Blood and grunts: the daft birth awards

The literary world has its annual Bad Sex awards, but as far as I know there aren’t any statuettes for iffy on-screen nookie performances. Of course sex in the movies doesn’t often look a whole lot like the real thing, for good or ill; it’s a strictly codified and emblematic art form, in which a lady who has just been merrily pluking will wrap a sheet around the entirety of her body in order to leave the sanctuary of the king-sized bed, thus notifying us that she is still modest and adorable despite the hot heave-ho she has, or so we are led to believe, just been receiving (step forward with your head hung in shame, SATC movie.)

Sometimes a sex scene really does convey the urgency of passion – I’d like to single out Ana Lucia and Sawyer in Lost for an honourable mention. Now that looked like she actually wanted it to happen, and who could blame her? Of course, within a couple more episodes she’d been dispatched like a fallen virgin in a horror movie, so there was no opportunity for a recurrence. Still, that particular bit of intimate action came as something of a relief after endless episodes in which they were all cooped up on the island forging alliances and enmities and, on occasion, eyeing each other up, but no-one was actually getting down to it.

Maybe the fear of giving birth sans epidural would have been a powerful disincentive, but actually, given all those long summer evenings with nothing else to do besides go paddling and wait for the Others to come calling – whaddayagonnado? If it was a French series, they’d all have been rutting in rock pools as soon as they’d recovered from the crash landing, retrieved some Gauloises from the hold and had a few long, pause-ridden and enigmatic discussions about Rousseau (the original dude, not the bird with the mad hair.)

Sex in the movies is tricky, but birth really is a sure-fire enticement to absurdity. For starters, as all tremulous mums-to-be learn, labour can go on for days, especially first time round. In this context I’d like to single out Friends for an honourable mention. OK, so Jennifer Aniston looked as if she was stretched out on a spa bed with mild indigestion rather than undergoing an experience you wouldn’t wish on a suspected terrorist, but hey, it is a comedy, and at least the writers made a joke out of poor old Rachel’s failure to progress.

The other thing that was excellent about that episode was how Rachel ended up cooped up with Janice. In the throes of labour even a relatively benign presence could be just as invasive as that honking comic monster; there’s nothing like the ward round walking in to put you off your stride, though you should probably be grateful, on balance, that somebody’s actually bothering to check up on you.