Tag: The Sessions

2013 Oscar Week: Depicting Sex Surrogacy in ‘The Sessions’

poster for The Sessions
Guest post written by Alisande Fitzsimons.
One of the more moving films of 2012 was Ben Lewin’s drama The Sessions. Based on the life and articles of profoundly disabled poet and journalist Mark O’Brien (played by John Hawkes), The Sessions depicts the period in O’Brien’s life when he engaged with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a sex surrogate played by Helen Hunt. 
Bitch Flicks Co-Founder Stephanie Rogers has already written about Sex, Disability and Helen Hunt in ‘The Sessions’ for this site, pointing out that, “Helen Hunt is awesome.” She’s right – the power of Hunt’s performance as Cheryl cannot be understated, and even though she’s already collected one Oscar (for As Good As It Gets in 1997), a lot of us are rooting for her to collect another in 2013. 
Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen-Greene with John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien
What Exactly Is A Sexual Surrogate? 
When she first meets Mark O’Brien, Hunt’s character takes care to explain that she is a sex surrogate, rather than a sex worker but is not shown explaining the exact differences to him on-screen. For the record, the difference is this: sex workers provide sexual services in exchange for money. These services can vary wildly and some sex workers do indeed work with disabled or sexually dysfunctional clients. 
A sexual surrogate on the other hand is a certified sex therapist who educates and sometimes engages in intimate acts with their patients in order to reach a therapeutic goal. 
In The Sessions Hunt’s character treats O’Brien over four two hour sessions. O’Brien has never had an intimate relationship when he first begins working with Cohen-Greene but makes rapid progress, becoming comfortable with his own body, then with Cohen-Greene’s body, before finally achieving full intercourse with her and bringing her to orgasm. 
Growing up in the UK, I wasn’t aware that this kind of therapy existed, and I found the film’s insight into it fascinating. The film was released there at a particularly useful moment in British culture. As I type, a former Brothel keeper called Becky Adams is getting a lot of press attention for a new charity she has founded called Para-Doxies. 
The aim of Para-Doxies is to introduce disabled people of all genders and sexuality to sex workers so that their sexual needs can be met. As far as I’m aware therapy such as the sort offered by Cohen-Greene is not available in the UK. Realising how much good the sex therapy O’Brien received did him makes me hope that Adams’ project succeeds and that disabled sexuality becomes more widely accepted. 
There’s Sex But It’s Not Conventionally Sexy. 
I don’t mean that section heading in a bad way. In fact, the depiction of sex in The Sessions is wholly refreshing. As well as giving audiences an insight into disabled sexuality (because for some people the fact that disabled people do indeed enjoy sex apparently came as a bit of a shock), the film also does a marvelous job of presenting a leading lady who has sex both with her husband and patients in a way that’s not meant to titillate. I know I don’t have to remind anyone that this is unusual. 
There are no bras or slips left on during sex in this film but even though we see Hunt naked and having sex, there’s no part of this film that makes a female viewer uncomfortable. Not because Hunt is made to look unattractive in the film – she’s simply not – but because the nudity is so much in keeping with the realist tone of The Sessions that the sex is in no way “pornified” and so does not cater to the male gaze. 
Even when O’Brien, whom Hunt’s character has come to love — but, crucially, has not fallen in love with – orgasms during sex with him, it’s not the sort of noisy When Harry Met Sally moment we’ve come to expect from Hollywood films. Rather, it’s a quiet but heartfelt moment of wholly convincing intimacy between the couple. 
