3 + 5

I may be off-base here, but the way von Trier depicted Joe's first sexual encounter was very interesting to me. I thought it odd that he had her lose her virginity at 15, which is the average age most people lose their virginity, but I imagine that was chosen for a reason. What interested me, though, was literally the way it was depicted. She took note of the exact number of thrusts involved. 3 + 5. And while she was getting laid for the first time, the screen is overlaid with the digits. First 1, then 2, etc. The sex is visible through and around the numbers.

There is an extremely insightful book called "Good Sex Illustrated" which was written in the 1970s in France. It's about the contents of sexual education materials produced for young people. In the 1970s, America was seen as progressive and sexually enlightened. France was seen as puritanical and provincial (my how the times change, eh?). In order to try to overcome this childish fear of sex, the French government had produced a series of sexual education books, different books for different age groups, from elementary school through to materials aimed at adults. The book reviews these "progressive" and "liberal" materials.

One of the insightful observations was that children are never given photographs of what the human body looks like at the age they are. There are sometimes photographs of full-grown adults, but the majority of materials which are supposed to teach children genital anatomy are abstract line drawings. This serves to give the children no way to determine if they are normal or not (the most common concern of children due to their total lack of experience seeing what others look like nude) and makes the concept of genitalia and sex foreign to them, preventing (intentionally) them from understanding that the materials are teaching them about themselves.

As Joe has her first sexual experience, we see the abstract digits presented. And while the digits, which might represent the abstract and unrealistic depictions of sex provided to Joe in "educational materials" (like the book she was reading in her fathers office which was, likewise, line-drawings and text - useless at conveying the visceral truths of sex), count up, we're shown the reality of sex behind them. Physical, sensual, and anything but the lies of line drawings and distillations of sexuality into 'arousal, climax, refractory period'. Joe is entirely unprepared for her first experience. Despite her curiosity driving her to read medical books, whatever education she's received in school, and whatever she has picked up from society at large, she didn't know what to expect.