i was thinking the same when i read through this thread stealth, maybe he is whacking phil next episode.

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Best. Thread. Ever.

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to whoever said.. it was 'just a blowjob, plain and simple' well... i dont know where you get yours (or if) but it's never just plain and simple, and the responses to this thread have actually been very insightful...

it's a great thread sofia.. and dont let anyone tell you different.. and how could i NOT respond to such a thread.. it would be.. an infamnia...

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<blockquote>Quote:<hr>On the other hand, can you imagine his reaction if Carm "only" received or gave O.S. in Paris?<hr></blockquote>

<span style="color:navy;font-family:century gothic;font-size:small;">Double standard. God forbid if Carmela received o.s. in Paris or any other place! Not to mention it is more likely for a man to get a bj than it is for a woman to receive cunnilingus (did I spell that correctly?). Let me ask this, could you imagine if Tony found out he wasn't the only one Carm had sex with? I thought it was hilarious when Tony told Dr. Melfi that he and Carm had sex the day of her father's birthday party. He told Dr. Melfi, "Poor thing was starved for it".

When Carm and Tony were separated and they were thinking of reconciling, Tony told Carm she had her own indiscretions. For Tony to even say that shows the machismo attitude mobsters have. All the whores Tony has screwed during his marriage and his wife confesses she had the hots for one of his guys, and shit hits the fan.

Do any of you agree the goomar's Tony has had are completely different from Carmela in terms of kinkiness, sexual aggressiveness, etc.? </span>

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There's something about the fact that Tony went and did this with a stripper right after he was angrily discussing Vito with Sil in the parking lot. Something about reaffirming his heterosexuality after all the gay stuff. The same kind of thing happened with Phil as he is talking about Vito with Vito's wife and then sees these bodybuilders on the TV. It's not that Tony or Phil have some gay tendencies, it's just kind of a normal inclination to deal with the discomfort of thinking about it.

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<span style="color:navy;font-family:century gothic;font-size:small;">Wasn't Tony eyeing the stripper at the Bing first? I think Tony just caved. He has been surpressing the "bagette in his pants 24/7" for awhile now and I was wondering when he was going to act upon his urges. </span>

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Yes, Pitbulluv, he was eyeing the Bing girl in not only a lascivious way, but in some sort of freakish freeze-frame way. I was thinking "technical difficulties." I've noticed this artistic touch several times this season; it's rather distracting.

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It was funny how they portrayed the scene, with Tony grimacing and then the stripper's head popping up. It was reminiscent of the scene where another guy was in the driver's seat of a truck, and someone's head pops up, only that time it was Vito's.

It seems to me like a subtle reference to that scene, since Tony had just decided to have Vito killed for performing oral sex in a truck.

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I don't know what is confusing about any of this: as part of the reconciliation (if Tony's description of it can be believed), Tony agrees to fund Carm's spec house, and she agrees to turn a blind eye to his sexual indiscretions. They have made a business arrangement. What is difficult to understand about that, other than why Tony would want to pay several hundred thousand dollars for that piece of mind?

I still stick by my out of left field notion that the stripper that blew Tony placed an FBI bug under the dashboard and this will be Tony's trip downfall.



"Pain is the cleanser!" - Ned Flanders </p>

SofiaG, definitely glad you started the thread. I've been so busy the last couple of days, I just had no time.

Weighing in on the most controverted points:

(1) I don't think it's at all beyond the pale to imagine that Carm was inviting Tony to partake in discreet sex while she was away. I'm not saying that that's the only interpretation or even the correct one. But it is a very valid interpretation, especially if you read between the lines this season.

The agreement that marked the reconciliation -- discreet sex, no affairs and nothing that "comes into the house" -- has been in place for a while with both parties seemingly at peace with it. Despite her professions of past sexual arousal in "Join the Club", Carm has apparently not been terribly "into" sex this season. During their first post-shooting "session", Carm was much more concerned about Tony's injuries than about the act itself. Her vocalizations did not communicate to me that she had an orgasm. Furthermore, there was an omitted line from Tony in this scene that was shown in season previews ("did you come"?) that shows he obviously suspected she did not. She described the encounter afterward as "nice", which Tony received with palpable dissappointment ("It's supposed to be better than 'nice.'")

Until that point, Tony himself seemed very pleased with the encounter, but he later told Melfi that dealing with AJ was no "aphrosdisiac" for him and Carmela, perhaps rationalizing why Carm was less enthralled with sex than he was.

Then he commented to Melfi a second time, episode before last IIRC, that Carmela is "a million miles away, even in bed", which I took to mean she was disinterested or very "ho hum" about sex.

