It’s kind of a bummer as it’s nice to have a more artistic representation of sex outside of porn which is more of a commodity. Movies can connect the sexy scenes to the non-sexy scenes which potentially makes them more powerful. Also, movies can tie moral value to sex which is interesting to explore.
I am in favor of sex in movies making a comeback, as long as it doesn’t create problems for the actors.
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I think a lot of times the scenes are still done heavily through a male gaze. You’ll see more frontal of her than you ever will of a man.
Sex in movies always felt awkward because usually it’s a plot device to push the male character’s story, a ‘reward’ for the male character… Or just one of many sexual assault scenes bestowed on nearly every female character ever because “DRAMA.”
Not all sex scenes are like this, but a LOT of sex scenes are like this.
You never get full frontal of dudes because many of even the most sex-positive people hold a double standard against penises. Any time a penis might have to be on screen, it’s vulgar to them and at most belongs in humor.
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I remember seeing people complain that Game of Thrones has too many dicks swinging around. I can remember one specifically from the entirety of the show: towards the beginning of the show, possibly season 2 or 3, there was an assassination plot against Khaleesi and they left one of them alive so they could pull him with their horses while he was naked and bound. That’s the only one I remember seeing from that whole show.
And then in The Boys there’s only like two they’ve shown so far? Who is seeing all these dicks where there aren’t any?
I mean, The Boys isn’t a great example. It’s kinda rife with dicks. There’s guys hanging dong, there’s people going inside dicks, there’s exploding dicks, there’s self-elongating dicks, there’s (in the spin off) a person climbing a dick.
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Not anyway near the same way they show women. It’s usually brief and then still spent more on her being the sexual one. He gets to be gruff and whatever.
Because it’s been done so many times and it’s mostly just cheesy stuff. There’s really no new way to show people having sex in movies/shows.
Sex in movies peaked in Team America. You know the one.
Exactly! I think this graph deserves a special line for puppet sex.
I’m guessing it’s because the highest grossing films are now just slop trying to appeal to the widest demographic possible, so if they include sex, the are excluding families from seeing the film.
What bothers me more is that violence gets a PG rating here, sex gets an X rating. How in the world is it more inappropriate for kids to see people naked than for them to watch someone hack someone else to death? The graphic violence should get a more restricted rating than on screen sex.
When your nation always needs to be at war, it’s helps to repress sexuality and normalize violence. This isn’t so much a conspiracy theory, but an observation of an emergence behavior that reinforces itself.
I think you have a good point. It’s also a important part of the handmaid’s tail. Where sex is repressed for most of society. Especially soldiers (?!).
Another part maybe is sports, American society spend so much money in teaching sport to kids at a level that is pretty high. Compared to other nations.
How big is her tail?
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It basically moved to TV instead. Wonder how that statistic compares if they’re counted together.
Rise of sex in TV series 📈
The effect porn on portable devices had on how much people need to make deposits in the spank bank
Incline if use of shades of greys in diagrams instead of easily identifiable colours: up 500%
46 Shades of Grey Short
Tv shows took the sex thing
They have enough time to develop a plot where the sex actually makes sense instead of forced in
I wonder if it’s linked to the decline in sex in real life due to young people staying inside more and playing video games instead of socializing. I swear I saw an article about that at some point on Lemmy (or maybe Reddit).
People, especially young people are having sex less across the board because everyday life has become a crushing grind, not because of videogames and staying inside. People do choose to do those things instead of socializing… because they are burnt out from trying to meet rent, getting treated like shit at work and sitting in hours of traffic everyday.
Young people are still just as horny, they are just also very tired and sad.
It’s due to easier accessibility to porn. It both reduces demand for the relatively timid sex scenes in films and also reduces their edginess/shock value.
I also think this is it. Sex scenes in movies used to have an effect on people. Now they just tune out and go get a snack and a drink or something until it’s over. Boooriiing. I will say, though, some filmmakers have been forced to get creative. That scene in Bladerunner 2049 was pretty hot. It didn’t even need to include anything gratuitous.
Shock value being non-zero desensitizes the public. I mean, this is a problem with everything today from action movies to software, so not sure if I can even find an example showing that this is a bad idea.
But they could, you know, go for subtlety and artful cinematography and acting, lights and colors, sounds and shadows.
But would be strange to expect that from sex when they don’t do that with central parts. Movies like “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall” are something unthinkable today.
