Write On My Body

10 One Night Stands (registered WGA 2008), written by Lillian Ann Slugocki, is a series of short films, webisodes, revolving around a transgressive exploration of gender politics through sexuality.  While the language and context are explicitly erotic, there is no nudity.   In addition, each episode focuses on a particular emotion such as anger, denial, forgiveness or love which forms the nexus of the plot.  The tone also varies; comic, farcical, dramatic or somber. The intention is to create a psychological, emotional and sexual journey that dissects and/or reinvents the dynamic of power between men and women.   Built around an ensemble of multi-cultural New York film and theatre actors, it is a microcosm of the city— each episode can take place in and around the same apartment building, The House of Love.   In this way each episode could function as a one off or strung together.  It is a malleable, expandable story line.  Ten Night  Stands could be followed with Ten More One Night Stands.   

 10 One Night Stands is written and created by Lillian Ann Slugocki, co-author with Erin Cressida Wilson and John Gould Rubin of “The Erotica Project”— and an award winning feminist writer, who has created a body of work on women and their sexuality which includes fiction, non-fiction, plays and monologues which have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and on National Public Radio.  Her work has been published in books, journals, anthologies, and online including Salon.com.  She has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Art in America, The New Yorker, The Daily News, The New York Post, and recently in London; Time Out, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The London Sunday Times.   

Photo Credit:  Marc Travanti

Marketing/The Audience

 The projected audience for 10 One Night Stands is, first of all, the sophisticated viewer of Tell Me You Love Me, HBO’s visceral, thought-provoking and sexually explicit exploration of the dance of three married couples.   Secondly, it would attract viewers who are drawn to the dark, interior, almost theatrical world of HBO’s In Treatment.   10 One Night Stands relies heavily on dialogue, on the inter-action between each character.  The landscape of these episodes is the body, the voice; the raw and complex exploration of men and woman together without all the blinking lights and special effects. It’s like Sex and the City  promiscuous step-sister— the issues are taken to a deeper, more cerebral and erotic level.  It is a celebration and examination of the power dynamic between men and women, as it is defined by women and expressed by women. 

In a culture obsessed with snarky blogs and tabloid journalism, 10 One Night Stands would be a welcome slap in the face, a splash of cold water.    What is the new power dynamic between men and women in the aftermath of first wave, second wave and now third wave feminism?  This series is an attempt to answer that question, or at least pose new questions.   It goes beyond who pays for dinner and who holds the door open.  These complex issues are played out in private—  the language is sexual expression;  uncharted territory.   Furthermore, it is impossible for women to grow to their sexual maturity without being influenced by the male paradigm, it has dictated everything; from how woman dress and even how women relate to other women.  This series embraces the male-female ideal but from a different perspective: Where the woman has as much power or tries to get as much power as the man.  This is an arena where a woman is not an object unless she wants to be, where a woman can push the boundaries of her sexual imagination without being labeled perverse or crazy.

In short, this series would appeal to from Generation X, Y and beyond, and as far back as the baby boomers.   Human sexuality is the biggest human story and it always has been— we experience the same confusion, the same sense of mystery and exhilaration as generations before except now the rules have radically changed.   What are the new rules?  Should we have rules?  Whose on top?  There isn’t a single person alive who doesn’t want the answers to these questions.  10 One Night Stands would begin the interrogation. 

Break Down of Episodes

Episode One: Forgiveness (complete)

Anita fucks her brains out with a stranger while contemplating the often perilous and dangerous journey of loving someone. 

Episode Two:  Denial (complete)

Sally Jenkins, a third grade teacher, on one of her many hook-ups, gets more than she bargained for when another woman joins the party. 

Episode Three:  Anger (complete)

Married couple, Darrell and Selena, both in their 40’s, take their sexual role playing to a new level when Selena introduces him to the business end of a gun.  

Episode Four: Loyalty (complete)

An arch feminist goes toe to toe with her older rival over the love of Brad, who throughout the scene, is a little “tied up.”

Episode Five:  Bliss (complete)

Ivy, an elegant wealthy 50 year old, brings home a much younger man three months after she’s buried her mother. 

Episode Six: Kindness 

Renata is a happily married mother of three who rediscovers her sexuality with another woman while gardening in her roof top terrace, stealthily observed by a downstairs neighbor.

Episode Seven:  Lust

A high class escort, who fucks on automatic pilot, is surprised when a much older man unleashes the dominatrix in her.

Episode Eight:  Compassion

A newly married couple, who have lost their bedroom mojo , (he has “ED”), find it in the arms of another couple. 

Episode Nine:  Perspective

A young female nude model turns the table on the artist/professor who is painting her; her definition of realism far exceeds anything he has ever encountered.

Episode Ten:  Confidence

Natalie, an MBA, new to the city, broke but hopeful, expertly and dispassionately negotiates the currency of her pussy with her land lord in exchange for rent. 

Synopsis of Completed Episodes

Episode One: Forgiveness

Anita picks up a man at a bar and brings him home.  They never make it into the bedroom because her lover slams her up against the hallway and fucks her standing up.  Except the whole time Anita is contemplating out loud the gestalt of forgiveness and how the notion of romantic love is an exalted and flawed fairy tale.   Her lover, Billy, surprisingly, is not annoyed by her chatter— he picks up the thread of the complex conversation the minute he has an orgasm.  He is surprised and somewhat hurt that Anita doesn’t jump at the chance to see him again.  She explains that having anonymous sex is something she does to prevent her from doing other things. 

Episode Two:  Denial

Sally is good time girl who works out her insecurities sleeping with married men.  She has no trouble articulating and educating her adulterous partners in the finer points of fucking her.  But Jimmy is different— he really loves his wife, and tells her so the minute it’s over.  She listens to his long romantic monologue about his beloved, and is ready to split post haste, but he introduces a new kink into the coupling.  She takes it as far as he does, matching perversity with perversity, until a woman, not his wife, enters, and throws the game into sudden death.

Episode Three: Anger

Forty year old woman out alone on a Friday night.  A deserted street.  Selena senses danger, quickens her step, but too late, she is accosted by a strange man.  He drags her into an alley and rapes her.  Seconds later, she stands up and announces to the man, her husband, Darrell, that she wants a divorce, unless he can get with the program, and let her be the rapist for once.  He argues that he can’t get it up under those circumstances, but she pulls out a gun and encourages him to try.  Not only does Selena gets off that night, she gives Darrell something to think about for the rest of this life.

Episode Four:  Loyalty   

Candace has shredded Amy’s clothes with a butcher knife.  Her boyfriend Brad is tied up, literally in the bedroom.  A premonition has driven Candace from New Jersey to the West Village.  A premonition that is proven correct; she walks in on Brad fucking Amy.  After she has tied up Brad, and destroyed Amy’s clothes, Candace attempts to hear the story from the other woman’s perspective.  Does she learn anything new?  Maybe not.  But Amy does— she finds out that Candace wishes she never heard of feminism and would give anything to be barefoot and pregnant rather than negotiate her way around thirty somethings like Amy who “hook-up.”  Amy also learns that it’s difficult to find your way home without any clothes.

Episode Five:  Bliss

Grace, cougar extraordinaire, has lain in bed for three months, grieving.  September, October, November, she has watched the leaves turn on the trees outside her window.  As the last one falls, she drags herself out into the world and brings home twenty year old Justin.  He is awed and self conscious in her richly appointed rooms, and struggles to assert his male ego,  but to no avail.  Grace is smarter, richer, older.  She wins the day and gets laid at the same time— by showing him his and her vulnerability.