Death, Sex and the Last Girl

Normally, I avoid movie nights. I hate nothing more than the feeling that death might catch me while on hour number three of some Marvel movie. The other night, however, a friend suggested Sophia Coppola’s 2000 film The Virgin Suicides.

The plot revolves around a group of young boys observing five beautiful, virginal sisters as they slowly become more entrapped by their overbearing and puritanical mother and ineffectual father. The film culminates in the girls’ despairing group suicide, and the admiring neighbor boys’ subsequent inability to make sense of their deaths. A dark comedy, the film serves as a metaphor for the losing of one’s virginity in adolescence, and the stark contrast between the idealized and childish perception of sex prior to actually “doing it”, and the realities of adult life that follow. The experience of innocence vanishing in mere moments, to be replaced with an unformed adult awareness takes the form of group suicide.

As alluring and angelic as they seem to the boys from afar, once they are actually possessed, they cease to exist as they were before. This is encapsulated in the suicide scene: a group of nerdy boys are invited inside by the eldest sister under the guise of helping the girls escape their parental lockdown. While waiting, one of the boys wistfully says, “Those Lisbon girls…man what I wouldn’t give to feel one of them up just once!” No sooner do the words leave his mouth than he bumps into the dangling feet of a hanged sister.

The film tellingly includes the observation, from one of the boys, that the reactions to the girls’ deaths from the adult community are muted. “It was like they had seen it all before,” the narrator remarks, unable to understand how they didn’t feel the same earth-shattering import. What is cataclysmic for the boys is quotidian for the adults. It falls firmly into the “coming of age” genre.

Discussing the film afterward, I was struck by how often the concepts of death and sex are presented side by side. Even in a film that was intended to be a comedy, the best metaphor for the transition between childhood and adulthood, as represented by sexuality, is death. I wondered why this might be the case. On the surface, they seem to be opposite acts. Sex is pleasurable, an affirmation of life, and in its natural form life-producing. One would think that death would be the furthest from one’s mind during intercourse.

Indeed, my fellow movie-watchers laughed uproariously at the suggestion that death and sex seem to go hand in hand. Yet, we continually see these two concepts inextricably linked. We see shame and a sense of guilt so often associated with sex; one wonders if some proximity to death is the source.

We should consider why societies fear sex then, and why almost all societies have felt the need to restrict and ritualize relations. It is a near universal human trait to consider unbridled and unrestrained intercourse a severe threat to society and the collective good. Even in the most hedonistic circles, those who “sleep around” indiscriminately are held in contempt, if not moral condemnation. There seem to be two reasons for this.

First, unrestrained passions threaten social hierarchy, caste systems, and traditional arrangements as defined by the elders of society. Youthful passions, if unchecked, may lead to a flagrant disregard for these hierarchies which adults see as foundational and hard won. This predicament appears frequently in film and literature, perhaps best encapsulated in Romeo and Juliet. The star-crossed pair of teenagers discovers an attractive force strong enough to flout the decades old family feud between Montague and Capulet, leading ultimately to their untimely suicides. Society forces death upon the young lovers because their passion threatens the social order.

The timeless appeal of the story lies in this contempt for the elders’ efforts to throttle the power of young love. Love is dangerous, and a force that undermines the foolish bickering of the old. We find the same problem when lovers cross castes, as when the royal princess Jasmine falls for the “street-rat” Aladdin, compromising her royal blood. Again, sex and passion are threats to social order when society is built around a hierarchy of inherited wealth and bloodlines. Unbridled passion leads to the collapse of social order, and thus the death of society. As much as sexual passion is connected to making, it may equally function as an unmaker. For this reason, it must be carefully managed and integrated by the superiors.

Secondly, sex reminds us of our animal nature, and what we therefore have in common with animals. To our eyes, animals have a meaningless, unreflective existence and, most importantly, they die. They are also unaware that they are fated to die. The primary problem for man is the fact of death, and his awareness of this fact.

The rest of life is framed by this predicament. When we embrace sexual passion, we embrace our animal nature, and thus also our impending death. Man’s invention of religion is in no small part an attempt to alleviate the dread of his inescapable annihilation. The idea of God helps soothe our longing for protection from nothingness. The ideas of an immortal soul and a happy afterlife provide comfort from the fear of death and satisfy our instinct for self-preservation. To confront our animal existence is to come face to face with our impermanence.

Our superiority to animals through reason and self-consciousness raises the question: why are we impermanent? Why do we die? Our mastery over nature makes us feel as if we deserve a higher destiny. We hear a dissonance.

The foundational explanation for this state is the notion of original sin, with death as the attendant punishment for the first transgression. At some point man disobeyed God or otherwise caused a rift within the natural state of affairs, and as a consequence his nature was altered and made mortal. Sexual reproduction, then, is a compromise between God and Man. God must castigate man for his transgression by limiting his life.

