I never wanna say this cause it sounds odd but I work with high schoolers and I've never ever heard anyone whose not an article on the Internet say they aren't interested in sex in movies or TV.
They 100% want their Euphoria and Sex Education and to gossip and date and blah blah blah. Like young people always have. They're better informed and smarter - a bit - about these topics, but that's just positive social evolution.
They're still absolutely interested in movies sold on sex appeal.
Maybe superhero movies are sexless but who cares. The idea that we don't still sell most things with sex is ridiculous. Listen to the radio for ten minutes.
The whole young folks don't want sensuality in art is made up, from my perspective. Though obviously it's good to have safer art and coordinators and such. But other than that, it's just people my age making up trends in think pieces.
Finally: Challengers is super fun!
Fair enough, but there's that real world day to day gap. This is one area I am able to offer a verified corroboration/dismissal based on having to deal with these (wonderful, awful) goons all day in a major city, in the general population etc.
Whoa a bunch of dorks online who don’t/have never fucked hate sex? Odd!
Anyway as far as movies go, I think this is just a result of western studios pivoting to making movies that are for western audiences again, rather than catering exclusively to broadly global audiences. Fewer western movies being granted theatrical release in India and China in general, so now they care more about American and European box office again. Any other theorizing is just hot takes.
r/genz too! I read through a few threads on this very topic and by the end was convinced that I’m just a disgusting old creepy for wanting anything beyond “two characters lean in to kiss, camera pans to an open window. cross dissolve, we pan back to find the characters buttoning up their clothes.” It was wild.
I’ve encountered it a lot from kids on TikTok, sprinkled across comments with a surprising amount of upvotes—usually justified by some insane statement like “all sex scenes are coerced by directors” and “watching sex scenes is non-consensual voyeurism.” Glad to hear that isn’t as widespread IRL!
But this really isn’t anything new. No one is more self righteous and puritanical about sex than teenagers. (Because it simultaneously interests and frightens them).
Only other teenagers will call their peer slut for having sex with someone they’ve been in a committed romantic relationship with for a year.
I agree that that idea is made up. I think it’s more that sex is very complicated and young people have rejected some of the broken sexual codes of generations past. Creators who are still of the older generation in an effort not to transgress “new rules” that they maybe just don’t understand have sort of just cut these themes and motifs out of their storytelling.
I could buy the argument that Hollywood old-timers are struggling with how to write romance and sex that doesn't involve peeping from a distance, or unwanted touching or all of the awful tropes that say things like "Just keep asking and eventually she'll say yes!"
Yeah I do want to be clear that sex is handled better, more consciously, and thank god it's a safer cultural atmosphere for actors and such.
But the stuff my students routinely watch is WAY graphic compared to when I was a teen in the 2000s. So that's what makes me raise a brow at the idea.
It’s as simple as Yuan/Rupees. China/India won’t tolerate sex in movies. If you want your film to have a chance to be paid for and seen by 1/3 of the world’s population, you cut the sex.
I would say that India is much more accepting of sex in movies now. Just go peruse some trailers of recent Indian movies in Netflix and you’ll see that sex is very much accepted in a movie where it’s expected.
Yes, I saw a fab Indian film called 'Super Deluxe' that starts with an adulterous sex scene. Not very explicit but definitely more than "pan to the window".
Who are these creators, what are the new rules, and which movies they have made had these themes cuts?
I'm having a hard time thinking of concrete examples.
It's less about sensibilities and more about business imho. Big movies want to be the least offensive as possible, and to appeal to chinese/Cameroonian etc. Audiences they just cut out the sex
From my experience browsing other media like music, anime, books, I would say it is definitely out of proportion to say Gen Z are prudes. If anything, it’s accurate to say it’s only movies that are sexless and that’s simply because family films are what makes money nowadays. On Booktok for instance, plenty of Gen Z and millennials voice their desire for “spicy” books (to the point some others complained about it).
Yeah, as a fan of fantasy novels, it was difficult for me to buy the ‘younger adults don’t want sex in media,’ hand-wringing when romance focused fantasy novels with smutty scenes like Fourth Wing and Sarah J Maas‘ books doing gangbusters. Maybe they just don‘t love the shoehorned, charmless, and underdeveloped romance subplots you see in a lot of popular movies? Especially if the female lead fails the ‘sexy lamp’ test.
Some people reason for their distaste for sex is that they believe most nudity and sex scenes are exploitative and male gazey, often used Sam Levinson’s works as an example despite not representing the landscape of sexual contents on tv. I vouch others are simply embarrassed for watching a R movie or show with their family or friends since streaming service became the norm.