Arguably this should make the moment on-screen even sexier because it reflects real-life lovemaking more than most sex scenes ever will. The catch though is that the scene is so beautifully written and performed that it felt hard to watch. I mean that too in a good way. I mean, who over the age of 13 can’t look at a sex scene? 
The emotional investment the audience makes in the characters of Cohen-Greene and O’Brien means that watching it is not unlike one of those moments when you walk in on a friend having sex – awkward. 
Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen-Greene
The Private Life of a Sexual Surrogate 
Apart from the sessions in which she treats O’Brien, Cohen-Greene’s professional life is depicted on-screen when Hunt is shown making notes about how the treatment is going. This part of the film is crucial, not only because it gives the audience insight into O’Brien’s state of mind from a healthcare professional but also because it is what will distinguish Cohen-Greene’s work as a sexual surrogate from that of a particularly sympathetic sex worker in the minds of less liberal viewers. 
Another interesting insight the film is careful to make is into Cohen-Greene’s private life. While most of the film does indeed concentrate on O’Brien – it’s his story, and based on poetry and articles he wrote so the world could really understand disabled sexuality – the small amount of time the camera spends with Cohen-Greene at home is interesting. 
What, for example, motivates someone to become a sexual surrogate over any other kind of therapist? It’s a role that hugely benefits patients but one that may cause problems for the surrogates themselves. 
Cohen-Greene, for example, is married with a teenage son in the film. Her husband, whom she describes as “a philosopher” is in fact unemployed, leaving the family to rely on his wife’s income. It’s apparent that he has no problem with the nature of her work – and all credit to the filmmakers for not reducing an unemployed character to a loutish stereotype – but rather accepts her job as a valid form of employment and therapy. 
In fact, until Cohen-Greene begins treating O’Brien it seems that the couple had no problems with jealousy at all. O’Brien though sparks something in his therapist that her husband recognizes as threatening. It’s not as if a man who was forced to spend at least 20 hours a day in an iron lung due to catching polio during his childhood should, in Hollywood terms at least, be much of a threat to any healthy marriage. 
Yet O’Brien’s flirty and lively personality, not to mention his superior mind that can conjure up incredibly beautiful poetry, do start to come between the couple, even though it’s clear that Hunt’s character does not actually fall for her patient so much as come to respect him and care for him deeply, the way most of us do for our closest friends. She never, in spite of the non-physical intimacy the therapy could foster between them, tells him much about her personal life at all. A sure sign of love and respect for the man she is married to. 
— 
That Cohen-Greene is not depicted as a kind of saint who can see the lovable in a disabled man is another strength of The Sessions. The character is undoubtedly a good person but also a real one, and perhaps most importantly given the delicate nature of this kind of sex therapy, a wholly professional one. 
When the patient-therapist relationship she has with O’Brien threatens her marriage, she reacts first with anger then with consideration and does what she needs to to make that relationship work. 
At the film’s end she is shown attending O’Brien’s funeral with her husband, to whom she is still married. When O’Brien’s girlfriend, whom he met after his sessions with Cohen-Greene have finished, reads out a love poem that is clearly about Cohen-Greene, Hunt just smiles. 
When the love you have for someone is that great, be it platonic or romantic, sometimes the fact that both of you know is enough. It’s a credit to Hunt that her characterization of a character who could easily have been made out to be brassy or manipulative never is, and I really hope she’s duly rewarded by the Academy for it. 

