Sex in the '90s
by Daniel Heydon
(Published in Dell Horscope June 1993)
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Sex in the '90s by Daniel Heydon (Published in Dell Horscope June 1993) |
"Let's talk about sex, baby ... let's talk about you and me" begins the super hit by Salt-‘n’-Pepa. If anyone thinks that sex was dead in the ‘90s because of the AIDS crisis, they are mistaken. Perhaps, in this age of "say no to drugs, say yes to condoms," it's natural that the fear surrounding sex in daily life would translate into an obsession in art with what is repressed in life. I Want Your Sex, a popular song of the '90s comes right to the point. There is no foreplay in the title of this song, we get right down and dirty to the nitty-gritty. Another song that tells it like it is is INXS’ 1992 release Not Enough Time which features the lyrics "I want to be inside of you ... big time stuff/for the two of us." In the same vein is the 1992 hit I ‘m Too Sexy. Color-me-Badd's I Wanna Sex You Up, along with Extreme's More Than Words were tied as the favorite songs of 1991 in the 1992 World Almanac 's 12th annual poll of high school students.
Is romantic love dead in the ‘90s? No. Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares to U voted second favorite of high school students in 1990, is a sensitive lyrical ballad about love. More Than Words is also a tender love song about the need for physical closeness between two lovers. And let us not forget Michael Bolton's romantic ballads or Bryan Adam's super hit from the soundtrack of Robin Hood, Everything I Do, I Do It For You. But the group La Tour reminds us in the top dance track single of July 1991 that People Are Still Having Sex.
This article is about sex, but its focus is on Pluto in Scorpio transformations about sex in our culture. Take for granted that the human needs of love, tenderness, and falling in love are still very much with us, but these occur now against a backdrop of Pluto in Scorpio themes such as — "is my would be lover HIV positive?" — "is the girl I just met a "fatal attraction?" — "is the man I just met a would-be serial killer?" Indeed, the 1991 off-Broadway play Unidentified Human Remains And The True Nature Of Love is about young people in the '90s going about their daily search for love in the atmosphere of serial killers, AIDS, and their own fears about romantic involvement. As one male character on his way to a pick-up bar says to his female roommate, "I have a blind date with destiny."
Though neither AIDS nor a lurking serial killer deter these characters' sexual searching, the picture the author Brad Fraser paints of relationships in the ‘90s is bleak. One male character, upon hearing that another character loves him, deflects this revelation with a simple "love doesn't exist." Bernie, who calls himself straight does not confront his more than friendly feelings for David, who is gay and lives platonically with Cindy. While David longs for Kane, a teenage busboy, Cindy is being pursued by Robert, a married bartender, and Jerri, a lesbian from her aerobics class. Then we have Benita, a prostitute, who is not terribly particular about whom she sleeps with, but may be in love with David. If the relationships between these seven characters (one of whom is a serial killer) seem confused, it is because, as one character puts it, "everyone lies".
All of these characters have difficulty in loving and being loved, because they are not honest with themselves or others about the true nature of their sexual feelings. As the author says, the play is not about a serial killer, but repression.1 The serial killer, as NYT reviewer, David Richards explains, is "simply the ultimate extension of neuroses that to a lesser degree are shared by all the characters." 2 As Brad Fraser says, "the serial killer is a metaphor." 3
Most of these characters could benefit from a session with Dr. Ruth, who still hosts a syndicated TV advice show in the '90s. Her original show, Good Sex — with Dr. Ruth Westheimer began August 26,1984, the day before Pluto re-entered Scorpio, with Pluto at 29 LI 58. Because events which happen with Pluto around 0 degrees of a sign are often symbolic of the whole transit of Pluto through a sign, we know that sexual matters and the need for advice about them will be a core concern as long as Pluto is in Scorpio.
Dial 1-900-SEX
Pluto in Scorpio has turned our heads around about many sexual questions. For example, many of us have been acquainted with sexual harassment via obscene phone calls. The telephone company now offers Call Trace. a special service for those with a touch tone, which secretly traces these calls to let the telephone company know of this sort of abuse. Yet, paradoxically (and Pluto is the planet of paradox), what if you have never had the experience of hearing heavy breathing on the other end of the phone and are desirous of such an experience. If that be the case, you can call one of the many 1-900 numbers, listed on the back pages of no, not our porno magazines, but many of our respected newspapers, to get as many minutes of dirty talk as you're willing to pay for. If you do not want to make such a call yourself, than you can read the highly praised erotic New York Times #1 1992 bestseller, Vox, by Nicholson Baker, which allows you to eavesdrop on a lengthy conversation between two people who have met via a 1-900 number.
