a play by Damian Wampler, directed by Angela Astle

Best friends, separated by choice, reunited by fate.

Starts Friday, June 12 for 6 shows at the Robert Moss Theater, 440 Lafayette.

Showtimes: Friday, June 12, 5:30pm,
Sunday, June 14, 9:00pm
Wednesday, June 17, 4:00pm
Thursday, June 18, 4:00pm
Friday, June 19, 7:30pm
Sunday, June 28, 1:00pm

Tickets are $18 at http://www.planetconnectionsfestivity.com/

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Sex Addiction

I just saw two movies in a row where one of the characters was a sex addict, or perhaps a love addict- someone who can't seem to spend a night alone without a woman. In Woody Allen's Vicky, Christina Barcelona, Javier Bardem's Character moves from one partner to the next, unable to be alone, unable to say no, unable to resit seducing any woman he feels is vulnerable. In the Choen Brothers' Burn After Reading, George Clooney's character finds another woman the moment his wife or lover is out the door. He constructs elaborate sex toys in his basement and carries his 'wedge' around with him like a baby's blanket.

Clinton was a cheater. Edwards is too. And in my play, Trevor is a sex addict. He can't go two seconds without female attention. When he's rejected or ignored (or doesn't get what he wants) he runs to another. And while he appears to be oversexed, he can never get enough. What is this pehnomena? Why is it so pervasive? Why do we ignore sexual helath for men? And how have out our cultural and political aversion to discussions about sex make it almost impossible for boys and men to understand their own bodies.

For Trevor, his sexuality is the devil. It comes to him, distorts him, demonozes him and ultimately destroys him as he uses sex to get what he really wants- love. Sex is a magnet for so many emotions. It draws in all our fears, anxiety, frustration, pain and desire and rolls it into one. Sorting it all out can be difficult- without reflection and self knowledge, impossible. Any emotion we repress will find a way out somehow, and during sex and intimacy these emotions have a chance to escape.

Sex, and its appropriateness, is constructed according to a great number of norms. When and where we live determine what is appropriate and what is wrong, making it difficult to understand what is acceptable sexually. If it was not OK 50 years ago, is it OK now? If they do it Latin America, can we do it here? The main point of Twin Towers though is that sorting this out is easier that it seems. The answer to all our questions is written on our own hearts. Not in the laws or the doctrine of any church but in the cathedral of our our own soul, the judge and jury of our own constitution. Sex or no sex, gay sex, gay marriage- if it's done out of love it can't be wrong. Period.

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