———-

Alisande Fitzsimons is a sex positive writer. She can be found tweeting @AlisandeF.

The Transformative Journey of Sex in ‘The Sessions’

Written by Rachel Redfern

Ben Lewin’s little known independent film, The Sessions, has unfortunately been lost in this year’s Hollywood shuffle, a true shame since the film is engaging, lighthearted and uplifting. The award-winning film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and after a standing ovation and winning the Audience Award for US Drama and a special Jury Prize for Ensemble Cast, it’s now being recognized on an even larger scale. Helen Hunt has been nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and John Hawkes was nominated for Best Actor in a Drama at the Golden Globes (though that award went to Daniel Day Lewis for Lincoln).

The Sessions follows the adventures of one Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes), a poet and survivor of polio who, at the time of the film, is in his thirties and lives his life in an iron lung. Unable to move any part of his body beyond his head, his life features caretakers and friends and a loyal priest  (William H. Macy), but no lovers. So, in an attempt to move himself forward, he decides to start seeing a sex surrogate, Cheryl (Helen Hunt), in order to lose his virginity. 
John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien in The Sessions
 The film is based on a true story and Mark O’Brien’s own account of his experience with a sex surrogate, which he chronicled in an article in The Sun Magazine, an essay that you can still read online.

At first glance, the main theme of the movie appears to be sex, which of course it is, and which of course is so much more than that, being about love, relationships and taking chances. However, I appreciated the very frank, forthright way that the film dealt with sexuality, a facet that was spurred on by Helen Hunt’s lovely portrayal of the straight-talking sex surrogate, Cheryl. Clinical terms for genitalia are thrown around easily and Hunt’s unashamed interaction with nudity and the acts of sex are really refreshing.

It was wonderful to see so many disabled actors with similarly frank discussions of their sexual habits, a surprising and sweet element to the film that really grounded it’s central theme: sexuality. Sexuality as an experience that binds us all with it’s mysterious and yet, overwhelmingly normal nature. His discussions with his caretakers as they commiserate about their own sexual experiences make the similarities between their interactions with that part of life apparent as do the difficulties for O’Brien to do something so simple that it is often taken for granted.

Because of O’Brien’s disability, the film gives ‘the body’ a really fabulous consideration, as of course, O’Brien must become comfortable with his body’s own limitations. There is a really lovely scene when Cheryl (Hunt) holds up a full-length mirror so that O’Brien, who hasn’t seen his own penis since he was six, can finally see himself: all of himself. His self-consciousness about his body drives him to a sense of self-loathing and deep insecurity about his own deservedness for sex and love, a theme not uncommon in our society.

The scene with the mirror is beautifully linked however with Cheryl’s own considerations about her body. Cheryl has decided to convert to Judaism and during the process she must immerse herself in a pool of water as a symbol of transformation, a situation that involves her disrobing in front of an older woman who remarks that Cheryl is unusually comfortable getting naked, unlike other, younger woman she encounters. This woman states that this is a true shame, since our body is so important and is the thing that God has crafted just for us. After this simple comment, with a look of sadness on her face, Cheryl immerses herself in the water, obviously aware of her body’s health; this action triggers the recent memory of holding up the mirror for O’Brien and we see the two scenes as a parallel.

Religion plays an important part in the film as well as sexuality since O’Brien is an active Catholic and his priest, despite the church’s concern for sexual immorality, actively encourages him to have this experience; an action that shows a positive influence on O’Brien’s life and state of mind. However, O’Brien’s parents and their teachings on sex, or rather their complete avoidance of the topic, imbue O’Brien with a deep shame for his own sexual nature; a problem that often causes him to blame any sexual difficulties that he has with Cheryl on his unworthiness and a belief that he’s being punished for his sins.

The film features a bit of nudity, specifically on the part of Helen Hunt, a fact that got quite a bit of notice since there’s a few scenes of Hunt full frontal (gasp!) but scenes that were handled very well, again with Hunt’s very straightforward character which really translated well on screen. 

Helen Hunt as Cheryl in The Sessions
In an interview with Hawkes he stated that the nude scenes in the film embodied a very body-positive perspective, one where the body is, “not something that’s dirty or to be ashamed of or laughed at. That’s her job. I know that Helen got it through talking to Cheryl, the real surrogate, that she’s not ashamed of her body. She’s always talked, ‘Sex positive, sex positive.’ I feel like she’s a technician. She just figures out how to get past the sexual issues. Helen embodied that.”

Hunt is definitely deserving of an Oscar for a great performance as both the straightforward sex surrogate and the wife, mother and woman who begins to care very deeply for O’Brien and the experiences they’ve shared.

O’Brien’s experiences, being his search for love and his belief that having sex will get him there, an innocent belief that many of us share, become the transformative events that push him into stronger relationships. In the end of course, the final thought is that it’s not the sex itself, but the journey with the people that he meets that makes him a stronger, more whole person.