Yet if there were no way for man to live on, then God would be forced to eliminate his greatest creation. We receive the means to reproduce ourselves, but this very power would be unnecessary if we lived forever. Therefore, the sexual act represents our plunge from immortal beginnings to animal existence. We surrender our previous heights, and continue to exist through a bargain with God, so to speak. We partake in the creative act, as God does, but we do not participate in it fully. God creates merely out of His goodness; we create out of necessity due to our inherited castigation. Sexual reproduction is therefore a black mark on collective humanity. In this view, it is an embarrassment.

Like the fear of unsettling the social order, this deep-seated shame is a recurring motif in mythology and religion. There is the epic of Gilgamesh, considered to be the oldest surviving work of literature, and which predates the Genesis story. In it, Enkidu, the companion of Gilgamesh, is fashioned out of clay by a god, and lives in harmony with animals and nature. One day, he comes across a harlot who lures him into having relations with her. His eyes are opened, and he becomes “very wise”. The text says that Enkidu had “become like a God”. He is subsequently unable to live among the animals but must wear clothes and live in the city. He becomes a stranger to his primitive home. Enkidu then assists Gilgamesh in his futile quest to attain immortality.

Here we see sex as the end of Enkidu’s peaceful and idyllic existence, and his entrance into civilization. Interestingly, it appears that the knowledge and wisdom he obtains after having relations with a woman is the real reason he can no longer dwell with the animals. He has lost his innocence. Is it possible that this innocence was ignorance of his mortality? How then can he return to dwell among creatures that lack awareness of their eventual death? They will be unable to understand him. In many ways, this is man’s true punishment: not death itself, but knowing that one must die…and continuing to live despite this eventuality. The fact that the rest of the story is concerned with conquering death points to a longing for the original state of nature, where one is blissfully unaware of life’s limit. Perhaps Enkidu must live in the city because he requires companionship, the better to forget his fate.

In Christianity, beyond the Genesis story, one finds numerous examples of the link between sex and punishment. For instance, the theological requirement that Mary be “immaculately conceived” i.e., born without original sin. Likewise, as the mother of God she remains a virgin after marriage and conceives the messiah through the direct intervention of Yaweh. This also frees her from undergoing painful childbirth, which is seen as Woman’s particular punishment, inherited from Eve. Pain implies damage.

In a “fallen world” new life costs the giver; it is damaging and agonizing. If the savior of the world were the product of human sexual reproduction and painful childbirth, he would be stained with original sin. As Jesus was born to conquer death, he must be the result of direct creation by God, a result of Yaweh’s goodness rather than human necessity. He cannot inherit the “fallen nature” that is the product of merely human reproduction. He cannot truly be the son of God if he descends from a fallen human line. For this same reason, tradition holds that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven, spared the mediation of death. Jesus rises from the dead, conquering death. Neither enters the world as a result of sexual reproduction, and both exit life through a different doorway. They deserve neither sex nor death.

Consider also the fierce protestations that emerge when scholars examine the life of the historical Jesus. Christian tradition has always maintained that Jesus remained a bachelor and celibate for his entire life, despite the fact that this would have been highly unusual in Palestine at the time. Although Christianity sanctifies marriage and deems sexual relations within the bounds of marriage to be appropriate and even a good thing, when the idea is applied to Jesus, the knee-jerk reaction of horror is quite telling. It reveals Christianity’s (and the masses’) true views on sex: as a badge of shame, and thus unbefitting the son of God. To partake in an embarrassing reminder of our death and punishment for original sin would be impossible for God incarnate. It is not Jesus participating in the institution of marriage itself that is repugnant, it is the implication that he would have had sex and thus have been defiled like the animals.

It is not only Christianity that reacts this way. Although the Buddha surely engaged in intercourse during his youth as a wealthy prince, he maintained a celibate life after his emergence as a spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama lives in a celibate state. The vast majority of great philosophers were unmarried. The archetype of The Wise Old Man is always presented as unmarried and unattached. Examples: Teirisias, Merlin, Dumbledore, Obi Wan, Utnapishtim. It is in general quite common to find those who seek the heights of spiritual, philosophical, or humanitarian achievement unmarried. This is a deep-seated expectation of the wise and the spiritual. We would find it strange to imagine such a man, or woman, married. The associations between sexual partnership and impermanence seem reason enough for the wisest to shun the arrangement, or at least to transcend it.

Far below the sublime realms, we find this theme strikingly prevalent within the “Slasher film” genre, and horror in general. The setup of most “psycho killer” movies is as follows: a group of teens illicitly gather somewhere far away from adults and proceed to engage in promiscuity and narcotic use. As they are absorbed in their erotic reveries, they are unaware of the approach of the killer, who hacks them to pieces. Although the precise circumstances vary, there is always a “final girl” (sometimes a “final boy”) remaining at the end of the film. This final girl has typically abstained from sexual relations or was intentionally excluded due to being considered a “tomboy”, or suspected of past trauma, making her “strange”. This pure heroine is the only character with the power to defeat the killer.