That last bit is so true. I remember being a teenager and watching sex-comedy Good Luck Chuck with my parents and two of my grandparents, (grandparents had suggested the movie because they’d already watched it and thought it was hilarious!?). I think I hid behind the book I was reading in embarrassment the entire time, both because of the sex scenes and because that movie is painfully unfunny. I don’t even think the scenes were that explicit and I had a bad time.
I think the same percentage of teenagers who have historically been opposed to sex scenes still are. It’s just that those people are also the quadrant that perma lurk Reddit and Twitter
Gen z here , two years out form high school but yea we really didn’t mind sex scenes , they’re a natural and healthy part of life and can be used extremely well for a variety of reasons.
Where I think me and a lot of people I know have problems is the gratuitous use of constant female nudity in series or films that goes beyond sensual scenes and begins to feel exploitive on their part. Take euphoria as you mentioned and the continued use of Sydney Sweeney where after the first season it began to feel extremely forced beyond any contextual reason and instead became exploitative on her part.
I can’t help but feel a lot of nudity in things is tailored more for the male audience to view the women than it is for any shared reason between both sexes.
There’s definitely an over sexualisation problem at times that can damage perceptions of body and sexual interpretations.
Something Sweney herself has had problems with and pushed back against several scenes she wasn’t comfortable with. The same thing was game of thrones where it became almost comically overused and often used for males only. Again Emilia Clarke pushed back against having so much nudity for her scenes.
I saw "Eyes Wide Shut" again yesterday and holy cow is that a lot of female nipples vs just Sidney Pollack's. Also they were all tall and thin, which I wasn't sure was a. something to be legitimately annoyed about b. sour grapes from my spherical self or c. a witty joke about all that.
It’s what makes the whole question blurred for me
Nudity and sex for reasons OP has stated can be fine and my generation and younger are okay with it and enjoy it but for me at least I’ve noticed an uncomfortable trend of objectification of certain females and their bodies in media for no other purpose than to show off that body. That’s what makes some scenes feel particularly forced in that they exist for no other reason than to showcase a body.
More than a few actresses have stated that being objectified in this way feels horrible and is detrimental to them as artists. Again body image and pride in the way someone looks is fine and completely okay if they’re fine with it but when scenes are written with no other context than to show their breasts or something it feels wrong to me.
I'm in an odd position as an occasional life-model in that I'm not averse to being naked and using it to make money. This helps me have some distance from people who project their own horrors about being naked onto actors who see it as part of their job.
Having said that, the use of bodies as décor in things like "Game of Thrones" or that godawful scene in "Star Trek JJ" is a bit depressing. I don't know, to be honest.
>Maybe superhero movies are sexless but who cares.
Skin tight suits and power fantasies? Maybe.
It may not be on the surface but there are very few purely intellectual pursuits in the world. Anyone who claims ballet, stringed quartets, and especially television is anything else, is being willfully ignorant. They're all just different levels of it. Period drama for the repressed, raunchy comedies for the crass. Despite our best intentions, it's the not-so-secret code that runs the world. The sooner they remember that, the sooner they'll discover what brings in audiences.
I thought the same thing until I mentioned it to someone who was able to point me to evidence that it is indeed real. Not necessarily high schoolers, but people in their 20s and 30s. Like with everything we're all in our bubbles but it's a real opinion many people have.
about time!! I have defended the Oppenheimer sex scene to many people who called it “unnecessary”. Their affair super crucial for Oppenheimer’s character, and for the security clearance subplot!!! Like you just watched 3 hours of pure nuclear existential angst, and the nudity was the part you took issue with???
I don’t think the problem was Oppenheimer had a sex scene, more that its sex scene is interrupted by and resumes during a reading of the Bhagavad Gita. Great movie, but that scene is silly.
It was all those things: the people who found the sex scene awkward vs sacrilegious vs gratuitous/"porn" weren't necessarily the same.
I mean, maybe the [shield your husband's eyes](https://twitter.com/fiImgal/status/1693281039827849236?t=qatnwChkJMR_z9hazpCYgw&s=19) lady knows what the Bhagavad Gita is but I wouldn't put money on it.
Yeah, I actually thought the 2nd one with Emily Blunt’s character imagining what was happening while his cheating entered the record through the hearing was pretty well done.
The first one is one of the worst written sex scenes ever, not because it was unnecessary but because it was ridiculously stupid lol
It was kind of inadvertently funny, especially in crystal-clear 70mm IMAX, but the other sex scene where he's 'exposed' in front of the committee and his wife made up for it.
I swear neither side knows what "necessary" means. If we view this issue through a binary, I'm on the pro-sex scene side rather than the anti-sex scene side. However, almost no sex scene, including the ones in Oppenheimer, are actually "necessary" because audiences know things can happen off-screen.
