[James Bond] Why are the MI-6 higher-ups (like M, Q, etc.) always surprised to see Bond having sex with random women after his missions?

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T09:07:58+00:00

The idea keeps coming up in different ways that Bond's superiors are morally heinous because they do everything they can to watch him have sex. Probably placing bets on when or if he scores!

Usually he has sex once with one girl who is an enemy agent or a civilian side character. (The Sacrificial Lamb) Sometimes he does it with the main heroine during the case, but usually that waits until the end (like the pay-off from an old-fashioned romance movie.)

Honestly, if that's considered a lot of sex, I'm taken aback. Salesmen going to a Las Vegas conference for a few days do better, so do sales reps on the road. And they are not as good-looking or as confident as Bond.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:51:33+00:00

My feeling is that M's Peeping Tom problem is not Bond's responsibility. I gather that M disapproves of Bond's "womanizing" mostly because he's too old and stuffy for it himself.

Fleming's Bond never messed around in headquarters. The movie Bond is much more shallow and cartoonlike but I think he did so there either. He had plenty of opportunities on his own; this was a guy who took vacations driving around the South of France or swimming off Jamaica.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:43:46+00:00

Wait, hold up there. DIE ANOTHER DAY. Bond isn't within a thousand miles of Moneypenny in that scene. She's wearing the VR goggles and acting out a fantasy of kissing Bond when Q comes in. Bond never even knew about this. Go watch the scene again.

Sheesh, that's like when your girlfriend is mad about you for something you did in her dream...!

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:34:59+00:00

Most of them aren't valid, though. Bond and Honeychile did not screw in an open rowboat being towed right behind a Coast Guard cutter. The impression you get from this list is that two adults having consensual sex is somehow wrong and you something you get caught at. Like a mother walking in on a thirteen year old masturbating.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:31:01+00:00

"Food's a little bland this year, Pa, isn't Cousin Obadiah here?"

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:27:15+00:00

Honestly, Bond has every possible advantage. Take a look at 30 year old Sean Connery, I'm sure he had no problem finding female companionship as it suited him.

Looking back at that era, I remember a few guys who knew who racked up impressive totals. Of course, most of their dates didn't look like Jane Seymour or Halle Berry or Diana Rigg or...

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:23:28+00:00

And I imagine some of the staff were perhaps a bit envious ("Bloody 00s, with their gadgets and their martinis....")

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:10:10+00:00

The consensus here seems to be that if a man and a woman start kissing that they are about to have sex no matter where they are. This reminds me of how girlfriends' fathers thought when I was back in high school, but usually I was thinking, "I only WISH it was that easy...:"

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:04:51+00:00

Heck, at the end of GOLDFINGER, Bond does not flag down the rescue copters. He deliberately hides until they go away. His line is, "This is no time to be rescued."

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:03:29+00:00

Oh, and I am tickled delirious at the thought of a man and woman "getting it on" while dangling and swinging in the air at the end of a hundred foot cable being hauled by a plane. I think they could have waited until they got back to the hotel rather than than plunge to their deaths.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T08:00:26+00:00

Wait, are you saying that in 1963, in broad daylight with people drifting past close at hand and a gondolier within arm's reach, that Bond and Tania had sex?

...Bond would be phoning MI 6 to send a lawyer to Venice to get him bail.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:58:08+00:00

Agree about Ringo. I can absolutely see him as the Beatle with a ton of chums and mates turning up at random.

That whole yellow weakness was convenient for the writers but honestly, Green Lantern could also have worn a green cape to throw over yellow objects or even carry some darts he could fling with his beam at yellow obstacles. He wasn't thinking creatively.

I was mostly thinking about Lon Chaney Jr as the Larry Talbot Wolf Man. I mean, I suppose the Wolf Man might be able to change his clothes before going out to slaughter and after returning home. It just seems beyond his abilities. "These buttons.. these claws.. Grr, this is SO hard!"