Death is blatantly presented as a consequence of sex (at least sex outside societal ritual and sanctions). It is only a sexually pure woman, and usually one who has suffered in the past, who is able to marshal courage and ingenuity to her aid, conquering the forces of death. Slasher film director Sean Cunningham says: “The Final Girl in these little morality tales is the person who has embodied the moral code that society thinks allows you to go forward in life”. Those who perish at the hands of the killer are considered to have “gotten what they deserve”. It is no surprise to find the punishment of death awaiting the promiscuous.

The gnawing fear of our impending demise and the power of sex to bring this to mind explain the vast array of rituals, both religious and societal, surrounding sex and marriage. To maintain societal order and existential peace, societies formed the institution of marriage to provide a spiritualized framework for sexual relations. Marriage is normally accompanied by the blessing of both spiritual and temporal authorities, a symbolic merging of families, the focus on future offspring, and rituals designed to tie the union to the eternal, spiritual realm. Marriage is cloaked in transcendence, an unbreakable bond instituted by the divine and administered by the secular authorities.

While it is understood that bride and groom will have physical relations, this is barely acknowledged, and usually only through oblique references to their future children. It is unseemly to mention. These trappings offer a way to contain and conceal the destructive power of sex while moving the mind to contemplation of its spiritual significance. We are to focus on human participation in the divine work of creating new life. The unpleasant details of the act are passed over.

Whether a culture or an individual believes in the literal notion of original sin or not, there is a universal recognition of man’s impermanent state. He shares this condition with the animals but is cursed to be aware of his fate. It is this awareness that is the foundational human struggle. Whether we deserve this state due to past fault or not we cannot avoid facing it, and the sexual act cannot help but call to mind our impermanence and imperfection. Although it maintains the human race, sexuality also has the power to destroy our human structures. It is a painful link between our spiritual dimension and the physical world. To those who most fear death, it is something to be hidden. This is why we unconsciously associate death with the source of new life.

Are we then left with a dark and gloomy interpretation of sex? Is it merely a reminder of our impending doom, and an act that has no more dignity when performed by humans than by animals? It does not have to be this way. If it is our fear of death that gives rise to this recurring theme in art and religion, it would seem that an acceptance of death would free us from this fear. Is it in proportion to one’s capacity to accept mortality that one is able to participate in the creative side of sexuality? Is the beauty of self-giving only available to those who forget impermanence?

Just as one is unable to sacrifice their life for another without previously making peace with mortality, perhaps one is similarly incapable of full self-giving without a willing acknowledgment of one’s ephemeral nature. Order at all costs is impossible. We must be willing to accept a dose of the unknown if we wish to have peace.

Is it right to fear death? If one accepts the notion that being is better than non-being, simply speaking, then we should rightfully fear our future non-existence. But consider that Man is a meaning-seeking creature. We communicate and think using language. Language employs signs and symbols. The nature of a sign is to point to something else as its meaning. The nature of a symbol is to represent a sign, and to point to something else. An essential characteristic of a symbol is that it has limits. It must be bounded and gains its significance through its separation from all other possible symbols. It receives this significance through its boundaries. Infinity itself cannot be a sign, for it is unlimited, and therefore is “everything” (but conversely, we can represent infinity through a sign). A symbol eliminates the rest of Being from itself in order to point to another bounded thing or concept. Therefore, meaning is a function of limits.

Man, as a meaning-seeking creature, naturally looks for the meaning of his own life. As a language-user, he expects things to point to something else, to derive their significance from something beyond themselves. He is logocentric, as Derrida would phrase it. Meaning, as man sees it, can never be found in an infinite earthly life. Why? Because there are no boundaries. Were our lives not “rounded by a sleep”, as Shakespeare says, would there be any gravity to our choices? Would those we choose to love and the labors we undertake mean anything if we had an infinite life in which to later explore each alternative path?

It is precisely because of the knowledge of death that there is an urgency to “get things right” in the here and now. Perhaps this is why knowledge and wisdom seem intrinsically tied to sex and the consumption of the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve’s eyes are opened, and they are said to perceive good and evil. Enkidu becomes “very wise” and “like a god” after his rendezvous with the harlot. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom” says the book of Proverbs.

Could fear of the Lord amount to the awareness of one’s mortality? Is accepting one’s death the beginning of wisdom? Wisdom implies an understanding of the whole. A whole must be defined by its limits. Therefore, can we say that death is the limit that transforms life into a symbol, and that it is through understanding life as a symbol that one may supply its meaning?

The realization that we should not fear death leads us to discern that we also should not fear sex. Although sex is a reminder of our finitude, without death life would have no meaning. It is only in the world of our fearful perceptions that the virgins must commit suicide.