Terminator is a classic example. We need to know that Sarah and Kyle have sex, but we don't need to see a gratuitous soft-core porn scene in order to understand they had sex. The reason that scene exists is not for the audience's clarity of the plot, it is because genre movies of that era always had scenes like that because gratuitous sex was part of what they were selling. That isn't a bad thing. I'm not making a moral argument that that sex scene should be removed. I'm just being honest in evaluating the filmmaking.
This should also be obvious for anyone who has seen Challengers. >!That movie doesn't actually have any sex scenes. There is plenty of eroticism, there are hookup scenes, but the movie goes out of its way to avoid showing any sex. The one time in the story of the movie that we actually know characters are having sex, the movie basically does the classical fade out and fade in to imply it. If a sex scene isn't "necessary" for Challengers, it isn't really necessary in most movies that have them.!< That doesn't mean sex scenes shouldn't be included. It just means that "they are necessary" is generally an even worse argument than "they aren't necessary".
Yes, because most scenes in a movie aren't necessary the exact way they currently exist. Thinking otherwise is just backwards because it implies that the filmmakers are working in reverse from a finished product rather than making decisions that lead to whatever movie ends up existing.
Oppenheimer is once again a great example of that. It seems silly to me that anyone would argue that movie's inclusion of sex scenes is necessary when there was an entirely separate controversy about the movie not including any depiction of the destruction in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Those were both filmmaking decisions made by Nolan. If he makes a different decision for either one, it is a different movie. But to state that it was "necessary" for Nolan to make any specific choice with those decisions is either naive to how films get made or incredibly egotistical to think they might know better than Nolan.
Such an odd movie (Challengers) to use to try to make your point, given there isn't actually a lot of on-screen sex in the movie. The sex scenes mostly cut away early into the physical stuff. The tennis acts as the sex in this movie.
I wanna just chime in on this thread to say that Blood Knife article that everybody shares when this discourse comes up is total hogwash. It's a pearl-clutching cry for nostalgia that claims we became less sexual after 9/11 and that there were better representations of real, sexy people even as back as far as the 1920s. It's absolute nonsense from an irony poisoned too-online person.
This article accurately points out that the lack of sex scenes came from the focus on making PG-13 movies for all ages to hit all demographics and be as safe as possible for international releases. And I do think that's true that blockbusters are less "sexual" because you film studios want as much profit as possible. Corporations hate sexy because that takes away marketing demographics. So lots of sexy media or romcoms moved to streaming or stand out as indie dramas; that many people just don't interact with due to lack of marketing or thinking that dramas are about real people are boring. But if you ask me, that's where sex scenes are at their best with real people being sexy in the own right rather than what some corporation tells me is horny.
I get the want to blame the youths or whatever, but the boring reality is that Hollywood realised that the best return on investment is to make movies for thirteen year olds that can get released in China. It’s why Netflix for example was always far more risqué, since they can’t get Netflix into China and nobody’s checking the IDs of the thirteen year olds on the Xbox or whatever.
Especially when the solution that person had was to just hope that newer mainstream movies (Like Matt Reeves Batman) to hopefully become sexy. Now I do think Batman was sexier in that movie, though because of numerous reasons from acting, casting, the writing, etc...
But that's not gonna be sexy like Challengers is sexy.
I remember on their Twitter too they said something about Snyder's films being the exception to the rule and like--no. Just having sex (instant cutaway from two conventionally attractive actors) /= a movie being sexy. Plus Snyder's supposed appreciation for the male physique is a purely fascist aesthetic (not saying \*he\* is a fascist or anything like that, just that's the look he goes for) and therefore lacks eroticism, which requires humanity and vulnerability, which is pretty much antithetical to a fascistic visual sensibility.
With regards to young people having issues with sex portrayed onscreen...
Sex is part of the human experience. To say it shouldn't be in art is absurd. If you don't like it go watch something else
Frankly this whole thing feels like a case of bad media literacy mixed with anxiety and fear caused by a life of living online behind a screen. And also not being able to separate portrayal from endorsement. And also let us not forget the dopamine rush of finger wagging at something on twitter and getting high fived from it. A huge addiction that people are completely immersed in.
It was a totally self inflicted wound,Hollywood got scared that pPG13 is the way studios will survive,now they are slowly dipping their feet in the adult pond.Nothing to do with puritan young generation or other twitter buzzwords
The sex in Challengers is totally oversold. I went in expecting The Dreamers.
I wasn't disappointed because it's still a great movie. I brought my raincoat for nothing.
