Shortbus

For those of you who have already had the pleasure, ‘anorgasmia’ denotes the state of not being able to achieve orgasm. In John Cameron Mitchell’s film Shortbus, Sofia played by Sook-Yin Lee dives headfirst into the sex club of the same name in order to achieve the impossible – her first orgasm. Debaucherous threesomes, remote control vibrators and a kiss with a gay man do nothing to boil her sexual experience over and she remains on one side of a barrier which separates her from womanly happiness. The film ensures that the rules of sexual discretion are bent (along with actors who flout them in several compromising positions). Although intimacy is revealed underneath the raging sexuality of the characters, this emotional depth is largely lost in the films culmination, which unlike Sofia’s elusive orgasm, fades into the lime-lit background orgy.