If we believe Carm was telling the truth in Pax Soprano, she and Tony have always had pretty different sexual appetites, with him wanting it more often than she did and her welcoming his casual sex with whores because it "lightened her workload".

I'm torn on the issue of the kind of sex they have and whether that's an issue for Tony, Carm, or both of them. I'm unaware of any scene where it's implied that Carmela has given oral sex to Tony (including the aforementioned closet scene, which was just a prelude to a straight makeout, no sinking to the knees or gesturing that I saw). I used to think Tony was afflicted with a bit of the Madonna-Whore complex, but there have been too many instances where he has obviously enjoyed sex with Carm and has pursued it with gusto and vigor, however "square" the positions and techniques might have been. That does not comport with my understanding of the complex, which pretty much makes a man fairly repulsed -- in an incestuous way -- about having sex of any kind with his wife, especially once she has become mother to his children, thereby taking on a "maternal" identity to him. Perhaps it's just a thing of degree, with Tony having a pretty mild case.

The other possibility is that Carm just isn't into kinky or oral sex, and both she and Tony know and acknowledge this.

Which brings us back to what Carm meant with the "do what boys do". If Tony has noticed her lack of sexual appetite lately, she must be aware of it also. And don't forget that there was a certain amount of guilt Carm was feeling about going out of the country without Tony. She wanted him to go with her, but he wouldn't, and she broached the substitution of Ro rather cautiously. When it was finally time to go, she lamented about leaving him when "so much was going on" (Meadow moving, AJ with his usual problems, Tony still not long recovered from a near fatal shoointg, etc.). There was guilt written all over her face and voice.

So I tend to think she DID wink the "okay" for casual sex while she was away to assauge her guilt and as sort of a reward for him being an all round good sport about her trip and her own lack of interest in sex lately. It's bizarre, but it's the Sopranos, afterall.:-)

(2) It's really another topic, but I still find I'm in fundamental disagreement with jayduck about Tony's arc. I didn't find Tony immediately "changed" at all upon waking from the coma. Quite the contrary.

He was bitching mad at Janice and Bobby and a hospital staffer who brought him a meal the night before surgery. He was shaking down Jason Barone for a huge payoff, berating the kid terribly for simply being ignorant of his family shady mob connections. He tried to extort $2,000 from an EMT worker that had helped save his life, backing out only at the last minute. The very next episode, he agreed to kill a man he'd hugged in episode one this season, albeit without the obligatory financial or business reasons. He beat his bodyguard senseless to prove a point in this same episode. He has continued in every episode since the coma to transact his crooked businesses and sanction the usual means of enforcement.

So I do not at all see a Tony who was instantly changed after waking and has gone steadily downhill since. Rather I've observed a Tony that is on a rollercoaster of behavioral motivation and self-examination. One minute he's concerned about selling out the neighborhood, the next he's doing just that. One minute he's angrily stopping a sexual act that is on the verge of consummation out of conscience, the next he's getting a blow job. One minute he's barking at Janice and telling his shrink how much he resents her, the next he's arranging for a 500K windfall to her benefit. One minute he's ready to lay the law down about saving Vito, the next he's rationalizing why he's justified in killing him.

I just don't see a pattern. It's all over the place from week to week. Since my theory has been that the monks represent Tony's conscience, i.e., that his conscience is suing him in order to have him take personal responsibility for his actions, this roller coaster of behavior and motivation is understandable. The mercurial swings would not fit so well, however, with an arc of consistent moral devolution or descent.

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Melfi commented, "but you said there weren't many extracurricular activities since you got out of the hospital." The key word there was much...it really caught my attention after Tony agreed with her...because it left a shade of gray. By not much did they mean...not at all, or just a little?<hr></blockquote>

(3) On this third point, I definitely interpreted that scene as Tony affirming that he had had NO extramarital relations since the shooting. (He obviously doesn't count the close encounter with Julianna, which he probably thinks makes him a saint, LOL). He even commented "That's okay" . . . he wasn't troubled by the lack of outside sex.

IMO the whole reason for this discussion, as I stated in one of the threads for "The Ride", was that he was resentful of Carmela asking about Ade. The key in his words was his sudden, out-of-the-blue modification of the terms of the reconciliation, which involved only sex, to one that involved Carmela questioning him about his "business". His long silence after and refusal to look Melfi in the eye during this silence spoke volumes to me. His beef with Carm couldn't have been about the original agreement, since he'd not had outside sex and since she'd not asked about it. Rather the beef had to be about her nosing into other aspects of his Mafia activities and lifestyle.


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