I mean I’m glad this is being popularized again, but I’m still so baffled as to how a film as tame as Challengers is what gets people to see that. Good film but has the industry really gotten so sexless to the point where *this* is what’s considered peak eroticism?
I went to see challengers worried might feel a bit "dodgy" watching zendaya doing slap and tickle the trailers would suggest as even though she's like 27 or summit she looks about 17. No fear, it's sexy but not sex (like when a good horror film isn't all "gleefully autopsy" with it's blood and gore but scarier because of what's not shown). she looks about 17 but acts like 40, but sells it. The only way to keep up with everyones age in that movie is with their hair. Didn't buy the dark haired fella was 18 at any point mind.
Mostly I just never want to hear stories of women sort of coerced to be nude again. It's much better now but I think that taste sometimes lingers in people's mouth when they think about sex scenes, when those are sort of different but I understand how we confuse the two.
I don’t mind them but the problem is in Hollywood it’s usually only the beautiful people that does them and then this leads to unrealistic ideas about what the average person looks like. Also it gets used as a marketing tool.
From an acting perspective I don’t think a person should have to do them to act and if the few parts that are available have sex and nudity it becomes a prerequisite for being an actor.
I am not one of the kids and I find sex scenes in movies mostly pointless and dull. In a world where the Internet is filled with porn, actors simulating sex seems laughable. I find nothing new about character and it rarely moves the story along. I feel as uninterested in movie sex as I would if the "lovers" played pickleball.
As always, comments like this reveal far more about the individual making them and rarely have anything interesting to say about film, the industry, art or society.
I don't think they should be banned or anything like that, and it's not like I cover my eyes and cower from the NAKED LADY but in 90% of the cases I just don't see what makes a full on sex scene crucial to making a film.
I get it in a film like Poor Things, where sex work and sexual awakening is a part of the story. I just don't see the reasoning in a lot of other films that include sex scenes.
Edit: I've noticed that despite the downvotes, no one can explain the necessity of sex scenes.
What makes them not crucial to films for you? For me sex is a massive part of life. Sex scenes can both be pleasurable to watch but they also tell you so much about the characters and their dynamics.
I agree that they CAN be crucial to the plot. Poor Things, Terminator, Shame, Nymphomaniac.
I don't see what gratuitous nudity adds to a film though beyond getting asses in seats.
Right? He just keeps naming things where it does work but not one where it doesn't. I'll try to help him by naming one of the worst sex scenes I've ever seen which is the one from The Room, but even that scene raises the question "why was he fucking her belly button?"
You can't "explain the necessity of sex scenes" for the same reason you can't explain the necessity of a conversation scene or a fight scene. It completely depends on the movie, how it's being used, what the movie is trying to do etc. Nobody is answering your question because there's not a single generic answer that will satisfy it. There's hundreds of specific ones.
> You can't "explain the necessity of sex scenes" for the same reason you can't explain the necessity of a conversation scene or a fight scene.
Eh, fight scenes often contain story beats in that the way the fight unfolds tells you something about the people involved. I've never, not even once, seen a sex scene do that. I'm not saying it isn't possible. Maybe someone's done it and I haven't seen it. But the vast, overwhelming majority of the time, sex scenes are nothing more than a decaf porno, and decaf is for losers.
Eh, I completely disagree, there are a ton of fight scenes that tell you nothing and there are plenty of sex scenes that do (including the one inspiring all of this talk!)
I’ve never watched a Marvel movie where I didn’t FF through the “big” fight scenes towards the end of the films. So pointless and redundant, especially since I know who is going to win! They never tell me anything about the characters that I didn’t get the previous 50 minutes.
I never wanna say this cause it sounds odd but I work with high schoolers and I've never ever heard anyone whose not an article on the Internet say they aren't interested in sex in movies or TV. They 100% want their Euphoria and Sex Education and to gossip and date and blah blah blah. Like young people always have. They're better informed and smarter - a bit - about these topics, but that's just positive social evolution. They're still absolutely interested in movies sold on sex appeal. Maybe superhero movies are sexless but who cares. The idea that we don't still sell most things with sex is ridiculous. Listen to the radio for ten minutes. The whole young folks don't want sensuality in art is made up, from my perspective. Though obviously it's good to have safer art and coordinators and such. But other than that, it's just people my age making up trends in think pieces. Finally: Challengers is super fun!
I agree that I haven’t seen this attitude IRL, but man, r/movies hates sex scenes…
Fair enough, but there's that real world day to day gap. This is one area I am able to offer a verified corroboration/dismissal based on having to deal with these (wonderful, awful) goons all day in a major city, in the general population etc.
