andreasnyc

I saw this film some years ago but it is stuck in my head long enough that I looked it up over a decade and a half later. It seems that most other reviewers spend most of their reviews criticizing the ideas in the film and especially the ideas of the guru. A pragmatic approach would be to talk about the documentary itself. If one wants to talk about the subject matter, then recognize that we all grew up inheriting much of our values instead of interrogating the world and possibilities and then consciously deciding what made sense to us. Most of us have strayed less far from our ideas of romantic relationships than we have from our parent's political choices (i.e. Not much).

It may have been nice to see and hear more from more of the participants. It may be that some of the participants didn't want to be interviewed in depth even if they were in the background. It may have been the documentarian hung out more with some people than others and they included people who are more of their own experience. It may have been that they thought some people would look better. I don't know why they chose them and I don't think any of us do so I won't criticize that decision.

Years after this I read Christopher Ryan's book, Sex at Dawn, and it brings up some ideas in these directions. The assumption that some other reviewers note that women probably wouldn't like this way of being is a sexist view of women. Do they think that women don't like sex? Do they know that women in the US in some studies I saw have been at least as likely to cheat in a relationship than the man? Would a woman wanting sex as much or more than a man feel dangerous to a man? Perhaps.

I'm glad this film exists. Any film that provides only comfort food to our ideologies and does not challenge them, I would say worth making. Thanks to this film and others for presenting challenging ideas to me and others.