In her documentary broadcast this Wednesday, June 16 on Arte, Julie Talon gives a voice to young people aged 12 to 23. They straightforwardly recount their first sexual experiences. And the new rites of passage for today's youth.
In the 2020s, we enter sexuality and romantic relationships less often with a kiss and much more with sending sexts or nu (a photo sent of yourself, naked or naked). The bodies meet for the first time with “prelises”, for foreplay, blowjobs and cunnilingus which have become rites of passage from middle school, step 1 to be taken before the stage above. Here is what Julie Talon shows in her documentary “Préliminaires” (1), broadcast this Wednesday June 16 on Arte and already available on the arte.TV site. A photo of adolescence and the first sentimental and sexual emotions, in the age of social networks and on-demand porn.
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In video, extract from the documentary "Préliminaires"
Male domination and consent
How do we talk about sex? What does teenage privacy look like? The first couple? What codes, what references do we have in college and high school? To find out, the director went to interview young people aged 12 to 23. The minors testify to their daily life, the adults relate their memories with more hindsight. Their critical sense, their lucidity and their maturity strike the spectator. The interviews take place in front of the camera, inside their school, most of them with their faces uncovered. For others, the viewer only hears the voice, sometimes broken by emotion and trauma.
These are then words of teenagers, honest, straightforward, which tell these famous preliminaries that must have been done because they earn points in the court. They also say the injunction to talk about sexuality openly so as not to pass for "the shocked of the gang", the exchange of sextes from the sixth grade to demystify sex, or the sending of naked pictures of oneself to "Heat up" the other, despite the fear that "things are going" on the networks.
The documentary shows the codes of teenage sexuality in the 2020s.
Art
They also testify to the sexual relation, still seen under the angle of the performance and the weight of the male domination. If the word about sex seems on the surface very liberated, it would be especially so for heterosexual teenagers; homosexuality - especially male - being still and always stigmatized. And if consent is in people's minds, it is still difficult to express it, affirm it and make it heard. “Saying no is one thing, but 'how to say no' is another thing, much more complex than just three letters,” says 19-year-old Jade.
(1) “Préliminaires”, by Julie Talon. To see this Wednesday, June 16 on Arte at 22:40 p.m. and available on arte.TV until December 12, 2021.