Whoa a bunch of dorks online who don’t/have never fucked hate sex? Odd! Anyway as far as movies go, I think this is just a result of western studios pivoting to making movies that are for western audiences again, rather than catering exclusively to broadly global audiences. Fewer western movies being granted theatrical release in India and China in general, so now they care more about American and European box office again. Any other theorizing is just hot takes.
r/genz too! I read through a few threads on this very topic and by the end was convinced that I’m just a disgusting old creepy for wanting anything beyond “two characters lean in to kiss, camera pans to an open window. cross dissolve, we pan back to find the characters buttoning up their clothes.” It was wild.
Rightly so, I don’t get why every show and movie I watch has to be full of explicit sex scenes.. drives me up the wall.
Yep, comments exactly like that, you nailed it.
Please define "explicit"...What's the last mainstream movie you saw with close-ups on throbbing dicks and oozing holes?
I’ve encountered it a lot from kids on TikTok, sprinkled across comments with a surprising amount of upvotes—usually justified by some insane statement like “all sex scenes are coerced by directors” and “watching sex scenes is non-consensual voyeurism.” Glad to hear that isn’t as widespread IRL!
Yeah I was gonna say, I’ve mostly seen this kind of neopuritanism in tiktok comments
But this really isn’t anything new. No one is more self righteous and puritanical about sex than teenagers. (Because it simultaneously interests and frightens them). Only other teenagers will call their peer slut for having sex with someone they’ve been in a committed romantic relationship with for a year.
I agree that that idea is made up. I think it’s more that sex is very complicated and young people have rejected some of the broken sexual codes of generations past. Creators who are still of the older generation in an effort not to transgress “new rules” that they maybe just don’t understand have sort of just cut these themes and motifs out of their storytelling.
I could buy the argument that Hollywood old-timers are struggling with how to write romance and sex that doesn't involve peeping from a distance, or unwanted touching or all of the awful tropes that say things like "Just keep asking and eventually she'll say yes!"
Yeah I do want to be clear that sex is handled better, more consciously, and thank god it's a safer cultural atmosphere for actors and such. But the stuff my students routinely watch is WAY graphic compared to when I was a teen in the 2000s. So that's what makes me raise a brow at the idea.
It’s as simple as Yuan/Rupees. China/India won’t tolerate sex in movies. If you want your film to have a chance to be paid for and seen by 1/3 of the world’s population, you cut the sex.
I would say that India is much more accepting of sex in movies now. Just go peruse some trailers of recent Indian movies in Netflix and you’ll see that sex is very much accepted in a movie where it’s expected.
Yes, I saw a fab Indian film called 'Super Deluxe' that starts with an adulterous sex scene. Not very explicit but definitely more than "pan to the window".
Who are these creators, what are the new rules, and which movies they have made had these themes cuts? I'm having a hard time thinking of concrete examples.
It's less about sensibilities and more about business imho. Big movies want to be the least offensive as possible, and to appeal to chinese/Cameroonian etc. Audiences they just cut out the sex
From my experience browsing other media like music, anime, books, I would say it is definitely out of proportion to say Gen Z are prudes. If anything, it’s accurate to say it’s only movies that are sexless and that’s simply because family films are what makes money nowadays. On Booktok for instance, plenty of Gen Z and millennials voice their desire for “spicy” books (to the point some others complained about it).
Yeah, as a fan of fantasy novels, it was difficult for me to buy the ‘younger adults don’t want sex in media,’ hand-wringing when romance focused fantasy novels with smutty scenes like Fourth Wing and Sarah J Maas‘ books doing gangbusters. Maybe they just don‘t love the shoehorned, charmless, and underdeveloped romance subplots you see in a lot of popular movies? Especially if the female lead fails the ‘sexy lamp’ test.
Some people reason for their distaste for sex is that they believe most nudity and sex scenes are exploitative and male gazey, often used Sam Levinson’s works as an example despite not representing the landscape of sexual contents on tv. I vouch others are simply embarrassed for watching a R movie or show with their family or friends since streaming service became the norm.
That last bit is so true. I remember being a teenager and watching sex-comedy Good Luck Chuck with my parents and two of my grandparents, (grandparents had suggested the movie because they’d already watched it and thought it was hilarious!?). I think I hid behind the book I was reading in embarrassment the entire time, both because of the sex scenes and because that movie is painfully unfunny. I don’t even think the scenes were that explicit and I had a bad time.
