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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
What depresses Michel (and Houellebecq) is the type of sex divorced from the human connection that is possible even in casual encounters. That's what leaves him unsatisfied with Western prostitutes, and it's what repulses him on a trip to a hardcore S/M club (where neither he nor Valérie participate). Houellebecq rides roughshod over the justification that the clubgoers who are shackled or have hooks inserted into their scrotums are consenting adults. They may be, but in his view what they are consenting to is the invasion of the soullessness that inhabits too much of our lives into sex as well, the place that is the greatest source of pleasure. S/M becomes, as Houellebecq has Valérie say, the perfect metaphor for a society that has become divorced from pleasure, alienated from its physical self. "What scares me about it all," she says, "is that there's no physical contact. Everyone wears gloves, uses equipment. Skin never touches skin, there's never a kiss, a touch, or a caress. For me, it's the very antithesis of sexuality." Michel sums it up, "When there's no longer any possibility of identifying with the other, the only thing left is suffering -- and cruelty." Later he says, "Organized S&M with its rules could only exist among overcultured, cerebral people for whom sex has lost all attraction."
In some ways, Houellebecq is right on the cusp between libertinism and conservatism (though it's hard to make the latter stick to someone who is so strongly in favor of sexual freedom). Those inclined to view Houellebecq as conservative may find support when he details his reasons for what he sees as the West's alienation from its own sexuality. In his view, women have joined men in becoming so preoccupied with their careers that sex simply becomes another need to be fulfilled. With the demands of our work leeching into every area of our lives, including the bedroom, the possibility of human contact in sex diminishes. The resulting irony is that people turn to sex workers, the one profession where bringing your work to bed does not get in the way of sex. "They'll find it easier to pay for sex too," he says of women, "and they'll turn to sex tourism."
This isn't exactly new stuff. Norman Mailer was prophesizing 40 years ago about the effect that women joining the corporate world would have on sex. But it's less retrograde than it sounds. Michel doesn't think that women should have to abandon their careers -- he has no problem with the fact that Valérie has a more lucrative and demanding job than he does. Houellebecq's view applies to both sexes and it's one of the uncomfortable parts of "Platform" that's affirmed by our experience. How many people do you know who complain that the demands of their jobs leave them less time for a personal life? And in a global economy that often demands both partners work, it's hardly sexist to note that sex will be one of the first casualties.
This, according to Houellebecq, is the sexual condition of the West. In one scene he says of Westerners, "Try as they might, they no longer feel sex as something natural. Not only are they ashamed of their own bodies, which aren't up to porn standards, but for the same reasons they no longer feel truly attracted to the body of the other. It's impossible to make love without a certain abandon, without accepting, at least temporarily, the state of being in a state of dependency, or weakness ... it's not a domain in which you can find fulfillment without losing yourself. We have become cold, rational, acutely conscious of our individual existence and our rights; more than anything, we want to avoid alienation and dependence; on top of that, we're obsessed with health and hygiene. These are hardly ideal conditions in which to make love."
And it gives rise to one of the thorniest parts of "Platform": its affirmation of sexual tourism. Valérie has an executive job in the tourist business. When her boss, Jean-Yves, is offered a lucrative position with an industry giant, he takes Valérie, whom he depends on and trusts, with him. Their assignment is to revitalize the company's exotic resorts, which are unable to find a foothold in a market dominated by Club Med. Michel accompanies Valérie and Jean-Yves on an undercover fact-finding jaunt to one of the company's clubs in Cuba where they pass as tourists to experience the services firsthand. When Jean-Yves and Valérie are stuck for a way to give the company's resorts the leg up they need, Michel suggests turning them into sex resorts where the local sex workers can ply their trade. This is how he presents the idea:
"The fact is that from about the age of twenty-five or thirty, people find it very difficult to meet new sexual partners. Yet they still feel the need to do so, it's a need that fades very slowly. So they end up spending the next thirty years, almost the entirety of their adult lives, suffering permanent withdrawal ... Therefore ... you have several hundred million westerners who have everything they could want but no longer manage to obtain sexual satisfaction. They spend their lives looking without finding it, and they are completely miserable. On the other hand, you have several billion people who have nothing, who are starving, who die young, who live in conditions unfit for human habitation, and who have nothing left to sell except their bodies and their unspoiled sexuality. It's simple, really simple to understand: it's an ideal trading opportunity. The money you could make is almost unimaginable, vastly more than from computers or biotechnology, more than the media industry; there isn't a single economic sector that is comparable."
As is often the case with Houellebecq, the oversimplifications in that idea vie with the truths. The explication above is, on some level, simply another variation on the theme of the uptight Westerner being led back to his true nature by the exoticism of the natives (though you could argue that view, condescending as it may be, is far less complimentary to the West). In the New York Times Book Review, Jenny Turner accuses Houellebecq of presenting a vision of sex tourism that is "grotesquely idealized." It's true that none of the Eastern prostitutes he meets are abused, none of them forced into the profession by others or sold into it as children. That doesn't mean he is ignorant of the uglier facts of their lives. Houellebecq acknowledges that, by one estimate, one-third of Thai bar girls are HIV-positive. One of the girls talks to Michel about the clients who want to beat her. Another says that she doesn't like her work but had no choice after her husband left her with two small children. "They didn't have an easy job, those girls," Michel reflects at one point. "They probably didn't come across a good guy all that often, someone with an okay physique who was honestly looking for nothing more than mutual orgasm."
