Fail Anatomy

I've watched seasons of Project Runway. I've seen all the Twilight movies. I dressed up like a girl for Halloween in 8th grade. So it shouldn't surprise you that I'm currently watching Grey's Anatomy...with my wife, of course.

Aside from having a forgettable "main" character and more sex than a Vegas brothel, I do enjoy the show. I enjoy it because...hmmmm....I'm not sure why I enjoy it. Often times, it's a train wreck. The plots are often predictable, everybody sleeps with everybody else- they even managed (SPOILER) to botch George's death. I mean, it took me by surprise, sure. But I wasn't sad about it. It didn't make me go through any of the five stages of grief. Because they basically killed his character when they pushed the actor who plays him into a realm of depth and feeling that the dude clearly didn't have. And so really they began killing George a little bit at a time...episode by episode...until eventually George became more of a cameo than a part of the show. A walking shadow. George had already been dead for a couple seasons by the time he actually died.

There are other flaws I could get into- their handling of auxiliary characters (oh, hey, you're on the show to advance the plot a little bit, now see ya!), the inconsistency with their intern program (the show completely revolved around them and then the new crop came on and fell off the face of the Earth...well, into the basement to carve up cadavers) to name a couple. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that there are some very compelling characters and the fact that any day now Cristina Yang is going to magically turn into a real-live human being- I probably wouldn't watch the show.

But what really cheeses me off is the way that the show seems to confuse 'sex' and 'relationships'. I understand it is an easy thing to do- because both involve communication, repetition, and breathing. But if they could just be a little more careful. Jeesh.

Seriously- I can't think of one main character (aside from Bailey, who is probably actually asexual) who hasn't had at least two sexual partners. Now that probably doesn't seem like a big number- until you realize that these people are just all sleeping with each other. In a sea of millions, two sex partners isn't that big of a deal. But if your population is about 20- and you have 2 sex partners...well, you've slept with about 10% of the population. Wilt Chamberlain couldn't lay claim to such a prodigious statistic. Everybody sleeps with everybody else. I'm not sure if that's part of the Seattle Grace teaching program...but it seems to be the status quo.

I don't mean to be a prude. I am not trying to impose my own personal moral/religious code on an increasingly aphrodisiacial world (Did I just make up a word? Answer- Yes. Yes I did). But I am tired of living in a culture where the virtue of waiting for one person to give yourself to sexually is completely ignored. You Hollywood guys know that is an option, right? That sometimes, just sometimes, there is more to a relationship than how good someone is in the sack, and that sometimes maybe a relationship can be built on more than bumping uglies?

I know that not everyone that reads this will share my beliefs or my experiences. And that's okay. I just think that there is a lifestyle that has a substance that is pretty much ignored for the sake of the more glamorous "Gets mines" mindset. It is so redundant- all these shows where two characters (already doing it, BTWs) get married on a post-it note and suddenly start fornicating on stairways and in kitchens. What, there were no on-call rooms open? Because that's where you used to do it all the time. If your idea of marriage is John Hancocking a little slip of paper and then screwing constantly like a rogue Black & Decker, then maybe it's time to reassess the depth of your marital insight.

I'm tired of watching shows where all the married people sleep around on their spouses (or just have an affair with their careers). I'm tired of watching shows where people have sex with ghosts. Well, ghosts that end up being brain tumors. Not everybody travels the same path that I and my like-minded old maids do. That's fine. I don't want to take over the world. I don't want a rank-and-file system of sexual prohibition where horny virgins fawn lustily at what they cannot yet take hold of.

But as a man who saved himself for his wife, and who has experienced growing pains throughout six years of marriage, and who is able to look at the big picture and say "I wouldn't change a thing. A thing"...well, I just think that Hollywood could set their sights a little higher. Some people save themselves for someone else. Some people choose to build their relationships upon foundations that are not sex. Crazy. I know. Not everyone is going to be like that. But at least acknowledge it as a viable option. Because it is.

Now if we can just fix the white noise that is Meredith Grey's opening and closing narration...