Pull Back A Little?

Men & Women, Movies

Here’s a quote from some young actor who is currently appearing in a TV show about homosexuals (which I’ll never watch):

“It is awkward, but the thing was, on the show we had people called intimacy coordinators and their jobs, they’re amazing, they’re jobs are to help with the sex scenes and everyone doing the sex scenes to feel safe and fine and not awkward.”

Here’s a thought:  if your actors are requiring what is essentially psychological counseling just to get through a sex scene, perhaps you might just want to dial back the sexuality a tad?

Look, I love me a decent sex scene:  Body Heat, Impulse, Zefferelli’s Romeo & Juliet, Don’t Look Now,  Unfaithful and the original The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (not the rape scene, though) — all those and more have been fun as hell to watch, and even now are still quite titillating.

The problem is that as the sexual boundaries have been pushed back on screen, the sex scenes have become not only more explicit, but more intense — and along the way, more harrowing.  Erica Jong once described porno movies as (paraphrasing) after the first ten minutes, you want to fuck somebody, and after the next twenty minutes, you never want to fuck again for the rest of your life.

Modern mainstream movies about sex are like that.  I defy anyone to be anything but depressed after watching Gaspar Noé’s Love, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac , 9 Songs or Anatomie de l’enfer (to name the most extreme examples).  In some of the modern French movies (e.g. Anatomie), I start to feel depressed during the first sex scene, which must be some kind of record.

I’m not suggesting we go back to the Hays Code era, where the husband and wife had to sleep in separate beds, and extra- or non-marital sex had to result in the death of one of the participants (which is downright sick, sicker than the taboo sex).  But seriously:  let’s just leave a little to the imagination, shall we?

Here’s a thought:  if a sex scene means that the actors have written into their contracts that the acts must be performed by a body double,  then dial it back and ditch the sexual stand-ins.  And any sex scene which lasts longer than one (1) minute should be edited until it doesn’t.

Let’s keep it sexy, but also keep it subtle, and short.  Sex doesn’t have to be spelled out — we all know what it’s about.  Here’s an example, from Hitchcock’s North By Northwest :

Anyone remember what this scene cut to?   Yup:  here it is.  Thirty-five seconds.

14 comments

  1. This is clearly fake news. As I’m pretty sure there aren’t ANY shows that are not about fags. (and I don’t mean cigarettes )

  2. Nothing says chemistry like actors needing counseling to get through a love scene without retching.

  3. My wife and I were binging Kiefer Sutherland’s show “Designated Survivor” about a low-level cabinet member who suddenly becomes President when the SOU is bombed. At first it wasn’t too preachy, then they killed off his wife who was my favorite character, but the final straw was the two guys doing it in a bed. Learning the designations of “top” and “bottom” was TMI and we immediately quit.

  4. IIRC, homosexuals and their lib enablers, cry foul over “counseling” that is supposed to cure homosexuality, but are good with “counseling” that makes actors feel ok with acting out homosexuality?

    Huh.

    Cue Kim’s tag line about going to the range.

  5. > Zefferelli’s Romeo & Juliet

    Oooooooohh…… Those 15 year old tittays……

    I went to a conservative Christian school. In 9th or maybe 10th grade, we were doing Shakespeare in English lit., and our teacher decided to show us this film. As she explained later, she had not seen all of it, but as it was made in ’69 and was rated G (which kind of blows my mind…. Those crazy 60’s!), there would be nothing objectionable for our Christian classroom full of 14-15yo horndogs.
    While she had never seen it, *I* had. Parts of it several times in a row, if you know what I mean. What the hell, I was 15, it only took a few repeats. So, I knew the exact moment Olivia Hussey’s big, round, firm and bouncy 16 year old breasteses were delivered unto the horny masses in the room, and had given my mates a warning.
    At the moment of the big (and bountiful, oh, so bountiful) reveal, I ‘disguised’ my voice as only a peri-pubertal idiot can (try to) do and blurted out “BOOOOBIEEEEEEES!” That got the teacher to look right at the class instead of the screen so she *still* missed the Boobies de la Bard!
    We didn’t, though! Much hooting and hollering commenced, even the girls were laughing. Someone finally informed Teach what the hubbub (huboob?) was about, and she didn’t believe us at first, kept saying, ‘But this is rated G!’ She actually stopped it and was going back to prove us liars, which we are all very much looking forward to, because as Rodney Carrington says, “Once you’ve seen one titty….. you pretty much wanna see all of ’em,” which has the Baboy Corollary adding “or again.” Alas, one of the very churchy gals she trusted not to be … well, one of us idiots, said, “No, it’s true, Juliet turned in bed and her boo.. breasts were bare.”
    So, boobus inturuptus deux happened, and I got a talkin’ to for saying something inappropriate in class.

    Interestingly… How can I put this in a way that doesn’t cause accusations of … something…..
    Hussey was 16 when that movie was filmed…. If I watch that movie now, it is expected that I not gawk in wide eyed wonder at those magnificent mammaries because, underage.
    I first caught sight of those beauties when I was 15 – and the actress by that time was 31! She was the older woman in every way to see it, and no one would fault a 15yo guy for lusting after a 16yo girl’s sweater puppies, right?
    They’re the same bewbs today as they were when I saw them then…. Jus’ sayin.
    Society is weird.

  6. Sexuality — the capacity for sexual feelings.
    “gay” — a faggoty misappropriation used by homosexuals to soften the blows of their faggotry.
    ‘fag’, ‘fairy’, ‘fruit’, and ‘fudger’ are preferred descriptions in my company.

    *****

    I discussed this subject with an artist acquaintance prior to reading this article.
    My position — I think the whole shootin’ match is fine sometimes.
    The rest of the time, I prefer engaging my imagination.

    Mondays on her delightful DiogenesMiddleFinger blog, the delicious and self-described ‘visually stunning’ blogstress Jan has a black-and-white portrait.
    Caution Warning Danger — Jan is nudely nekkid.
    And I am fine with that.

    One example:
    http://www.diogenesmiddlefinger.com/2021/02/some-random-notes-on-46-from-cheap-seats.html

    Oh, wait… that was an example of her snark about politicians.
    But it has a partially-nude First Son hunter biden, so it mostly counts.

  7. Note how ‘Hitch’ complied with the Hayes Office “one foot on the floor when in bed” rule…..
    or not.

  8. malaking baboy: I’m still laughing at your comment. Magnificent Mammaries indeed.

    One of the most erotic sex scenes I have ever seen didn’t even show any skin to speak of, but the “what and where” was what made it top notch. It was in the movie “Enemy at the Gates”, about a Russian sniper at the battle of Stalingrad. Vasily, the sniper, and his girl Tania, discretely make love in a barracks with hundreds of sleeping soldiers all around them.

    Another very erotic scene, IMHO, is in “The Godfather”. It’s when Michael Corleone, on his wedding night in Sicily, starts to undress the lovely Apollonia. Those were also some Magnificent Mammaries. (In the book, Apollonia was only 16, so also underage. Oh well.)

  9. After a long weekend witnessing my mother in law’s dance troupe participating in a belly dance festival, along with all the other troupes from the US, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand… I lean towards Erica Jong’s assessment, not Rodney Carrington’s. I’ve seen enough of Anna Rexia, Sandra Scoliosis, and Penny Potamus’s routine’s to last a lifetime.

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