Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Aichinger
Sexual identity and sexual practice are perhaps oneʼs most potent and powerful
pushing what we were taught as children. That mainstream and religious social forces
consider heterosexual sex in the missionary position the proper expression of sexuality
seriously undermines the potential for self-discovery. Indeed, this sexual practice is just
one flavor, and I will call it vanilla. Erika Lopezʼs Flaming Iguanas shows sexuality as
curious. It jiggles. It comes in a ton of fun and exciting flavors. It can be the complement
to other parts of oneʼs life (“dish,” if you will), or (and hereʼs the kicker), oneʼs life can be
Sex is not new, nor are many of the more specific and “acquired taste” forms of it.
wouldnʼt let Shannon touch her. She got off by making Shannon sit on the
edge of the bed and look away while she masturbated looking at color-
people would consider mainstream. What is absent, though, is any sort of negative
coloring or judgment. Tomato recalls the relayed event as mere fact, as if to say, “Iʼm
ideal of sex. She recalls, quite unfavorably, the “Extremely talkative passengers [of a
Greyhound bus] with bad breath who tried to convince [her] to accept Jesus and scream
at homosexuals” (94). Similarly, she is quite conscious of how impolite it is to fuck right
next to someone who is not invited to the party, which she calls a “carry-over from
getting in trouble for chewing gum in class and not having enough for everybody” (135).
Our tastes for sex are as specific (or in some cases unspecific) as our tastes for
Jell-O. Tomatoʼs friend, Fifi, “liked sipping piña coladas, walking in the rain, and
stepping on genitals” (128). As off-center as that may seem, there is a serious market
there. In the 1997 film, Preaching to the Perverted, Guinevere Turner plays the
headmistress of an S & M club in the UK who allows her patrons to explore S & M and
bondage. Thus, the film looks at “the wide range of people who like to dress up and go
to clubs, and whether or not thatʼs more perverse than regular sex” (Turner, Indie Sex).
John Cameron Mitchellʼs sexually explicit 2006 film, Shortbus, explores the ways
in which sex is an effective tool for solving problems, forming relationships, and living a
fulfilled life. Though Tomato does not regard sex as a buddy-building exercise, she
recognizes the legitimacy of it through Shannon, who has a hard time telling the
difference between “ʼfalling in love and wanting to fuck them or just becoming really
Tomato takes the cookie cutter ideal of sex and tosses it out the window. She
wonders if maybe she should be a lesbian. Her exposure to lesbianism, through her
mother (Jane) and Violet, is positive, though perhaps romanticized, because Tomato
sees them work through their problems so successfully. Unfortunately for her, being gay
is not as simple as reading the lesbian pamphlets. Aside from a less-than-human legal
status, society colors homosexuality in such a way that Violet, a woman-loving woman,
denies loving women. Violet and Jane have even learned to hate the word because it
sounds harsh, much the same way one learns to hate words like moist and raunchy,
Indeed, sexuality has a long history of subjugation in the United States and some
efforts are shockingly in line with the antiquated American dream. The 1896 filmstrip,
Fatimaʼs Coochie-Coochie Dance, was edited, covering the dancerʼs breasts and
gyrating pelvis with a white picket fence, though she was fully clothed (Indie Sex). It
Indie Sex: a Revealing Look at Sex in Cinema. Dirs. Lesli Klainberg and Lisa Ades. IFC,
2007. DVD.
Lopez, Erika. Flaming Iguanas: an Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing. New York: