Watching the lesbian sex scenes in Mulholland Drive whilst sitting next to my parents.

A few years ago, I had some preview tickets for David Lynch’s awesome dream-like film Mulholland Drive, and decided to take my parents, since they, like me were huge Lynch fans.

I expected some nudity – Lynch films regularly feature the naked female form (he has often been accused of sexism and misogyny in his work, due to the titillation factor involved) – so I was prepared to experience some element of embarrassment whilst viewing. It’s not that I am uncomfortable with nudity in general, but nothing prepared me for just how explicit aspects of this film were and if I had known, I would never have invited my parents to watch it with me.

It is fair to say I had, in the first hour or so of watching the film, developed a little crush on Laura Harring (Rita). She was beautiful: a sultry brunette with a seductive voice and she oozed femininity. Plus she had the most fantastic body: curvaceous, womanly, and with wonderful glorious breasts that I found mesmerizing. If there was any woman on earth that I wanted to shag, it was she, (sorry Angelina and Eliza).

Suffice to say I had felt a warm throb between my legs for some time.

So when Rita enters the bedroom wearing only a towel and Betty (Naomi Watts) suggests that she join her in the bed too, I was quite excited: some nice nudity me thinks.

I wasn’t wrong: Rita immediately disposes of the towel, revealing her gorgeous naked voluptuous torso, silhouetted in the half-light and then slides into bed with Betty.

I’m sitting there thinking – no, hoping – that they will get it on.

And they do.

It was fucking hot: two women exploring each other hungrily, passionately. Shot so sensually and sexily, it was difficult for me not to attempt to rub one out there and then. I recalled shifting and squirming in my seat, such was the heat between my legs.

That’s when I remembered.

I was sitting next to my parents. They were watching the sex scene too.

I am horny as hell, wanting a fiddle and my parents are next to me.

And that’s when it struck me. The one thing you do not want to think about when you think about your parents.

That is, that they might be horny too.

Now I don’t think I’m jumping to conclusions here. I know I was, like the majority of the audience in the cinema that night, having to shift in my seat as a result of the erotic content. It’s not such a huge leap to imagine (yuck) that my parents might find it a turn-on too.

But obviously not something that I want to spend any time exploring: having that thought in my head ended my underwear-mini-Niagara sharpish. I stared straight ahead, watched the sex scene and tried to ignore any movement from either side of me.

I thought I was doing ok too; the movie continued in it’s dream like non-linear narrative and I became immersed in the way Lynch pulled me into the story and then played tricks with my expectations. I relaxed a little again, and enjoyed the movie once more.

That was until the masturbation scene.

Honestly Lynch, give us a disclaimer next time love, so that I might be prepared for the embarrassment of having to watch a woman frig herself into oblivion on screen in front of my parents. It felt like a kind of nightmarish after-school detention:

“And now Girl, you shall have to watch hard-core penetrative porn with your parents picking out the title”.

Yuck.

But as cringing and uncomfortable as I was, I felt compelled to watch this scene. I thought Lynch shot it beautifully and realistically – almost worth watching just to see how well female masturbation can be filmed (unlike 90% of porn which I find totally unrealistic).

Diane (Naomi Watts again) is trying to pleasure herself after being dumped by Camilla (Laura Harring again). We see and hear her as she gets near to her climax; her vision keeps becoming blurred, her face in a tight grimace because of her frustration of not being able to orgasm. She rubs harder and harder and eventually is rewarded with her release: a literal analogy of her accepting the break-up; after she comes, her vision is clear again. Beautiful.

I’m watching it thinking,

‘Yeah, I can relate to that. So fucking frustrating when it can take that long to come, and horrible when it’s a result of being so emotionally distraught’,

and I turn around half-expecting the audience to be nodding their heads in appreciation too, and then I remember, once more, that I am surrounded by my parents.

Who have just been watching a young woman masturbating on-screen.

I think I physically shuddered, such was my discomfort. At the very least I attempted to disappear into the seat, hoping that it would swallow me up and take my embarrassment with it.

But I stayed to the end, and was rewarded with grateful thanks from my parents, saying that,

“It was the best movie exploring the unconscious mind (they) had ever seen” and that “Lynch has a wonderful imagination”.

Thank fuck for that.

Long-term Cringe Avoidance Strategy not needed.

My parents were unharmed and my reputation was maintained, even though they never brought up the movie ever again.

And there were some bonuses that came from seeing this film: I took my boyfriend to watch it soon after, and told him to squeeze my hand any, and every time he felt like he was getting an erection from what was on screen.

He squeezed it almost continuously for 90 minutes.

As soon as the movie finished, I pushed him into a cab and then fucked his brains out as soon as we got home.

A happy ending if there ever was one.