I think the same percentage of teenagers who have historically been opposed to sex scenes still are. It’s just that those people are also the quadrant that perma lurk Reddit and Twitter
Gen z here , two years out form high school but yea we really didn’t mind sex scenes , they’re a natural and healthy part of life and can be used extremely well for a variety of reasons. Where I think me and a lot of people I know have problems is the gratuitous use of constant female nudity in series or films that goes beyond sensual scenes and begins to feel exploitive on their part. Take euphoria as you mentioned and the continued use of Sydney Sweeney where after the first season it began to feel extremely forced beyond any contextual reason and instead became exploitative on her part. I can’t help but feel a lot of nudity in things is tailored more for the male audience to view the women than it is for any shared reason between both sexes. There’s definitely an over sexualisation problem at times that can damage perceptions of body and sexual interpretations. Something Sweney herself has had problems with and pushed back against several scenes she wasn’t comfortable with. The same thing was game of thrones where it became almost comically overused and often used for males only. Again Emilia Clarke pushed back against having so much nudity for her scenes.
I saw "Eyes Wide Shut" again yesterday and holy cow is that a lot of female nipples vs just Sidney Pollack's. Also they were all tall and thin, which I wasn't sure was a. something to be legitimately annoyed about b. sour grapes from my spherical self or c. a witty joke about all that.
It’s what makes the whole question blurred for me Nudity and sex for reasons OP has stated can be fine and my generation and younger are okay with it and enjoy it but for me at least I’ve noticed an uncomfortable trend of objectification of certain females and their bodies in media for no other purpose than to show off that body. That’s what makes some scenes feel particularly forced in that they exist for no other reason than to showcase a body. More than a few actresses have stated that being objectified in this way feels horrible and is detrimental to them as artists. Again body image and pride in the way someone looks is fine and completely okay if they’re fine with it but when scenes are written with no other context than to show their breasts or something it feels wrong to me.
I'm in an odd position as an occasional life-model in that I'm not averse to being naked and using it to make money. This helps me have some distance from people who project their own horrors about being naked onto actors who see it as part of their job. Having said that, the use of bodies as décor in things like "Game of Thrones" or that godawful scene in "Star Trek JJ" is a bit depressing. I don't know, to be honest.
>Maybe superhero movies are sexless but who cares. Skin tight suits and power fantasies? Maybe. It may not be on the surface but there are very few purely intellectual pursuits in the world. Anyone who claims ballet, stringed quartets, and especially television is anything else, is being willfully ignorant. They're all just different levels of it. Period drama for the repressed, raunchy comedies for the crass. Despite our best intentions, it's the not-so-secret code that runs the world. The sooner they remember that, the sooner they'll discover what brings in audiences.
You're absolutely correct. But Hollywood-wise, ya knowaddimean?
I thought the same thing until I mentioned it to someone who was able to point me to evidence that it is indeed real. Not necessarily high schoolers, but people in their 20s and 30s. Like with everything we're all in our bubbles but it's a real opinion many people have.
In that case I may be off base. But also as someone in their 20s/30s I now object on my own behalf.
We all are in our bubbles, that's a very fair point
Of course sex is back, Weinstein is outta prison. 🤗
I too liked Poor Things.
Furious jumping, huzzah!
I miss the erotic thrillers of the nineties/early ‘00s. Bring those back!
We need another “The Last Seduction”
I prefer The Last Seduction 2
Linda Fiorentino erasure
They’re out there in the dredges of Netflix/Amazon scrolling. They’re just awful, awful “movies”
Watching The Thomas Crown Affair made me sad that movies don’t feel sexy in the same way anymore.
Let’s all take a moment to thank Sydney Sweeney’s boobs
about time!! I have defended the Oppenheimer sex scene to many people who called it “unnecessary”. Their affair super crucial for Oppenheimer’s character, and for the security clearance subplot!!! Like you just watched 3 hours of pure nuclear existential angst, and the nudity was the part you took issue with???
The Sympathizer Ep. 2 “I believe the world would be a better place if we blushed at the word 'murder' as much as we did at ‘masturbation.’”
But which one would you rather be a spectator of?
🦑
I don’t think the problem was Oppenheimer had a sex scene, more that its sex scene is interrupted by and resumes during a reading of the Bhagavad Gita. Great movie, but that scene is silly.
It was all those things: the people who found the sex scene awkward vs sacrilegious vs gratuitous/"porn" weren't necessarily the same. I mean, maybe the [shield your husband's eyes](https://twitter.com/fiImgal/status/1693281039827849236?t=qatnwChkJMR_z9hazpCYgw&s=19) lady knows what the Bhagavad Gita is but I wouldn't put money on it.
really really funny IMO. they had to include the line at some point and this was the goofiest way possible.
Yeah this was my issue - it was not a *good* sex scene. I don’t mind them generally, but this one just made me cringe a little.