Yeah, but I think sex scenes don’t need any shock value or compete with porn. They can depict the many ways sex influences people irl.
Roughly correlates with the rate of decrease in people 18-30 having sex. I’m not sure of the order of influence there, or if there even is one, but it’s possible the declining presence of sex in media is a result of it being less relatable for something like 30% more young people than previous generations.
Good. I watch movies to be absorbed by the story, not to see tits.
Fast Forward has been a thing since like…the 80s
Or I could… y’know… watch/do something else that doesn’t have this crap to begin with.
Let me just go harass the theater workers to do that.
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I wanna see this extended back to at least 1980, which was around the peak for nudity and sex scenes in film; after porn was legalized but before internet porn.
as an asexual person i find other people’s opinions on this interesting. the sex scenes do nothing for me and i’m usually just waiting for them to end but i understand my circumstances are not common. i can only assume that someone who is into sex gets something out of sex scenes, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.
what i don’t understand is the demonizing of sex scenes in movies. like does everyone only watch movies with their parents/kids? i don’t like sex scenes due to my asexuality and i’m glad that there are few of them because this cultural shift benefits me specifically (who has never been in the target demographic) in a roundabout way. but i wouldn’t say they are all gross/unnecessary/graphic/etc as a blanket statement like i see people in this thread and other places online say. art doesn’t need to be for everyone.
HuH, I feel like I’m in a minority at least in this thread. I’m definitely interested in the sex scenes. It doesn’t matter how easy it is to find porn, because that’s not in universe nor even “how far” they go on screen since things can be implied. A movie with sexual tension, progressing toward sex is interesting, and external porn is irrelevant to that plot.
Of course that assumes it fits the movie somehow. I definitely agree some sex scenes were just inserted for the prurient interest and really shouldn’t be there. Then again, there are bad films saved only by random appearances of boobs
I’m with you, I like sex scenes, sometimes because they represent a satisfying conclusion to a narrative arc but also because sometimes they are just pleasing to look at. Personally I don’t buy the argument that hard-core pornography makes them irrelevant. Have people stopped taking photos of shirtless guys and women in bikinis? No, of course not. The internet is still chock-full of photos and art of this content.
As a sexual person sex scenes do nothing to me either and feel like time lost for the actual plot.
As a don’t get any sex person sex scenes reminds me that I’m horny and makes me unconfortable and feel like a waste of time in a movie
Yea unless somone is getting killed or mugged in the middle of the sex, it usually adds nothing of value
Sex scenes in movies are a combination of this weird shameful “I want to show I’m having sex but I can’t actually show it” and “It’s almost like porn if you removed all the porn.”
You’re really stuck in a pointless awkward middle ground that satisfies nobody. And 95% of the time it isn’t even plot relevant so you’re just wasting time. The decline basically just coincides with internet access to the masses.
I correlate it with the weird feelings that religion introduced about sex and let Al Pacino speak my feelings in Devil’s Advocate:
“let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do? I swear, for His own amusement, His own private cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow.”
Not all religion. (I know, this reads funny.)
There are Christian societies where this kind of repression doesn’t exist. It’s treated as something very important, though, and you show such feelings (in social perception) towards the person you want to have kids with, but without this strange contradiction.
Though most kinds of European Christianity are like what you said.
And then I want to say one thing - this contradiction already existed in Greek and Roman pagan religions. We tend to imagine those folks as some olive and fish smelling libertines, always half-naked. But even getting drunk (on a party, where everyone drinks wine) was considered something really shameful and hedonistic. Sexual morale was considered pretty important. Prostitution and non-obligating contacts would happen, but there’s no society without such.
I want Dennis Reynolds to direct. That way any sex scenes will show full penetration and actually be worth having in.
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how about marionette sex? cause the extended version of Team America World Police has like 3 minutes of uncensored doll sex and it is hilarious
It reminds me about the sex scene from Family Guy
You can show cute emotions of real people having a moment relevant to their arcs and the plot.
You won’t show anything of meaning in a mainstream movie, though.
Yes, but why? Sex is an important part of human life and relationships, it influences people’s behaviour and decisions, yet it’s being depicted less and less and often not in a satisfying way. So why doesn’t it get depicted in a meaningful and plot relevant way? A good recent example that it can be done is The Poor Things (sexuality is one of the main topics there and is depicted and talked about very openly).
