One of the universalities of being human, one important
thing that sets us clearly apart from the rest of the animals, is the pleasure,
both physical and emotional, derived from sex. To make that physical connection
with another person is a rite of passage we set for ourselves early on. It’s a
mark that nearly every teenager desperately wants to reach. What if you were
stricken with polio as a boy, your body left stiffened by a disease that wreaks
havoc on your muscles? You’re not exactly paralyzed in the way most of us
understand that condition because you have normal sensory perception throughout
your body. You just can move anything. What if you reached middle age never
having felt the exultation joining together sexually with another person? This
is the beginning of the story in The
Sessions, a true story about poet and journalist Mark O’Brien, who was also
the subject of an Oscar-winning short documentary called Breathing Lessons in the late 90s. O’Brien documented his quest to
lose his virginity in an article titled, “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate.”
