Tell Me You Love Me: What Sex Really Looks Like

I want to personally thank HBO for the opening season of "Tell Me You Love Me," even though it should have been called "Real-Life Sex," but that's too close to another show HBO already airs. Despite what feels like a misstep on the series title, I thought that the concept of the show was brilliant. It's now on my very short list of media that portray ethical psychotherapists with some reality -- particularly ones that deal with sexuality head on.

The show anchored itself on the sexual concerns explored by several heterosexual psychotherapy clients who all happen to see the same therapist -- one couple with children, one couple trying very hard to conceive some, and one woman who was not really ready to settle in on any one relationship. At times, it felt like the plot lines were developed from a camera perched on my shoulder. These are the concerns of the folks I talk to each day in my office. And these things matter to them very much.

I was relieved to watch the character of May (played by Jane Alexander) unfold each week. So often portrayals of psychotherapists are loaded with one ethical violation after another. She played it straight.

May had a personal life that contributed to who she was in her therapy room. She read, she drank wine, she had eyes for another man while in a relationship with the man who ultimately became her husband, and she had passionate sex with her husband. I was particularly struck by the episode when, one morning, she found out that the second love of her life had suddenly died. She wept and yet still decided to show up for her clients' appointments rather than cancel them. While she was a little bit off her mark at points that day, she did no harm and for some she did a world of good. Sometimes therapists can be profoundly helpful when they are really in touch with mortal aspects of living.

I appreciated the way that this show portrayed the act of sexual contact -- for the most part. Rather than the usual cinema representation of sex -- extreme facial close-ups, blurry events under covers, violins with fade outs -- this series showed people struggling with getting belts undone and pulling shirts overhead. Though it may seem simplistic to some who consider themselves sexual sophisticates, this is what every day sex looks like. It portrayed characters actually noticing when their sexual partners were disconnected from what they were doing. And, it showed couples stopping in the middle of sex because something was going wrong. What a concept! Sex doesn't always go perfectly.

Mainstream cinema almost never portrays anything going amiss during sex. It's nearly always ideal, overwhelming, and mysterious. There was little mystery here. The sex was starkly graphic and educational -- particularly to people who need to gain a sense of the flow of sex -- how stumbly and bumbly it can be at times.

The show was not trying to be porn. Some have suggested that the sex was gratuitous. It was neither. This show just refused to turn the camera off when sex became a part of these characters' day. What a breath of fresh air! No "code" visuals for "they are about to have sex" or "they just had sex." We saw them having sex.

If the number of clients I see year after year is any indication, there are many people out there with sexual troubles in their lives. Seeing these types of problems can be extremely normalizing for viewers. It's good that we know a lot about what was going wrong between Dave and Kate, the couple with kids. During the first episode, I turned to my husband and said, "I don't think that she has orgasms." And though they left it vague as to whether she had never had one or seldom had them, Kate did have an issue with orgasms. (Perhaps we'll find out more about that next season.)

With Carolyn and Palek I saw a familiar dance that couples painfully play out. It's called homeostasis -- when one person comes closer to the other emotionally, the other backs up. Then they switch places. The homeostasis part of it means that even though the people are doing different things, the relationship stays at the same level of intimacy overall. And, the "I did it for you, now why can't you do it for me?" dynamic had to be familiar to many viewers -- even if the details were different from their own lives.

Carolyn and Palek also brought to light the quiet epidemic of sexual dysfunction that accompanies much of the practice of reproductive endocrinology. Years ago in my therapy practice, a husband involved in fertility treatments said that having to get an erection and ejaculate on a schedule reminded him of the days before electronic banking. He felt like he was often rushing to the bank with a deposit before the check bounced. I have had numerous couples in fertility treatment wind up in much worse sexual binds than Carolyn and Palek -- and after much longer periods of "trying." Nevertheless, this show got the point across that trying to conceive can wreck havoc on a couple's sexual relationship.

My main complaint with the portrayals of sex in the show is that some couples dove into intercourse very quickly, particularly Jamie and her various partners. Now, it's completely possible that Jamie was so into sex that she was sufficiently aroused each time she decided to have some type of sex -- but at times, I thought it teetered close to the edge of replicating the usual fare from mainstream movies with no time to build up arousal nor for lubrication to occur.

Still, the show redeemed itself with the closing scene between Dave and Kate. She's just told him that he should leave her if he's that dissatisfied -- a bold statement for a woman who's swallowed an encyclopedia of unsaid words.

Dave's very frustrated and for a few moments we're unsure if he's going to punch a hole in the wall or storm out the door. Instead, he grabs her and kisses her -- hard. She realizes that she better put up or shut up and kisses him back. They lurch to the bed and are still kissing hard. It isn't really pretty, but it's very real. Unflattering shots of Kate's body are left in because they're really going at it. This is not about porno stars, it's about intensity.

Then Dave pushes Kate's hand inside her pajama bottoms and really urges her to stimulate herself -- meanwhile, they're still kissing hard. He reaches into his pajama bottoms and is apparently stroking himself. They have ecstatic responses to all that's going on -- and they are still kissing and in a vertical position on the bed!

That was when I had the thought: the people making this show aren't trying to arouse us (though that may very well have happened for some). But they did show that hot sex does not need to look glossy, smooth, choreographed, and pretty. They were willing to go out on the limb and offer us the idea that this couple could be having hot sex in the least likely way that stereotyped sex scenes would ever offer.

Thanks HBO. There are so many ways to have done this wrong, but you didn't.

Related Topics:

• The Fertility Diaries: Friends and Mothers
• Guide to Great Sex

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