Things To Think About That Catfish Vagina Thing in 'The Counselor'

By Tracy Moore | October 29, 2013 | 3:22pm

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There is a movie out called The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott and written by novelist Cormac McCarthy, and it is perhaps terrible and good, and in one scene a man named Reiner (Javier Bardem) recounts to another man named the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) that he wishes he could forget about the time this woman he knows, Malkina, (Cameron Diaz) was “fucking his car.” Whuzza-wut?

Vulture posted this scene in full for our reading pleasure, a scene which they describe as a “mind-blowing piece of cinematic smut.” But the main thing to know here is that the wish-I-could-forget-it car-fucking is a flashback being narrated between two dudes, and it really ups the ante on how we all were thinking about car fucking and how our vaginas might look if we did fuck cars (something that certainly occupies my thoughts from time to time):

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Reiner: So she goes around and climbs up on the hood of the Ferrari. And holds her dress up around her waist and spreads herself across the windshield in front of me. With no panties on. And she’s got this Brazilian wax job. Don’t, don’t even think I’m making this up – you can’t make this up. She was a dancer, so she does this full split, and then she starts running herself up and down on the glass, and she leans down, to see if I’m watching right now, as if I’m sitting there reading my email. And kisses me upside down and then she tells me this: I’m gonna come. I thought, well I’m losing my fucking mind, that’s what’s happening here. Really it was like one of those, one of those catfish things, you know, one of those bottom feeders you see going up the way of the aquarium sucking its way up the glass (makes popping sound with his mouth) Really it was … hallucinatory. You see a thing like that, it changes you.

Counselor: Jesus.

Reiner: Yeah tell me about it.

Sheesh. Man. It has got to be tough to hear these crazy stories about vaginas being hard to know about. I mean, it’s hard to know about that! Right? It’s just, wow. Vagina, all up in front of you in this terrifyingly sexual way that you didn’t totally dictate, amirite?

But as the morning wore on, my mind returned every so often to the car fucking and the vagina and the unsuspecting windshield, as I’m sure yours will too. Here were some thoughts I had:

The She’s So Horny She’ll Fuck Anything Woman

You know this woman, right? Like, in movies and stuff? In porn this woman is sooooo horny she would fuck a gear shifter or a cucumber or any number of objects that are dick-like. However! Malkina is not like those woman. This windshield is not like those dick-like things. Malkina is beyond penis. And the dick-like thing is a pane of glass. Someone tweeted this:

So, the Windshield Is Cold, Right?

It could be summer in the desert but, I’m thinking it’s cold. And very flat. Not easy to rub. Or easy to dry-hump to orgasm. Sure, she could provide the necessary lubrication but I’m thinking that she would have to be, well, so horny she could fuck a windshield. #newcatchphrase

Performance Art Sex

Have you ever felt like you were having performance art sex with someone? Where they were hyper-aware of how it all looked and it felt choreographed in some way or like it was supposed to achieve some predetermined aesthetic goals or a certain amount and kind of pleasure would be had before everyone could call it a night and go home? That is always the worst sex.

But you never forget that sex? And do you want to?

Is this why he wants to forget the car fucking? Because honestly, sure, it’s weird, but it’s kind of a cool thing to have happen to you, I’d guess. If I were a dude and I’d seen ALL the porn, I’d probably become rather blasé about run of the mill sex acts and need something a little bit more extreme to get the juices flowing. Enter Ferrari fucking.

Really aggressive or sexually forward women are terrifying to men — to all of us.

We are totally comfortable with women playing sex object in a way that conforms to predetermined standards for male desire which we have all dutifully internalized. But what is fascinating to me about this scene (on paper) is that it works as a kind of shorthand for how a woman’s sexuality can be both thrilling and disgusting simultaneously to a man, particularly when it manages to both disregard male desire while serving it up to him with a kind of taunting defiance. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying it got me thinking: Here is a woman turned on, unapologetic, and willing to go to whatever ends necessary to satisfy herself by herself, all the while co-opting male-driven performance aspects of sex: the splayed-openness of pornography, the crazed lust and other symbols of male desire, such as cars and exhibitionism. Is it cheap, or, as this review mentions, demeaning? Or is it offensive because it refuses to take into account the prettiness and passivity required of women according to the handbook of male desire? Is it misogyny? Is it awesome? Is it dumb? It’s definitely hilarious:

Catfish Vagina is the New Vagina Dentata

The French call the orgasm la petite mort or “the little death,” while the vagina dentate myth perpetuated the notion that the vagina had secret teeth, an idea that keyed into castration fears or possibly discouraged rape. But the catfish vagina is its own less overt form of vagina horror story, more psychological than anything. It is, in essence, a vagina on the loose, after its own kicks, omitting that critical reassurance that it means its male suitor no harm, combining thrill and danger all together in a hot mess. Like this guy said: