Accepting Dirty Talk

I’ve never been very good at dirty talk. I’ve thought for a while that this might be linked to my deficiencies at extemporaneous speaking in general, a general lack of creativity that occurs during certain social situations, but now I’m starting to think that my real inability is as a result of dirty talk’s theme, i.e. the sexual acts occurring right that moment, or the sexual acts of the near future. The content of what dirty talk can be seems extremely limited, or rather, simple: do you like this or that?, I’m doing this or that at this very moment, or going to do this or that.

It seems to involve (keep in mind, not being proficient in the language, I can only imagine) a subject liking an object (what a body part is or does) or involves a body part as subject acting upon another body part as object. Now, since the content of dirty talk is so simple, my deficiencies would seem to have less to do with a lack of creativity -- I think I can manage the few moves available -- than the other procedures involved in the action, namely performance, sincerity, and receiving pleasure. Performance shouldn’t be a problem, given of course an environment I feel comfortable performing in. Sincerity has indeed never been one of my strong suits, but I can take its form when needed. And it’s a pleasure I believe I could or would like to enjoy, otherwise I wouldn’t even be thinking about it.

So what is it? Like a lot of things I’m discovering about myself, it’s a matter of acceptance. I think that I’ve never been good at it because I’ve never accepted fully the reality of what it is, or rather, what it reveals: the ridiculous nature of the sexual act in general. That is to say, I’ve always wanted it to be something more that what it is, because I’ve found it’s bare reality, or the bare reality that it reveals, to be disappointing. To be sure, the purpose of dirty talk, for those who are able to partake, is the opposite: it masks the bare reality of the sexual act by maintaining the sexual fantasy better than the combination of silent humping and a self supported image (or, at least, it provides some badly needed novelty lacking in those intimate looks of longing). In supporting a communicable fantasy, dirty talk can actually make sex feel more real. However, such gestures are not without precarity, it also has the potential to destroy the fantasy, revealing a bare reality, bare humping.

Here is the paradox of dirty talk: dirty talk is most effective when it focuses on the sexual act at hand, but by relying on simply the immediate sexual act, one runs the greatest risk of exposing that act for what it really is, nothing we’re ever too proud of. The more literal the dirty talk, the more real the fantasy, but it comes at the cost of exposure. When I say, I’m doing this to you, I might very well realize that yes, I am actually doing this to you.

Parody in "Dick in a Box."

Last week, Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg collaborated to produce a sequel to their popular music video "Dick in a Box." The new video is titled "Motherlover" and, like "Dick in a Box", its humor is couched in a combination of ridiculous sexual gestures and a parody of boy-band popular music. However, both elements are exemplary of a style of humor emerging in which it is becoming more and more difficult to determine not only the logic of the irony employed but the very object of parody. Part of the irony is obvious. Samberg and Timberlake wear horribly out of fashion clothes, jewelry and facial hair, and yet in their world, they are inexplicably cool. They act with confidence and succeed, impressing women and each other's mothers with sexual ingenuity and prowess, despite an appearance in which such feats would be impossible in the real world.

This is a standard device, see Austin Powers. But while Austin Powers was dressed in hyperbolic 60s fashion, Samberg and Timberlake seem to be attired in a combination of Miami Vice suits and shades, early 90s hip-hop formal wear, and trimmed petite beards from, well, I don't know where. If people ever did dress in such a combination in a particular time period, I never saw them singing. What is curious is not that someone is able to assemble an ironic outfit in which no referent ever existed -- after all it is done in sci-fi/fantasy movies all the time -- but rather that it is able to be such effective parody, if the word parody can still be used in this context.

Certainly, the pleasure of their outfits is one of several in these music videos. What we could call their content, in the first, putting one's erect penis in a box and giving it as a successful Christmas gift, and in the second, a mutual understanding between friends who preform sexual favors for each other's lonely mother, are aided at once by a shock of inappropriateness -- forever a tool of humor -- and an understanding of normalcy. The inappropriate act is never vilified (though at the end of "Dick in a Box" the characters are arrested). In "Dick in a Box" when the girlfriends open their Christmas gifts, after being told this gift would be special and more "real" than a "diamond ring" or a "fancy car", and seeing, we presume, an erect penis sticking into a box, the affect image is wholly positive; Maya Rudolf mouths "thank you" in response. I couldn't say this structure is novel. In fact, I'm certain I've seen it before, from Strangers with Candy to Flight of the Conchords. But what puzzles me is the way in which this logic of irony is able to comprise humor we find "fresh." It is very difficult to describe why this is so. It is no secret to most people that humor ages faster than any other style of media content, and is impossible to say now how well "Dick in a Box" will weather comedy which will proceed it in the following 20 years. But right now, can we imagine anything more inappropriate, where to go from here?

Much can also be said about the music, which is likely the greatest pleasure when combined with the other elements -- the back and forth between Timberlake's soaring tenor and Samberg's forgivably monotone bass, the intelligent use of pop cliches, and its general quality of production and melody. Yet in the end, I still am not sure who or what is being parodied through the music, and yet idea that something is being parodied persists. I think what this all implies is that in comedy today, that anything real being parodied is often secondary, or wholly unnecessary in lieu of the act of parody itself. Parody for parody's sake: think Will Ferrell's impression of Janet Reno a few years back. The only link that impression had to Janet Reno was, perhaps, her masculine face.

This also shows the delicate self contained worlds sketch comedy persists in. I think the reason why SNL sketches have a difficult time translating into feature films is not necessarily because they have one joke, although it doesn't help, but because the world in which a particular comedic logic exists is forced to reconstruct itself when that world expands through the necessities of narration. One imagines a movie of the "Dick in a Box" sketch would have to follow a formula similar to Austin Powers, in which their anachronistic fantasy world would be punctured by a contemporary world which defines them as ironic in the first place. Let's hope this never happens.