Besides being gross, these images of sex can also be destructive. Between porn and studio romantic comedies, we get the message loud and clear that we are doing it all wrong. Our bedsheets aren’t right. Our moves aren’t right. Our bodies aren’t right.
So when I was offered the chance to make the show, I did what I’d been doing for almost five years in far more “independent” productions: I stripped down and went for it.
People are always curious, so I’m going to tell you what it’s like to lie in bed in a room full of onlookers and simulate intercourse with someone you may or may not know. Professional actors always give canned answers like “It’s just a job, it’s so mechanical” or “He was so fun to work with, he felt like my brother,” but since no one has ever accused me of being professional, or of being an actor—I will be honest.
It’s fucking weird. Yes, it’s just a job, but most people’s jobs don’t consist of slamming your vagina against the flaccid, nylon-wrapped penis of a guy wearing massive amounts of foundation to conceal his assne. I’ve suffered humiliations such as kneeing my scene partner in the balls, realizing under the bright studio lights that there is a thick black hair growing out of my nipple, and finding a lubricated prop condom stuck between my butt cheeks seven hours after arriving home.
It’s hard to imagine that anything you do in a room full of lights, old Italian dudes, and bad tuna sandwiches is going to be seen on TV by multitudes, so I don’t really think about the audience during my sex scenes. Getting naked feels better some days than others. (Good: when you are vaguely tan. Bad: when you have diarrhea.) But I do it because my boss tells me to. And my boss is me. When you’re naked, it’s nice to be in control.
And my mother always knew that, hence her Nikon raised high and pointed right into the mirror. She sensed that by documenting her own body, she was preserving her history. Beautifully. Nakedly. Imperfectly. Her private experiment made way for my public one.
Another frequently asked question is how I am “brave” enough to reveal my body on-screen. The subtext there is definitely how am I brave enough to reveal my imperfect body, since I doubt Blake Lively would be subject to the same line of inquiry. I am forced to engage in regular conversation about my body with strangers, such as the drunken frat boy on MacDougal Street who shouted, “Your tits look like my sister’s!” My answer is: It’s not brave to do something that doesn’t scare you. I’d be brave to skydive. To visit a leper colony. To argue a case in the United States Supreme Court or to go to a CrossFit gym. Performing in sex scenes that I direct, exposing a flash of my weird puffy nipple, those things don’t fall into my zone of terror.
A few years ago, after I screened Tiny Furniture for the first time, I was standing outside the theater in Austin when a teenage boy approached me. He was tiny. Really tiny. The kind of tiny that, as a teenage boy, must be painful. He looked like a Persian cat’s toy mouse.
“Excuse me,” he said shyly. “I just wanted you to know how much it meant to me to see you show your body in that way. It made me feel so much better about myself.”
The first result of this was that I pictured him naked, which was stressful. The second was extreme gratitude: for his generosity in sharing, for my ability to have any impact on the body image of this obviously cool and open young gentleman (after all, he was seeing a fringe women’s-interest film on a school night).
“Thank you so much.” I beamed. “You’re really hot.”
1. Luxury is nice, but creativity is nicer. Hence the game where you go into the ten-dollar store and pick out an outfit you might wear to the Oscars (or to the sixth-grade dance).
2. The sidewalk isn’t really that dirty.
3. Barbie’s disfigured. It’s fine to play with her just as long as you keep that in mind.
4. If you have a bad feeling about someone, don’t worry about offending them. Just run. Being polite is how you get your purse stolen or your “purse stolen.”
5. Related: if someone says “I’m not going to hurt you” or “I’m not a creep,” they probably are. Noncreeps don’t feel the need to say it all the time.
6. Never yell at someone else’s child. Just talk shit about them behind their back.
7. It’s okay to ignore the dress code if you’re an “artist.” People will think you’re operating on a higher plane and feel suddenly self-conscious.
8. If someone doesn’t answer your email within six hours, it means they hate you.
9. “Asshole” is not a curse word. Not even if you add “little fucking” in front of it.