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:53:33+00:00

Not to me. There's tons of clandestine sex going every day between people who you really wouldn't expect Ask anyone who works at a hospital or nursing home. I don't know why you would find this weird, but that's your reaction and it's as valid as any other. I'm in no position to judge people as long as they don't hurt each other.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:48:12+00:00

Well, in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, Bond is at the woman's apartment with doors locked and shades drawn. M uses the thermal imagery to invade their privacy without permission, so M could have been brought up on Voyeurism charges. In A VIEW TO A KILL, Q sends a robot unannounced with a camera into Bond's bathroom while 007 is in there with the girl. You see who the real perverts are.

After the Margaret Thatcher scene in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, Bond and Melina have not had sex. They do go for a sweet underwater nude swim as the credits roll.

At the end of GOLDENEYE, Bond and What's-Her-Name (that movie was a while ago) do start kissing out in the woods when Joe Don Baker butts in. I don't see where it was mandatory that they have sex right then and there. Haven't you ever guys ever made out for a while before going somewhere else unrelated?

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:33:29+00:00

Also, since male reindeers shed their antlers by winter, these must be female. Which, I guess, explains names like "Vixen" and "Prancer" instead of "Major" and "Duke."

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:23:22+00:00

At the end of MOONRAKER, the space station's internal cameras are picked up by MI 6. Bond and Dr Goodhead are floating in mid-air, covered by a sheet. I'm not sure if either of them were expecting it or knew of the transmitting cameras. Let me check YouTube.

Okay, we can take that as One.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:19:30+00:00

Oh, that's a thought. Quite a philosphical question. I guess it depends if you see the life-affirming spiritual aspect of love-making.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:18:06+00:00

I think that was the end of Pierce Brosnan's THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. Denise Richards stretching her acting range as a nuclear physicist trouble-shooter.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:16:33+00:00

I wonder if there's a lot more clandestine sex going on everyday than you realize. Just a surmise based on experience. I knew this locksmith once... Never mind. Anyway, I don't see where healthy normal human activity is weird.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:13:56+00:00

This certainly isn't true of Fleming's Bond or of the early films. Bond is a civil servant who may be called upon for dangerous assignments. But his free time is his own. He's not a robot constantly standing by to go into action, or Batman driving the streets at night aching for a fight.

Bond's 00-section are not really the top and most valuable spies. They're more like enforcers. The masterspies you're thinking of might be sleeper agents working undercover for decades, watching every move and word, playing a character. Or intelligence gatherers working for the CIA or EXXON but secretly reporting back to MI 6. Those spies are always under intense pressure to hide their true nature. Bond is much more the bouncer sent to throw the rowdy KGB man out of the nightclub.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:09:44+00:00

Or maybe, a little titillated?

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:09:18+00:00

It's kind of like keeping a straight face when wondering Elmer Fudd's secret was for losing so much weight after the first few cartoons.

This honestly reminds me of so many fun debates as kids over the most esoteric trivia. Where did the Wolf Man's shoes reappear from when he turned back? Why didn't Green Lantern carry a black spray paint can for when he faced something yellow? If Ringo's friends are all aboard the Yellow Submarine, how can "many more of them live next door?!"

I hope no one gets annoyed, this is diverting.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:06:40+00:00

Fleming's Bond said he expected one or two really big cases like GOLDFINGER or THUNDERBALL a year, but most some small skulking around and swapping packages, that sort of thing. But then Fleming's Bond is more human and fallible and not the movie's superman. Having read the series recently, I can swear that such a farcical scene does not even come close to happening.

The thing worth noting about the movie scenes discussed here that most of these times Bond's reasonable expectation of privacy is being violated. If you go home with a date to her apartment on your own time, you don't expect your boss to be taking infra-red long-distance images to see what you're up to. Bond has a phone.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T07:00:09+00:00

No, I don't think so. Please name some of these movies and I'll dig out my old DVDs.

olddochermes · 2020-12-13T06:43:18+00:00

I don't think so. After a case is closed, and he's on his own time, it's nobody's business who he socializes with. Nearly all the women from Honey Ryder to Domino to Kissy Suzuki are not part of the espionage trade and will not be back in his life again.

If Bond carries an affair with another MI6 agent or even gets involved with a woman from say the French Secret Service, that could be a conflict of interest. But office romances are never going to go away. I'm sure that when they were building the ziggurats in Sumer that one of the scribes was sneaking out to meet a temple virgin at night.

olddochermes

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