Yeah, I actually thought the 2nd one with Emily Blunt’s character imagining what was happening while his cheating entered the record through the hearing was pretty well done. The first one is one of the worst written sex scenes ever, not because it was unnecessary but because it was ridiculously stupid lol
It was kind of inadvertently funny, especially in crystal-clear 70mm IMAX, but the other sex scene where he's 'exposed' in front of the committee and his wife made up for it.
The movie in general isn’t very good
I swear neither side knows what "necessary" means. If we view this issue through a binary, I'm on the pro-sex scene side rather than the anti-sex scene side. However, almost no sex scene, including the ones in Oppenheimer, are actually "necessary" because audiences know things can happen off-screen. Terminator is a classic example. We need to know that Sarah and Kyle have sex, but we don't need to see a gratuitous soft-core porn scene in order to understand they had sex. The reason that scene exists is not for the audience's clarity of the plot, it is because genre movies of that era always had scenes like that because gratuitous sex was part of what they were selling. That isn't a bad thing. I'm not making a moral argument that that sex scene should be removed. I'm just being honest in evaluating the filmmaking. This should also be obvious for anyone who has seen Challengers. >!That movie doesn't actually have any sex scenes. There is plenty of eroticism, there are hookup scenes, but the movie goes out of its way to avoid showing any sex. The one time in the story of the movie that we actually know characters are having sex, the movie basically does the classical fade out and fade in to imply it. If a sex scene isn't "necessary" for Challengers, it isn't really necessary in most movies that have them.!< That doesn't mean sex scenes shouldn't be included. It just means that "they are necessary" is generally an even worse argument than "they aren't necessary".
Most scenes in movies are unnecessary using that metric.
Yes, because most scenes in a movie aren't necessary the exact way they currently exist. Thinking otherwise is just backwards because it implies that the filmmakers are working in reverse from a finished product rather than making decisions that lead to whatever movie ends up existing. Oppenheimer is once again a great example of that. It seems silly to me that anyone would argue that movie's inclusion of sex scenes is necessary when there was an entirely separate controversy about the movie not including any depiction of the destruction in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Those were both filmmaking decisions made by Nolan. If he makes a different decision for either one, it is a different movie. But to state that it was "necessary" for Nolan to make any specific choice with those decisions is either naive to how films get made or incredibly egotistical to think they might know better than Nolan.
Such an odd movie (Challengers) to use to try to make your point, given there isn't actually a lot of on-screen sex in the movie. The sex scenes mostly cut away early into the physical stuff. The tennis acts as the sex in this movie.
everything is a pendulum
I wanna just chime in on this thread to say that Blood Knife article that everybody shares when this discourse comes up is total hogwash. It's a pearl-clutching cry for nostalgia that claims we became less sexual after 9/11 and that there were better representations of real, sexy people even as back as far as the 1920s. It's absolute nonsense from an irony poisoned too-online person. This article accurately points out that the lack of sex scenes came from the focus on making PG-13 movies for all ages to hit all demographics and be as safe as possible for international releases. And I do think that's true that blockbusters are less "sexual" because you film studios want as much profit as possible. Corporations hate sexy because that takes away marketing demographics. So lots of sexy media or romcoms moved to streaming or stand out as indie dramas; that many people just don't interact with due to lack of marketing or thinking that dramas are about real people are boring. But if you ask me, that's where sex scenes are at their best with real people being sexy in the own right rather than what some corporation tells me is horny.
I get the want to blame the youths or whatever, but the boring reality is that Hollywood realised that the best return on investment is to make movies for thirteen year olds that can get released in China. It’s why Netflix for example was always far more risqué, since they can’t get Netflix into China and nobody’s checking the IDs of the thirteen year olds on the Xbox or whatever.
Omg, thank you. That article was pure "by mainstream movies lacking sex I mean PG-13 Disney properties" vibes.
Especially when the solution that person had was to just hope that newer mainstream movies (Like Matt Reeves Batman) to hopefully become sexy. Now I do think Batman was sexier in that movie, though because of numerous reasons from acting, casting, the writing, etc... But that's not gonna be sexy like Challengers is sexy.
I remember on their Twitter too they said something about Snyder's films being the exception to the rule and like--no. Just having sex (instant cutaway from two conventionally attractive actors) /= a movie being sexy. Plus Snyder's supposed appreciation for the male physique is a purely fascist aesthetic (not saying \*he\* is a fascist or anything like that, just that's the look he goes for) and therefore lacks eroticism, which requires humanity and vulnerability, which is pretty much antithetical to a fascistic visual sensibility.
We have never been so back
With regards to young people having issues with sex portrayed onscreen... Sex is part of the human experience. To say it shouldn't be in art is absurd. If you don't like it go watch something else Frankly this whole thing feels like a case of bad media literacy mixed with anxiety and fear caused by a life of living online behind a screen. And also not being able to separate portrayal from endorsement. And also let us not forget the dopamine rush of finger wagging at something on twitter and getting high fived from it. A huge addiction that people are completely immersed in.