EROTICA
With Vox and other Pluto in Scorpio writings, we see the rebirth of what is now called "erotica". Erotica is respectable porn, highly charged sex scenes, well written, occuring in books that are considered literature. As editor John Preston put it, "erotica is the stuff bought by the rich people; pornography is what the rest of us buy." 4 It was only a year or two ago, that it seemed anachronistic to write about the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s in the '90s. Indeed, to write about erotic sex and sexual arousal seemed irreverent in these AIDS-darkened times.
As of 1992, a backlash has occurred and safe sex fiction (with the exception of Vox) is temporarily out. Why this new craving? Is it nostalgia for the freedoms of the past or is it as The New York Times Book Review (May 31, 1992) put it, before sex was forbidden and now it's dangerous, which makes it all the more exciting. Be that as it may, once again the power of the written word to evoke a mood, to convey a feeling, to describe a picture is being recognized.
In 1992 Richard Rhodes gave us his Making Love; An Erotic Odyssey, a frank account of the author's intimate life. Rhodes received widespread praise for his 1990 A Hole in the World about his abusive childhood upbringing. Here he tells us of his personal quest to overcome those childhood wounds through sensuality. Other steamy works of fiction of the ‘90s include Vanessa Drucker's The Big Picture, Kathyrn Harvey's Stars. Marius Gabriel's The Original Sin, Slow Hand; Women Writing Erotica and Erotique Noire;Black Erotica .
Erotica is also the subject matter of films as well. 1990 gave us Henry and June based on the unexpurgated version of Anais Nin's diary, which was first published in 1986. In the film, Nin falls for both Henry Mi11er (author of Tropic of Cancer and an apostle of sensuality) and his wife June. Though she becomes Henry's student of passion, she ultimately finds herself in love with June. As Entertainment WeekJy (10,12,90} notes Henry and June "...is a story of lesbian attraction that, for Anais, is really a dawning of the self." No matter what a viewer's sexual persuasion, one could not help but be awed by Una Thurman's erotic sensual portrait of June. (Henry and June , directed by Philip Kaufman was the first movie ever to carry NC-17 rating).
Entertainment Weekly (10,12,90) notes that Kaufman's prior film The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) "was an enthralling triumph, one of the sexiest and most haunting movies ever made about the difference between love and lust." In contrast Time 's Richard Schickel headlines his review of Basic Instinct (1992) as follows, "Lots of Skin, but no Heart." On a more positive note Schickel also says of Basic Instinct, "in recent years, the tameness and sameness of movie sex has become a bore, which is not a word anyone is going to apply to this film's sex scenes." 5
In the footsteps of Henry and June, comes Delta of Venus, another erotic film based on an Anais Nin's novel, about a young woman's wild sexual abandon, which was released in 1993. The Fall of 1992 brought us an English language version of The Lover, which is based on Marguerite Duras' 1984 autobiographical novel about her poverty stricken youth in Saigon and her erotic meetings at age 15 with a rich Vietnamese man. Caryn James in the New York Times (9,13,92) said of The Lover " how steamy does a film have to be to become notorious in France?" Finally, I should mention Wild Sargasso Sea, a screen adaptation of Jean Rhys’ erotic 1968 novel about an English aristocrat and his obsession for a French island beauty, which was also released in 1993.
In 1930, the year of Pluto's discovery and the death of D.H.Lawrence, the novelist John Cowper Powys in his philosophic tract, In Defense of Sensuality, wrote "Our Western Civilization at the present moment requires nothing so much as a John the Baptist of sensuousness, a Prophet of simple, primeval, innocent sensuality." If we eliminate the word "innocent", we could say that many in our society, from Mae West to Madonna, have tried to fulfill the role of the sensuous prophet.
