Sex therapy, Boston Legal, and Aging

I don't watch a lot of television, but I do watch enough to feel guilty about it. (Ah, guilt).

One of the shows I like is Boston Legal, mainly because the actors are older than me.

I've watched James Spader (Alan Shore), Candice Bergen (Shirley Schmidt) and William Shatner (Denny Crane) perform in different things throughout my formative years, if you call late adolescence and young adulthood formative. I would.

Anyway, both Alan Shore and Denny Crane, successful lawyers, think about sex a lot. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It drips validation to baby boomers, the aging middle-aged. Ever notice how young people aren't "aging"? What are their cells doing, anyway?

On the television show Alan and Denny are constantly communicating their awareness of the female body. Denny's pretty loose, touches, kisses every woman he sees, clearly maniacally hyper-sexual. (Shatner's marvelous. You almost wonder if he has bi-polar disorder he's so good).

Anyway,imagine our surprise to find that on the season opener Denny admits to having sex with a life-size doll, the likeness of Shirley Schmidt, his law partner. He's always hitting on Shirley, simply adores her. He uses this doll in a closet at work.

Alan also has issues, too, for he apparently has used the services of a sex surrogate, a professional, to get him through some kind of sexual problem, we're not sure what. He admits that his family was light on affection, as in, there wasn't any from Mom.

He makes a good case in court, by the way. Behavior sex therapy is preferable to pharmaceuticals like Viagra, even if the therapist is a surrogate.

So as a self-proclaimed Viagra hater, I was pleased. Read my post in the archives, unless I haven't written it. I know I wrote something about sexual intimacy and relationships in May or June.

At the end of the show the two men are having their a drink (ah, alcohol, America's favorite drug), half glasses of scotch (I guess it's scotch) on Denny's balcony and they're talking. The show always ends this way, the two on the balcony outside, drinking and philosophizing.

Alan has told Denny about his mom. Then he turns to Denny with full sincerity and asks, "Denny, do you ever get lonely?"

Denny thinks about it awhile. "No," he finally answers, and scowls at having had to think about this disturbing question. Then he tosses it back. "Do you?"

Alan, who is so sensitive and squeezable, without skipping a beat, perhaps having read the look on Denny's face says flatly, "No."

Why am I writing about this again?

Loneliness has been the theme of the week and it's only Tuesday night. More on that one soon.

Copyright 2006, TherapyDoc