———-
Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and it’s intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

On Sex, Disability, and Helen Hunt in ‘The Sessions’

Movie poster for The Sessions

Written by Stephanie Rogers. 


I hadn’t heard of Mark O’Brien before I saw The Sessions. I only knew that the film starred John Hawkes (of Deadwood, Winter’s Bone, and Martha Marcy May Marlene fame) and Helen Hunt, who I’ve always admired because of her role as the rebellious, dance-obsessed Lynne Stone in the 1985 film Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I was seven years old when I saw that shit, and I’d now consider it one of my first introductions to (somewhat problematic) pop culture feminism. I refuse to let go of it. Also, Helen Hunt was in Twister, a movie about storm chasers who say stuff like, “It’s coming! It’s headed right for us!” and “Debris! We got debris!” Oh yeah, and she won that Best Actress Oscar for As Good As It Gets in 1997.

What I’m trying to say is: Helen Hunt is awesome.

Her latest Sundance Film Festival hit is based on an essay Mark O’Brien wrote for The Sun called, “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate,” which chronicles his experience losing his virginity in his late thirties. Hunt plays Cheryl Cohen Greene, the sex surrogate, and Hawkes plays O’Brien, a man who contracted polio at the age of six and became paralyzed except for limited use of muscles in his right foot, neck, and jaw. He couldn’t spend more than a few hours outside of an iron lung (a metal chamber that forces the lungs to inhale and exhale) and, despite that fact, went on to earn a graduate degree in journalism from UC Berkeley—by traveling back and forth between the university and the iron lung at home. With the ability to move only his head, he wrote articles and poems by holding a stick in his mouth and tapping out letters on a computer.

The audience learns all this within the first ten minutes of the film, and that’s about the time I started telling myself to stop going through life like a lazy fuck. 

Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen Greene and John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien in The Sessions

That’s some pretty intense subject matter … not me being a lazy fuck—that’s for my therapist and me to work out SOMEDAY—but the serious exploration of a disabled man’s sexuality. While the focus remains on O’Brien throughout, The Sessions also gives us several comedic moments with other physically disabled characters as O’Brien interviews them for an article he’s writing about the sex lives of the disabled. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to see an on-screen depiction of people with disabilities who do things like omg have sex and who also enjoy talking candidly and unapologetically about having sex. O’Brien’s reactions are hilarious; he gets fairly embarrassed and weirded out during the interviews, but the stories he hears ultimately empower him to think seriously about his own sex life, or lack thereof.

Enter the inimitable William H. Macy (yes!). He plays O’Brien’s priest, Father Brendan, who listens to O’Brien’s confessions every day while guiding him through the guilt he feels about seeking out a sex surrogate. That relationship soon evolves (once O’Brien begins spending time with the surrogate) into more of a friendship, and it’s wonderful to see those lines blurred; watching Macy go from praying with O’Brien in church for the first half of the film to showing up in sweats with a six-pack at O’Brien’s house in the later half got the whole theater cracking up. That friendship grounds the film and keeps it from veering into sentimental territory; the audience looks forward to their light-hearted conversations about some truly heavy subject matter. At the same time, their friendship adds emotional depth to the characters. We realize it isn’t just O’Brien’s physical disability that complicates his sexual exploration, but his Catholic faith as well. These two immensely likeable men clearly like each other—and their pontifications about the role of religion in their lives, and what God will and won’t forgive—keeps this from turning into yet another film about a dude just trying to get laid. 

William H. Macy as Father Brendan and John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien in The Sessions

Before seeing the movie, I hadn’t heard about sex surrogates. The real Ms. Greene (who still practices at the age of 68) describes the difference between her profession and prostitution as follows: 

If you go to a prostitute, it’s like going to a restaurant. You read the menu, you choose what you want, they prepare, they hope that you love it, and hopefully you want to come back.

