Sex and Romance Universes

There are four alternate realities depicted in mainstream movies and television:

The 80s Teen Comedy/Horror Universe:

In this universe, everyone starts having sex instantly at the onset of puberty, and becomes officially a "virgin" due to either being such a loveable loser as to have missed his/her chance, or to being an uptight prude.  Teen virgins are, if boys, dorky, and must overcome the embarrassing stigma of virginity prior to graduation from high school.  If girls, however, they are waiting for both the perfect guy AND the perfect moment, but again, prior to graduation.  (This is due to the fact that no character development can take place after graduation.)  There are, however, certain advantages to virginity, such as the ability to fulfill prophecies and immunity to horror slasher attacks.  Sex can be missionary, cowgirl, or off-screen somewhere involving made-up position names.

The 90s Lifetime Original Universe:

In this "based on true stories" universe, all adult males are bad.  The most bad are typically rapists, child-molesters, kidnappers, murderers, drunken wife-beaters, or domineering control freaks.  The least bad are the unemotional macho oblivious-to-everything-important husbands who are way too into sports, cars and guns.  The only good males are little boys.  Women in this universe fall into one of three categories.  A woman can be a shy, quiet, weakling who is afraid to speak out and needs someone to rescue her (this is the most common type).  A woman can be an older stuck-up rich bitch who is very old-fashioned and usually religious (though she can be convinced the error of her ways).  And the rarest type, a woman can be a super strong protagonist, who is both a dedicated super-mom as well as a driven career woman, and has the ability to solve almost any problem in the third act by the power of dramatic speeches.  All sex is off-screen and results in pregnancy.

The Porno Universe:

In this universe, everyone is horny for everyone else all the time.  Everyone is either actively bisexual or at least bi-curious, and all relationships are assumed to be open ones.  Rape cannot exist in this universe, because literally not one person every says no to sex.  Sex can be traded for better grades, promotions, free pizza, or just about anything else that anyone has to offer.  All people look approximately between the ages of twenty and forty, including those supposedly in high school.  Women's breast implants are very common.  All clothing is loose and can come off easily.  Since the turn of the millennium, zero men and very few women have pubic hair.  Most penises are very large, and all women prefer larger to smaller penises.  Transwomen are fairly common, and are fully respected as women.  However, derogatory terms are used freely, because absolutely no one finds anything offensive.  The rules are slightly different if hentai is thrown into the mix, but basically, anything and everything goes.  Sex can occur in any combination of positions imaginable, but the most popular is a sequence of blow-job, followed by either missionary or cowgirl, then switching to doggy, followed by anal, and ending with a facial.

The Everything Else Universe:

This is the universe of the romantic comedy, the action movie, the adult farce, the sit-com, the television commercial, or any other type of story that doesn't fit into one of the above three realities.  In this universe, everyone is a monogamist in search of their one and only true love.  Couples are literally made for each other (by destiny).  Their first meeting can go one of three ways.  The first way is mutual love at first sight, which after overcoming some contrived obstacle such as disagreeing families or overheard out-of-context dialog leading to misunderstanding, they eventually profess love for each other and live happily ever after.  The second way is one-sided love, in which one person (usually the man) falls instantly in love, but the other (usually the woman) needs to be convinced by some dramatic gesture, such as nobly stepping aside, interrupting a wedding to profess his love, rescuing her from a supervillain, taking a bullet for her, or writing a beautiful song or poem about her (because artistic ability can only come out of true love).  The third way is instant mutual and unmotivated dislike for each other in order to mask their true feelings, which leads to a long period of will-they-won't-they full of playful insults gradually shifting to light teasing, and eventually a sudden profession of true love.  In all cases, the power of true love is so strong that even divorced couples eventually reconnect, usually after the man has become more mature in some way.  Because everyone has only one true love, being in a relationship with anyone other than "the one" leads to a revelation that the wrong partner was either secretly in love with someone else, or was a downright bad person only pretending to be in love.  These pretenders are rich snobs who have no concept of true love, serial cheating men with lots of side whores, or slightly troubled women cheating with the man's best friend, boss or brother.  (Since gay couples are typically more sidelined, it's hard to pin down exactly what the rules are, but they should be roughly similar.  Also note that because love is only between two people, bisexuality can only exist temporarily.  In the end, everyone is either 100% gay or 100% straight.)  As for some additional notes, long-term married couples are boring, men who play the field are jerks, women who play the field are funny, and virgins are people who have basically been living extremely sheltered lives up until this point, however, their virginity also allows them to be better at giving pleasure than those who started having sex at a younger age.  At the same time, there is an underlying tendency that men are more sex-driven, while women are rarely sex-driven, if not outright anti-sex, and this truth can manifest itself at any time with little or no warning, even if it contradicts the person's motives up until this point.  Fortunately, such an occurrence rarely lasts long.  Sex, if not off-screen, is often accompanied by soft lighting, candles, fireplace, etc., and begins with passionate kissing, followed by a sort of against-the-wall dry-humping, then usually a cut-away to another shot, but occasionally a sort of rolling back and forth between missionary and cowgirl, ending with a simultaneous mutual orgasm, and then followed by pillow talk under a diagonal sheet that covers the woman's chest but not the man's.  They also used to smoke cigarettes, but not so much anymore.

Why it matters:

The reason these four universes are significant is because people watching these types of movies are subliminally affected by them.  Their expectations for REAL LIFE sex and romance changes to include these types of scenarios.  (This makes sense, since human brains evolved before movies existed, so we tend to process them in the same way as if a tribal elder were telling us stories which reflect the culture.)  People, once affected in this way, then go on to make even more movies, reflecting the same ideas and mythologies, which influences more people, and the cycle continues.  While it's true that most people don't watch Lifetime movies anymore, and 80s comedies are niche and seem dated, and while it's true that most people who watch porn are well-aware that the situations are unrealistic, the fact that these things exist at all demonstrates that the ideas behind them must exist within the culture in some form already.  There are people who have never seen an 80s teen comedy or a Lifetime original movie, and yet, their view of reality clearly shows similar ideas.  In other words, these movies aren't CREATING the mythologies, but are simply REINFORCING them.

People will tend to believe in the existence of one of these four versions of reality, at least some of the time.  Even those of us who see through the veil of illusion to the underlying actual reality will, from time to time, lapse into acting as if living in one of these four universes.  What is the actual reality?  Apparently, it's that most people are mostly straight, except when they're not, that most people are mostly serial monogamists, except when they're not, that most people are sexually active, except when they're not, and that most people most of the time are mostly boring, again, except when they're not.  Some people are assholes, some people are decent, and the majority fall somewhere in between.  Most importantly, the reality (unlike anything you've seen in the movies) is that NO ONE IS THE PROTAGONIST.  This means that nothing is guaranteed to work out for you or anyone else in the end, because there is no "the end."

The end.