Monogamy is trash.
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Monogamy is: Taking the human capacity for love, which is infinite, and filling it with a single integer, and then pretending that integer is infinity. In actuality, the integer is, like, 3. It also happens to be a control mechanism for folks who want to tell you what to do. Whether that’s your priest, your boss, or your king (or queen), if somebody can control THAT, if they can control when and with whom you can boink... That’s the whole deal right there. They have you.
You don’t have to take my word for it (well, you’re reading my article, so you kind of do), but you can read Chris Ryan’s “Sex At Dawn”, you can ask a chatbot (just don’t ask the chatbot why monogamy is great, because it’ll tell you that too), or you can pull from your own personal experience. Have you been in a monogamous relationship? Have you seen another person, thought they were attractive or exciting or whatever, wanted to have sex with them (or even fantasized about it), and then realized you couldn’t because you were in a monogamous relationship? Yeah. Monogamy sucks.
So, when “Desire” opens on the 20th anniversary party of Lucero and Fernando... And, after the party, when they should be having anniversary sex (involving going downtown and rimming and all the stuff you should be doing all the time but vanilla prudes reserve for ‘special occasions’ like anniversaries) they instead have no interest in making love, and go to bed. Woohoo!! Take that, monogamy! Movieshyte wins, one to nothing! Because, going back to my amazing earlier metaphor, the integer might *start* at 3, but over time it degrades, and clearly for Lucero and Fernando, we’re well into the double-digit negatives. In their case, it has nothing to do with physical attractiveness, because Lucero looks downright INSANE for a married woman of 20 years who has two kids, and Fernando, while he’s missing the hollywood 6-pack and is a bit nerdy, looks pretty good too. But the attractiveness doesn’t matter, because monogamous relationships grow stale. The proof is right there on the screen.
At this point, I could just declare victory and walk away. But, out of loyalty to you, Movieshyte audience, I stuck around and watched like 70% of the movie (and slept through the other 30%, which was all act 2 junk anyway, so I’m kind of glad I missed it).
The movie is essentially this: Lucero’s daughter, Viviana, is a high school or collegiate swimmer. Lucero falls for Viviana’s swim coach Matias (I’m not entirely sure why, because Matias doesn’t have the body of Michael Phelps... He has the body of... Like... Roddy McDowall? It’s not great), and Lucero and Matias start having hot sex. Actually, the sex isn’t that hot, because there is no full frontal nudity, the camera is interested in watching the sex from the most un-erotic angles possible, and there are too many quick cuts and edits. Filming sex is like filming martial arts, you know how much the stunt team put in the work based on how many cuts are in the scene. But... To the *characters*, the sex is really hot (and, despite the filming, it’s pretty hot for the audience as well, I’ll get back to that a little later).
What makes the sex so hot? Well, there are a couple things. The first is ye olde partner of sex: Violence. Not that ‘pick you up and slam you into the table and hammer you until you’re not walking right for days’ violent sex like we get in, say, Wuthering Heights, but emotionally violent. Weaponized. In fact, it’s a fairly reasonable statement that every single major character in “Desire” uses sex as an instrument to emotionally batter another character. So... That makes it hot.
But even more than the violence, the sex is hot because it’s *forbidden*, and that makes it dangerous, and danger is hot. Lucero wants to have sex with Matias. Forbidden. Viviana ALSO wants to have sex with Matias. Forbidden. Matias wants a threesome with Lucero and Viviana. Well, he doesn’t explicitly say that, but I know it’s true. It’s also forbidden (although, society might want to reconsider on that)! Fernando wants to watch Lucero and Matias fuck. Forbidden. Viviana’s brother, Julian, wants to have sex with Viviana. Forbidden (unless you’re a Lannister or Targaryen... And Julian is definitely nerdy enough that he’s aware of the Lannisters and Targaryens). It’s all forbidden! There’s even a scene where, Matias and Viviana formally ask her parents if they can start having sex... These are the parents where Fernando (the dad) has been watching Matias fuck his wife Lucero (the mom), and now he’s asking *formal permission* to have sex with their possibly high school, possibly college-aged daughter? I mean, that’s not just *forbidden*, that’s straight up crazy town.
But... Man, having the sex be against the rules makes it all the sweeter. This isn’t just true for the characters... It’s true for the viewer as well. This isn’t pornhub we’re watching... It’s Netflix. Netflix is supposed to be the home of annyoingly precocious teenagers with psychic powers and secret agents who answer phones in the white house basement. It’s NOT for sex. So when we get it... Yeah, it’s exciting! I mean, you’re either watching with your partner, and using the forbidden/violent spark to make some awesome love of your own, which is fantastic, or you’re by yourself, kind of looking around, wondering if it’s okay that you’re feeling hot and bothered by a netflix movie, which is also pretty dope. How does that old saying go? Forbidden fruit tastes all the sweeter (unless it’s raspberry, then it sucks whether you’re allowed to eat it or not)?
This brings me around to my earlier victory over monogamy, and whether it might not be as absolute as I originally posed. Because, here’s the thing... You can’t have amazing forbidden sex unless something forbids it! I mean... If we didn’t have monogamy, then an ‘affair’ would just be another booty call. Mundane. You need the rules that say you CAN’T do it, in order to have the adrenaline and extra juice when you DO.
No more is this in evidence than the final scene of the movie. Lucero and Fernando are having the best sex of their lives. Over the course of the film, they’ve committed emotional violence against each other, and physical violence (in the form of cold-blooded murder) on other characters as well. Not to mention, they’re kind of screwed financially because of their actions. But the net result is the hottest sex they’ve ever had. So maybe we need those idiotic rules if we want the thrill of breaking them.
By the way, make no mistake, Lucero, Fernando, Viviana, and Julian all have an insatiable taste for it now. They are going to fuck and kill their way across Mexico in order to chase that high they can’t live without. And what made this all possible? Rules. Kind of terrible rules, but rules nonetheless.
So... Monogamy... Let’s call it a tie.
3/10