SKIN IS IN
With Uranus in Scorpio, Calvin Klein tantalized us with sexy ads for jeans. You certainly remember Brooke Shields in 1980, panting on your TV, "nothing comes between me and my Calvins — nothing". A natural follow-up, when you reflect upon it, are Calvin Klein's new Pluto in Scorpio ads for jeans in the '90s in which he shows no jeans at all — just the "nothing." These ads feature all skin with occasional clothing. Of course, we reach the bottom of the page at belly button level, but there can be no doubt that the viewer can easily imagine what lays below. These ads are suggestive, in that the reader adds sex to the equation. Because these ads are explicit, yet not so, they are a turn-on — the focus is on skin.
Skin is in, from alternative rock bands performing without shirts, to major advertising campaigns, such as Gap's Men in Denim, Davidoff'’ s eau de toilette, Cool Water, Donna Karan's hosiery, Calvin Klein's perfume Escape, and TSE's cashmere. And let us not forget Marky Mark's underwear ads for Calvin Klein. Entertainment Weekly 's cover story, October 23, 1992 was "Sex on TV: Skin and sin steam up prime time as never before." Mariel Hemingway is featured in this article because of her highly publicized September 30 episode on ABC's Civil Wars where she bared all for the camera.
Even classical music has discovered the fact that sex sells. The Fall 1992 release of concert pianist Tzimon Barto's recording Pure Romance, in which he performs Liszt's Piano Concerto No.2 and Chopin's Piano Concerto No.l features Barto posing shirtless on a piano. With all this focus on sensuality and skin, it goes without saying that rock stars, from Madonna to Bobby Brown, have well developed pecs. Even if some of the poses in today's advertising are borrowed from pornography, they are in fact erotic and sensual rather than pornographic.
In our culture we are bombarded today with ads telling us to use condoms and to engage in safe sex. Sometimes, accompanying these ads are words meant to scare us into the awareness that AIDS is something that could happen to us. Yet, at the same time our culture uses sex to sell everything except safe sex and condoms. In the 90's the contradictory images of sexual repression and sexual abandonment are simultaneously presented — this is a paradox and Pluto is the planet of paradox!
EXOTIC SCENTS AND THE HIDDEN POWERS OF BODY ODORS
In 1985, Klein introduced a new perfume called Obsession. Does he know that Scorpio is the sign of the nose and smell, and that a perfume, named Obsession (with scorching erotic advertising), is tailor-made for these times. (Would you believe that in 1930, in the year of Pluto's discovery, that the classical composer Shostokovich wrote a musical composition entitled The Nose and that a current fad for "alternative rock" teenagers in the '90s is to have your nose pierced). It should come as no surprise to learn that Calvin Klein was born November 19, 1942, with the Sun, Venus, and Mercury, all conjunct in Scorpio. And speaking of Pluto in Scorpio perfumes, let us not forget the scent that Elizabeth Taylor is spokesperson for in the '90s — Passion.
New scientific discoveries about smell and sexual attraction became known to the public with Pluto in Scorpio. Diana Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses (1990) includes a discussion of the role pheromones (aromatic secretions of the human body) play in sexual attractions. And you just know that before Pluto leaves Scorpio, that Madonna will be the first woman to have a bottled aromatic pheromone named after her. Perhaps, it will be called "Extract of Madonna", not a perfume but her own sweat chemically analyzed and mass replicated for all those "I Wanna Be's" (translation — I wanna be like Madonna). If this seems offensive right now, it won't be by the late '90s.
Scientists estimate that technology soon will have advanced to the point where pheromones can be bottled and marketed. Winifred Cutler, a biologist and specialist in behavioral endocrinology, whose studies on body odor reveal that male scents, including underarm odors, help women to maintain a normal menstrual cycle, said in 1987, "A man or his essence seems essential for an optimally fertile system ... My dream is that manufactured male essence in creams, sprays, or perfumes can dramatically alter the well-being of women." 6 Already, the Monell Chemical Senses Center of Philadelphia has filed for four pheromone patents and in the Fall of 1992, country star Sammy Kershaw's Starclone — the woman's scent — was introduced to the public. Starclone was made, after sweat-soaked pads attached to the singer's waist, upper chest, and back were wrung out, then chemically analyzed, reproduced and tinged with herbs. It sells for $10 a quarter-ounce.
FOOTNOTES