With a surrogate, it’s like going to cooking school. You get the ingredients, you learn to make a meal together—and then the point is to go out into the world and share that and not come back.

I love that explanation, mainly because it doesn’t denigrate prostitutes (or sex workers in general). From what I’ve read, the people who appear to take issue with the sex surrogate profession are running around like, “… but … but … PROSTITUTION WHORES SLUTS BURNING IN HELL,” and regardless of what one thinks about prostitution as a profession, I hope we can all agree that it’s a much more complicated issue than “Prostitution bad. Waiting till marriage for sex good.” (For me, personally, it boils down to the question, “What more can we do to keep sex workers safe?” But, yeah.) 

Helen Hunt as Cheryl Cohen Greene in The Sessions

Most reviews I’ve read of The Sessions focus on Hawkes’ ridiculously good performance as O’Brien—after all, his acting essentially comes from nothing more than his voice and facial expressions. Oscar nomination? Probably. But I’d like to focus on the women in the film, particularly Hunt’s portrayal of Cheryl Cohen Greene.

Helen Hunt ultimately brought The Sessions to life for me. She treats O’Brien with such care, both emotionally and physically, while always maintaining a directness with him that undercuts any potential melodrama. One of my favorite scenes in the film happens right after O’Brien’s first, very brief moment of vaginal penetration. Afterward, he asks, “Did you come, too?” to which she responds, “No, Mark, I didn’t.” I fell in love with the film right then; the innocence of his question and the honesty of her response created more intimacy than most faux-passionate, desperation-filled Hollywood sex scenes could ever hope for.

And that’s the thing about Hunt’s performance. Hawkes, while indisputably great, wouldn’t be half as good in this role if he weren’t playing opposite Helen Hunt. She portrays Greene as confident and self-assured, with no lacy-underweared attempts at sexiness, and with only a tinge of sweetness. This isn’t a film about seduction. It’s mechanical and complicated and wonderful—at one point he has to stop performing cunnilingus because he can’t breathe; at another, she goes to the bathroom in front of him with the door open. Though she forges a strong bond with O’Brien emotionally, the goal always lingers: to help him lose his virginity and help him discover new ways to use and appreciate the human body, his own especially. Hunt says as much in an interview with the L.A. Times: 

Maybe it all gets blurry near the end for a second … But I think that’s life—you can have some errant arrow prick your heart, but these two characters have an intention to keep to their mandate that this all is supposed to serve him. And both of them stick to that, painful as it is.

John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien and Moon Bloodgood as Vera in The Sessions

I’d like to say that all the women in the film were as wonderfully fleshed out and complex as Hunt’s character, but that isn’t true. O’Brien works with three women caretakers throughout, the first (and least conventionally attractive of which) he fires because she just kind of huffs around acting like an asshole. The second is a beautiful woman whose name I can’t remember, and her character development consists mainly of O’Brien gazing longingly over dreamy sequences of her hair blowing in the breeze and shit. Of course he proposes to her (why not!), at which point she quits … but then randomly shows up again later for an impromptu picnic in the park. Okay. The third woman caretaker, well, I kind of loved her. Vera (played by Moon Bloodgood) eases his anxiety more than anything, often making funny quips about sex and the not-a-big-dealness of it as she transports him to and from his sessions with Greene. That affords her an authentic intimacy that the other women characters—other than Greene, of course—don’t get to have. While the previous caretakers exist as shallow plot points to move O’Brien’s story forward, Vera shares a true friendship with him; in many ways, their relationship mirrors the directness and openness of his relationship with Greene.

John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien in The Sessions

For all the bodies on display and the frank sexual discussions, The Sessions deals mostly with trust—how to trust that another person can accept our flaws and cracks and insecurities without judgment; that we’re loveable; that it’s okay to need things from people, and to ask for them. In the end, the graphic sex scenes take a back seat to the emotional connections the characters develop with one another. It’s the expressions on the actors’ faces that tell us everything we need to know.