Happy Pride Month! I have all sorts of thoughts about Pride, but this is not the post for that.

I finally got to see the movie Pillion last night. I’d been leery of it. By all accounts, it was excellent – and funny. But, as I’ve found myself motivated to state before, I am the least kinky person in the world and it’s taken me time to accept that BDSM relationships, although completely not what I want, are not somehow evil or even just bad. (I mean, they can be, but not because they’re BDSM.) Disclaimer: I’m possibly using BDSM wrong here, I’m not trying to be overly specific.

But I do love a good story well told, regardless of the subject, and my immersion in gay romance stories has definitely got me to appreciate that I don’t have a problem with BDSM at all (for others) if it’s clear that all parties involved are not only consenting, but having a good ol’ time. One of my favorite KJ Charles novels, A Seditious Affair, introduced me to the concept (obvious, but it just had never occurred to me before) that there are some people who can’t get off unless there’s an element of debasement or humiliation involved. Like, sex to them is flavorless and uninteresting without it. OK.

So if I was leery of watching Pillion, it was residual fear of watching someone be in a debasing relationship who didn’t want to be there.

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Turns out, Pillion dispelled those fears completely. It is excellent – and funny. Very well acted across the board. I will say that it’s great to see some of the Harry Potter kids grow up and have careers. Daniel Radcliffe, of course, and Alfred Enoch. But Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley) has already been impressive in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Queen’s Gambit and this is his movie. His character, Colin, is already openly gay, but quiet and clearly not very experienced. He lives at home with his loving parents and performs in a barbershop quartet with his dad and brother. His mom is clearly very ill, is actively trying to find him a nice boy before she departs this life.

What he finds instead is Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), an extraordinarily handsome biker who soon has Colin licking his boots in a dark alley. And Colin is here for it. And they fall into the kind of relationship that would be nothing but red flags to me, but works for them until it doesn’t. There are cringey but funny moments with Ray meeting Colin’s family, with Colin going on a camping trip/picnic with Ray’s biker buddies and so on. But it’s very much about the relationship and about Colin figuring out what he wants and doesn’t want.

(for what it’s worth, I think I accidentally watched the more edited tamer version, but I didn’t think I missed much. There is actual gay sex that happens, but it’s not that graphic.)

Where it resonated with me is the dramatization of a kind of relationship that I (for good or ill) have been part of – where there is so much value there, but enough irreconcilable roadblocks that it’s just not gonna work. And eventually, one or both of you is going to cut your losses and run. I recently had a meal and a sorta-date with someone I’d dated way in my post, who’d gone through some personal growth and apologized to me for how he’d treated me back in the day. And I kind of looked at him puzzledly and said, ‘thank you, but I hadn’t thought of that as anything more than “that’s just dating“‘. You meet someone, you explore what a relationship might be like, and it becomes clear early on that it’s a good fit or not (on one side or both). But it’s sadder when the potential becomes so strong and you both put in a lot of effort and you still can’t get it together.

I won’t spoil it, but I will say I found it very satisfying how both characters resolved the conflict at the end. (in ways that weren’t necessarily good, but were true to the characters)

Anyway, Pillion. Great movie. Go see it.

(Side note: it’s funny seeing AS in biker leathers and helmet through much of the movie, since I’m working my way through Murderbot, where his costume is quite similar)

I also watched a new romcom on Netflix, Office Romance, starring Brett Goldstein (who also wrote it) and Jennifer Lopez. I thought it was hilarious. Great cast across the board, including favorites like Tony Plana and Broadway babies like Roger Bart and Ali Stroker and Norm Lewis. I will say that if filthy language bugs you, treat it with trepidation. (It does not bug me.)