Let's Talk About ...'Sex: Female'

"Sex hasn't been the same since women started enjoying it." -- Lewis Grizzard

Now, women talk about sex in this surprising and funny documentary. The surprise is not that woman will talk, but in the range of women -- none of which look like the cast of Sex and the City -- who provoke an "I can't believe she said that" response.

"I credit [HBO] with raising the level of discussion of sexuality on TV," says Louis Alvarez who, with filmmaking partner Andrew Kolker, created Sex: Female. "What I don't like is this idea that everybody is having great, raunchy sex -- except you. We wanted to do a film that was candid, with real people, who had never been on TV."

But how did two middle-aged guys with cameras get women to speak to them about one of the most intimate of human activities? First, they approached their friends.

"We didn't actually interview our friends, because that would be too weird, but they would say, 'My college roommate was such a slut. Go talk to her,'" Alvarez explains. Before long, the team met several sex-positive women who suggested others they could talk to. For added support, the team used their 1999 film, Moms as their calling card with the request to participate.

"Anybody with children said, 'I'm yours.' They knew they were going to get a sensitive treatment and that we weren't out to do something sleazy," Alvarez says. Advice from female friends and production personnel on how and what to ask, helped gather interviews with nearly 100 women and couples (straight and gay), middle-aged, teen-aged, elderly, across race and class.

Like other Center for New American Media projects, Sex: Female makes smart use of humor while approaching difficult subjects. Remarks by some of the women may cause eye-popping guffaws, but interspersed with old love songs and black-and-white images of idyllic lovers go far to reveal some of the fictitious ideas that still permeate modern culture.

"Initially, we thought it was going to be a romp. We could have had an hour of one-liners, but then we found there was a kind of a poignancy, something deeper we wanted to capture," Alvarez says. While sexual pleasure is discussed with abandon ("There are a lot more vibrators out there then I thought"), the burn of infidelity, unpleasant first-time experiences, and the mournful sense of fading sexual attraction are revealed in compelling moments that elicit a reconsideration of sex and sexuality, aging, beauty, and commitment.

"[Andy and I] came of age as filmmakers in the Seventies, when documentaries were very earnest," Alvarez says. "When we started, we were based in Louisiana surrounded by this 'Let the good times roll' culture that didn't take itself too seriously. We wanted to be like that. We wanted to watch a group of people erupt in laughter, but also talk about stuff that was important. So far, it's worked for us."

Sex: Female screens Sunday, March 9, 8pm, at the Convention Center; Tuesday, March 11, noon, at the Paramount; and Thursday, March 13, 4pm, at the Convention Center.