Mz. Ephron said, once:

It struck me that the movies had spent more than half a century saying,

 "They lived happily ever after"

 and the following quarter century warning

that they'll be lucky to make it through the weekend.

 Possibly now we are entering a third era,

in which the movies will be sounding a note of cautious optimism: You know, it just might work.

§  Interview in The Los Angeles Times (1989-07-27) regarding her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally

………………………………..

She said that in 1989. When I was 22.  By then, I’d fallen utterly in love with Meg Ryan, as any red blooded movie addict such as I should have. A bubbly sweet smart blonde, a goofball you cannot resist imagining chattering with . You try it out on your female friends, and it works…

  Nora, thanks for Meg. What she represents… the idea of a lifelong ‘galpal’ with whom a sensitive male can confide without fear of misunderstanding.Freedom is not an easy thing to achieve, when you talk to women. They seem to be very suspicious of your sex, indeed…but when one trusts you? It is impossible to describe what a lift that can be. Might even make a man wanna be a better man!

……………………………………………

Remember this conversation? I daresay it is  still going on, everywhere…

Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.

Sally: Why not?

Harry: What I'm saying is — and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form — is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.

Sally: That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.

Harry: No you don't.

Sally: Yes I do.

Harry: No you don't.

Sally: Yes I do.

Harry: You only think you do.

Sally: You say I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?

Harry: No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you.

Sally: They do not.

Harry: Do too.

Sally: They do not.

Harry: Do too.

………………………………………………………………….

Oh so what?....If you wanna have sex with your galpal? Or guypal? Why wouldn’t you?

 They say sex is all in the brain, and if brains are compatible & comfortable with each other, then the urge will arise. You can choose as a mature adult what to do with it. It is part of being human, and social.

 There  comes the moral and emotional question of whether or not to pass the skin boundary with your ‘loved’ one… And,it is also a tactical question: do I dare to lose this confidante, this person who understands my soul better than I do sometimes?

“Sex changes everything,” is what those “in the know” warn…That is an old chesnut of wisdom that is general enough  to restrain one from following natural urges, indeed!

…………………………………………………………………..

Sex or not sex..that is the pressing question of Postmodern times..

What do "they " say?

“Sex is not everything,” they say. Also, they say, “Sex w/o love just aint worth it”

(I am the one who says the latter…….)

What is at stake here in this decision? Do we need even make it, or should we let Nature take its course?

..............................................

Depends on whether you view Nature as benevolent or insidious.

............................................

 What  is  important is maintaining freedom! Self reliance! All that!

Freedom from undue pressures…

with the added delicious pleasure of major league flirting…soul-flirting, I call it:

Harry: It's very freeing. I can say anything to her.

Jess: Are you saying you can say things to her you can't say to me?

Harry: Nah, it's just different. It's a whole new perspective. I get the woman's point of view on things. She tells me about the men she goes out with and I can talk to her about the women that I see.

………………………………………….

The “woman’s point of view on things” is not as foreign as Mr. Billy Crystal, the Joker, makes it out to be, for every sane intelligent man knows he contains much that is feminine in himself. They call it anima.It is from the mother,the sister , the random encounters with the female sex,which are introjected, and built into a consolidated image of the Perfect Woman, so perfect that she is with you,.always..

And yes, women contain much that is male: animus.The daddy, the brothers, the discardered lovers...

………………………………………….

I think it’s probably more healthy to have a gal/guy-pal than to be addicted to internet porn...

Much better for the soul. Nothing against porn, but it gets old, quick. I hear…

………………………………………………

Stare at me in this faceless way, go mad with desire,

 and rip my clothes off. It's terrific.

 In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.

The fantasy of rape — of which mine is in a kind of prepubescent sub-category —

is common enough among women and (in mirror image) among men.

§  Nora Ephron: Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women, Knopf Publishing, New York, 1975

…………………………………………………….

Rather controversial, mz. Ephron!

…………………………………………………….

(Listen, do you realize how early we are in the evolution of our society? It has only been 50 yrs since the Pill, when human nature was finally honored by its own honest scientific brainwork: we are the only species that has eschewed ‘estrus’, and is always, always, at least potentially, sexually receptive.

I suppose that is why we are also the most dangerous species, ever.)

……………………………………………….

I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive.

§  "Barney Collier's Book," Esquire (January 1976); republished in Scribble, Scribble (1978), ch. 10

 ...........................................................

I often wonder what a guy gal-pal meeting of the minds could lead to, besides solving the issues of this idiotic War of the Sexes, and reassuring, in a small way, that not all men are bad...

and that all women are not, either.

these are serious issues, i think................

 But maybe they have a fun outcome.