Chastity—that's Cher's daughter, right? And then there's Virgin Records. It hardly comes as news that we live in a time when once-prized Christian virtues survive chiefly as vehicles for irony. Still, there are moments when a celibate person realizes afresh just how profoundly out of step he is with the world.

Several months ago, David Letterman mentioned in one of his monologues that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, one of Hollywood's more celebrated couples, had reportedly not had sex with each other until after they had gone out for nine months. As one who has always associated sex with lifelong commitment, and as one who has always assumed that I would have to know someone for at least a year before making such a commitment (to see how we handle all the holidays, if for no other reason), I thought it didn't sound so odd to wait that long. But I was brought back to earth by the huge collective gasp that came from Letterman's audience. Apparently the thought of a couple—especially two hot young actors—putting off that kind of intimacy for so long was one of the more shocking things they had ever heard.

I had another one of those moments a few months ago when the ads for 40 Days and 40 Nights, which declare that it is "unthinkable" for someone to give up sex for little more than a month, began popping up. Forty days? I wanted to laugh. Try 30 years!

40 Days and 40 Nights stars heartthrob du jour Josh Hartnett (currently best known for playing military types in Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down) as Matt Sullivan, a twentysomething dot-commer whose girlfriend dumps him and becomes engaged to a guy higher up the corporate ladder. Unable to cope with the breakup, and egged on by his sybaritic roommate, Ryan (Paulo Costanzo), Matt runs through a series of one-night stands, hoping in vain that each sexual encounter will distract him from his romantic woes. But these flings always end with Matt overwhelmed by the "vast emptiness" of his promiscuity and shaking from panic attacks. Desperate, he turns for advice to his brother John (Adam Trese), who is studying to be a priest, but John cynically questions Matt's ability to control himself. Lent is about to start, and Matt decides to prove John wrong, vowing to give up all sex-related activities for 40 days.

Of course, it isn't easy for a man like Matt to quit sex cold turkey—not when he's the sort of guy who can apparently bed a girl without even trying to seduce her. His coworkers set up a gambling pool over the Internet, taking bets on how long his vow of celibacy will last; a few of his female colleagues set out to tempt him on days when it will help them to win the jackpot; and since Matt's vow covers masturbation as well, one of the guys in the office dangles a copy of Penthouse before him and sends him marching to the bathroom, like a recovering junkie anxious for a place to shoot up. (In a different scene, Matt insists he isn't a sex addict, but at times he sure acts like one.)

All these attempts to compromise Matt's integrity fail in the end, but an even bigger threat to Matt's resolve appears when he meets Erica (Shannyn Sossamon) at the laundromat. Matt and Erica go out on a few dates, but his reluctance to immediately hop into bed with her is a stumbling block for their relationship. Erica wants to have sex pretty much right away, but Matt insists on sticking to his vow, which is due to expire in a few weeks anyway. So instead of actually having sex, they talk about the fact that they aren't having sex. Without intercourse to keep them occupied, Matt and Erica don't really know what to do.

Better films than this have succumbed to the idea that couples should just naturally fall into bed, and it is especially disappointing to see how easily even the most creative films can fall back on these conventions after exposing their hollowness. The recent French hit Amelie is an interesting case in point.

As the narrator tells us early on, the title character (Audrey Tautou) doesn't find sex all that rewarding, so she looks for more interesting ways to spice up life for herself and her neighbors. One of the people she helps from afar is Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), who works at a sex shop and seems to be bored with his job; Amelie also prods two people into an unlikely affair that includes some furious sex in the back of the cafe where she works, but the relationship in question falls apart not long after. So the film establishes that sex, in and of itself, is no guarantee of happiness. Yet when it comes time to wind the story up, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet presents Amelie and Nino under the covers. After everything else we have seen, the final shot of these two lying beside each other feels utterly cynical and contrived.

The idea that it is wrong or abnormal to go without sex can be found throughout pop culture, and it even surfaces in films that are meant to appeal to very young audiences. Crossroads, the new movie starring pop idol Britney Spears, makes the point on a few occasions that people who have not lost their virginity by the time they finish high school are open to ridicule. The character played by Spears resolves this problem in her own life when she goes to bed with a sexy young man just days after meeting him.

For better or worse, sexual attraction is a fact of life, and there is nothing inherently wrong with films that try to find humor in the subject. By exaggerating our sexual frustrations through books and films, we can learn to laugh at them and distance ourselves from them, and when this is done right, it can be a healthy thing. But 40 Days and 40 Nights exaggerates the significance of sex to the point where it eclipses just about every other way of relating to people; abstinence itself becomes just another way of making sex more kinky. Matt and Erica could spend their time getting to know each other on some deeper level, and at first, they do make a few efforts in that direction, but in the end, they start looking for loopholes in Matt's vow.

One incident sees Matt and Erica half-naked and stroking each other with flowers; Erica even has an "immaculate orgasm," as her friend calls it, when Matt blows a petal into her panties. For a man who swore he would not do anything "sex-like," this is pretty sensual stuff, but since he never touches her skin, his conscience is clear; he did not have sexual relations with that woman.

40 Days and 40 Nights stands out from the usual run of romantic comedies for its use of religious themes, but it never gets past the level of caricature. Matt and his brother have dinner with their parents at one point, and it's clear from her modest attire and timid demeanor that we're supposed to think of their mother as a prim, proper, conservative woman who would rather not talk about sex at the table. But it doesn't take much prodding from her husband for her to open up and discuss it. Matt and John look shocked—this is the payoff of the comic reversal—but their mother talks about sex so naturally it's hard to believe this could really be the first time they have seen their parents raise the subject. Later we learn that John the seminarian is having an affair with a nun. Naturally.

Director Michael Lehmann and writer Rob Perez also miss a great opportunity to explore the spiritual, character-building significance of Lent. "This is growth, this is self-denial, this is sacrifice," says Matt when he first makes his vow. But what sort of growth actually takes place over the course of the film? When Matt takes the vow, he doesn't do so as part of a larger faith community; he doesn't pray or fast or do anything else to indicate any sort of belief on his part, unless you count the Bible verse he quotes when his sex deprivation causes him to hallucinate.

In fact, once his ordeal is over, Matt tells Erica that he "screwed up" by sticking to his vow: "I should have just done this," he says, and then they kiss. The next and final scene has Matt and Erica making up for lost time, as they embark on the 36th hour of a marathon bedroom session. And that, of course, is how a comedy is supposed to end: normality is restored, the values of the community are reasserted, and all is well.

Peter T. Chattaway lives in Canada and writes about films.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
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