50_Shades
Sexual relationships in iconic American art, or
Few works of art in America go without a sexual interpretation.
Few major issues in American Popular Culture are without significant discussion of their sexual issues and implications.
And few works of art in Twentieth-Century America have caused more debate and discussion than Gilligan’s Island.
Thus it is that we must consider what we can know, and what we can hypothesize about, the sexual relationships of our classic Seven Stranded Castaways.
And one of the most hotly debated questions has always been:
How did the castaways get their sweet sweet lovin’? Some basic certainties can be stated, and then critical reasoning can supply hypothetical answers.
For instance:
As so often is the case with salty sailormen, during those long sea voyages, “romantic” relationships are frequently developed among the crew.
Why else would the Skipper put up with Gilligan? Why else did the Skipper call Gilligan “my First Mate?” It is easy to imagine the scenario:
Skipper: “Ah, Gilligan lad, we’ve been at sea for so very long … and a man has needs, you know.”
Gilligan: “But Skipper, we just cast off, and we’re only going to the other side of the marina for groceries.”
Skipper: “Shut up and drop those trousers, Little Buddy!”
With regard to the Howells, idle rich people used to a life of debauched indulgences; would they not have been satisfied with just each other all the time?
In the Howells’ mansion, there were always beautiful young servants for spicing things up. Away from home, without their servants, they would likely have found other sexual outlets.
It can only be guessed at whether the scenario involved paying a slutty actress for her services, or cajoling Gilligan into their bamboo hot tub. Or both. Possibly simultaneously.
Next, the Professor and Mary Ann are an obvious pairing. But Mary Ann was a squeaky-clean all-American girl next door, and, in those restrictive days, might well have considered it immoral to indulge in sex before marriage.
So it is easy to deduce that Mary Ann probably just gave the Professor hand jobs from time to time. And, as men have done since hundreds of years before the dawn of time, the Professor probably just gave her flowers and cards from time to time.
We can be fairly certain what Ginger was like after years in the moral cesspool of Hollywood. The way she wiggled around in those tight dresses, flirting outrageously, makes it easy to guess that Ginger spent a lot of time down at the lagoon, as the young people say, “giving it away.” The Skipper, Professor, and Mr Howell all probably spent time with her, and possibly Gilligan as well.
It wasn’t necessarily just the men: Mrs Howell, bored with island life and familiar with Sappho since her sorority days at Bryn Mawr, might well have used Ginger for sexual recreation.
Even moralistic Mary Ann might have fooled around with Ginger; used to church-group sleepovers and girl-scout camping, Mary Ann wouldn’t necessarily consider doing it with another girl to be actual sex.
Another hotly debated issue related to Ginger: the hair, slinky dresses, flirty behavior, heavy makeup–all these lead us to wonder if Ginger was biologically a woman, or was “she” perhaps a drag queen? This question requires further analysis.
This covers the major characters. Future articles will consider the “add-ins,” the visitors to the island who presumably had sex with the castaways, including
- Russian cosmonauts,
- surfers,
- big-game hunters,
- cannibals and headhunters,
- Japanese mini-submarine captains,
- and the legendary aviator and noted horn-dog Wrong-Way Feldman.
