann: You are?

Graham: Yeah. I mean, like, well, I can’t … I can’t get an erection … in the presence of another person. So, for all practical purposes, I’m impotent.

Ann and Graham are both in the beginning to early Transition, and so among many other things sex for them is a realself event. Men and women who are in the early stages of becoming their realselves are self-conscious and inhibited about becoming more their realselves with others, and this means they are also self-conscious and inhibited about sex because they sense they become more their realselves during sexual activity.

Ann thinks about sex only when “I was by myself” and Graham says he was impotent “in the presence of another person,” but in fact they are saying that they feel sexual, truly and fully sexual, only when they are their realselves. They have each reached degrees of realself where they sense that they can become as much of their realselves as they are able to be at the time only in privacy, which means they are also their most sexual when they are alone. They don’t understand all the details, but they are both aware that it’s one thing to talk to socialself people and it’s something entirely different to have sex as one’s realself with someone who is being his or her socialself.

At the end of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Ann and Graham have sex, and they do because, before everything else, they have each found someone with whom they can be their realselves. However, it’s probably more accurate, and it is certainly more insightful, to say that instead of their having sex to say they develop a realself-to-realself relationship that includes sex, because that is by far the most important element in what takes place between them.

All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.