I think we’ve had it wrong. For a long fucking time (pun; it will make sense later). And we still don’t get it, despite all that we think we know.
“What are we doing wrong?” Sex. Or “making love,” rather. “Who’s we?” Well, mostly men, but also mostly everyone. Except for Axel Willner (a.k.a. The Field) — he gets it. And he especially gets it on Cupid’s Head.
Impotency is the great American epidemic. I don’t care how hard your dick is (nobody does): there’s a difference between getting it up, and getting it on. And on. And on. And on. And properly so. Egalitarianism isn’t measured in inches.
I blame Hollywood. And the Freytag Pyramid. And academia. And explorers. Especially fucking mountain climbers. Somewhere along the line (oh, that pathetic line that inevitably peaks and falls), the end became the means and the end — and it has infiltrated our bedrooms.
The climax is a colonial invention. A frontier policy. A goal-based endeavor. We’ve become a bunch of fucking stepping stones (another pun; it should start to make sense now). And this path has decapitated us in more ways than one. We keep “Cupid’s Head” on our mantle piece along with our other achievements, instead of between our sheets where it belongs.
Continuity has been recessed and relegated to the margins. Wait for the soaring finale. The drop. The orgasm. Then droop into the post-coital chasm. And there’s no freedom down there. And the climb is as lonely as the fall.
“If it feels good, do it.” Maybe there’s a reason why we were told that we shouldn’t. “No. No…,” they cautioned, warning us that feeling good is only half of the battle. Here, Willner presents us with perpetual fireworks and a plead for their perpetuity. Maybe they were warning us that stopping is only an option. A learned inclination.
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Why settle for “20 Seconds of Affection” when it can last a lifetime? Or at the very least the entirety of an evening. A 10-minute eternity meant to remind us that a lifetime of steady, weightless haze is better than a mountain range.
Maybe the absence of scenery — and the hyperbolic meaning we impose upon it — is more transcendental than merely the Sublime. Instead, from here we go into the “Black Sea.” A blank scene. No beginning. No end. No stepping stones. In fact, no footing at all.
And who said darkness was detrimental, dissenting, antipathetic? Who says it isn’t better with the lights off? “They Won’t See Me.” Invisibility is always less ephemeral. Ephemerality is always less corporeal.
I wish I could give a fuck the way Willner does (last fucking pun; I promise). I wish I could take “A Guided Tour” instead of merely transporting myself to the destination. As if I were destined for the denouement. I want to be transported by the journey instead of journeying as a means of transportation. I want the tour to eclipse the target.
Maybe this is why Willner opted to use (hard)ware instead of (soft)ware this time around. Maybe he knew that you have to feel the process and not just the product. He understands the sexual tactility of buttons in a way that Fuck Buttons don’t. He understands that there’s more to a hard-on than being hard. It’s about being on. And on. And on. And on. And on…