The problem with sex is that you can’t have it all the time. Sometimes you have to eat. Sometimes you have to sleep. Sometimes you have to travel from point A (where you are not having sex) to point B (where you will have sex). As geometry teaches us, the shortest distance between those two points is a straight line, but straight lines aren’t sexy. So how, in a series of movies about sex, do you make sure that everything is about sex, even the parts between the sex? You might say that it can’t be done. Well, the Fifty Shades movies are trying. In fact, it’s not Anastasia’s trepidation about S&M, nor secrets of Christian Grey’s dark childhood, but the attempt to make everything — even everyday modes of transportation — sexy that is the central conflict of the Fifty Shades franchise.
(As a note: Fifty Shades of Grey did well in this regard, in that it had Christian Grey pilot a fighter plane, which is very sexy. Have you seen Top Gun?)
7. Walking sadly
Not very sexy, but still about sex. Anastasia is on the waterfront. Her bangs are delightfully tousled. 3/10
6. Cars
Moderately sexy, because these are nice cars, but not used to their full potential. Show us a “Partition”-style prelude to romantic entaglement taking place inside a car, and then we’ll talk. Honestly, if your sex thriller isn’t half as sexy as a Beyoncé music video at all times, why bother? 4/10
5. Walking, costumed
Sexy. All the right elements are there: masks, expensive clothes, a dude breathing fire in the corner. But again, we’re lacking that extra pizzazz. Are you thinking about sex for every second that these characters are walking onscreen? No, you’re wondering if any of them will trip. This ain’t a rom-com. Tripping is not sexy! 5/10
4. Arms
Very sexy, but not technically a mode of transportation. Still, this brings us to a larger point: In a society that has all but lost its connection to physical labor, why do we still fetishize the products of it (i.e. muscles, i.e. whatever’s going on with Jamie Dornan’s backside)? Is it all camp? Has the leisure class started to celebrate physical exertion not as work, but as an ersatz path to pleasure? Has toil and travel become mundane, and frivolity a mania of its own? Does this explain Fifty Shades’ obsession with transportation? 6/10
3. Helicopters
Helicopters are extremely sexy, but they fail the Green Eggs and Ham rule, which stipulates that you must be able to say “would you do it on a ___?” in a sexy voice without laughing for said mode of transportation to be truly sexy. Trains work. Planes, too. Helicopters? Hoo-boy, you are straight outta luck. 7/10
2. Being carried across a shower by another person while you are both fully clothed
Cold, wet, entirely impractical over long distances. 9/10
1. Boats
I mean, damn. 11/10