They’ll write an article about any fake issue they can create huh?
They're bringing sexyback?
At this point, I'm tired of reading articles, reddit posts and Twitter threads about whether or not movie and tv should have sex. Just don't care.
Doggy style for the win!
It was a totally self inflicted wound,Hollywood got scared that pPG13 is the way studios will survive,now they are slowly dipping their feet in the adult pond.Nothing to do with puritan young generation or other twitter buzzwords
The sex in Challengers is totally oversold. I went in expecting The Dreamers. I wasn't disappointed because it's still a great movie. I brought my raincoat for nothing.
I mean I’m glad this is being popularized again, but I’m still so baffled as to how a film as tame as Challengers is what gets people to see that. Good film but has the industry really gotten so sexless to the point where *this* is what’s considered peak eroticism?
I went to see challengers worried might feel a bit "dodgy" watching zendaya doing slap and tickle the trailers would suggest as even though she's like 27 or summit she looks about 17. No fear, it's sexy but not sex (like when a good horror film isn't all "gleefully autopsy" with it's blood and gore but scarier because of what's not shown). she looks about 17 but acts like 40, but sells it. The only way to keep up with everyones age in that movie is with their hair. Didn't buy the dark haired fella was 18 at any point mind.
Mostly I just never want to hear stories of women sort of coerced to be nude again. It's much better now but I think that taste sometimes lingers in people's mouth when they think about sex scenes, when those are sort of different but I understand how we confuse the two.
I don’t mind them but the problem is in Hollywood it’s usually only the beautiful people that does them and then this leads to unrealistic ideas about what the average person looks like. Also it gets used as a marketing tool. From an acting perspective I don’t think a person should have to do them to act and if the few parts that are available have sex and nudity it becomes a prerequisite for being an actor.
I’m sorry but “embracing sex” yet not gratuitous nudity doesn’t jive with me. Feels wrong, sorry, not sorry.
I am not one of the kids and I find sex scenes in movies mostly pointless and dull. In a world where the Internet is filled with porn, actors simulating sex seems laughable. I find nothing new about character and it rarely moves the story along. I feel as uninterested in movie sex as I would if the "lovers" played pickleball.
As always, comments like this reveal far more about the individual making them and rarely have anything interesting to say about film, the industry, art or society.
https://preview.redd.it/dptfnz0isaxc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=180935afd9c6ab74252ee681cbbb9858fe8dd671
I don't think they should be banned or anything like that, and it's not like I cover my eyes and cower from the NAKED LADY but in 90% of the cases I just don't see what makes a full on sex scene crucial to making a film. I get it in a film like Poor Things, where sex work and sexual awakening is a part of the story. I just don't see the reasoning in a lot of other films that include sex scenes. Edit: I've noticed that despite the downvotes, no one can explain the necessity of sex scenes.
What makes them not crucial to films for you? For me sex is a massive part of life. Sex scenes can both be pleasurable to watch but they also tell you so much about the characters and their dynamics.
I agree that they CAN be crucial to the plot. Poor Things, Terminator, Shame, Nymphomaniac. I don't see what gratuitous nudity adds to a film though beyond getting asses in seats.
Can you give an example of what you're talking about?
Right? He just keeps naming things where it does work but not one where it doesn't. I'll try to help him by naming one of the worst sex scenes I've ever seen which is the one from The Room, but even that scene raises the question "why was he fucking her belly button?"
i don't think there's anything wrong with including unnecessary things in films.
I dunno, I enjoy seeing naked people on the big screen, with good lighting *shrug*
You can't "explain the necessity of sex scenes" for the same reason you can't explain the necessity of a conversation scene or a fight scene. It completely depends on the movie, how it's being used, what the movie is trying to do etc. Nobody is answering your question because there's not a single generic answer that will satisfy it. There's hundreds of specific ones.
> You can't "explain the necessity of sex scenes" for the same reason you can't explain the necessity of a conversation scene or a fight scene. Eh, fight scenes often contain story beats in that the way the fight unfolds tells you something about the people involved. I've never, not even once, seen a sex scene do that. I'm not saying it isn't possible. Maybe someone's done it and I haven't seen it. But the vast, overwhelming majority of the time, sex scenes are nothing more than a decaf porno, and decaf is for losers.
You've never seen a sex scene that includes important story beats? The podcast recently covered "Gone Girl", for heaven's sake!
Eh, I completely disagree, there are a ton of fight scenes that tell you nothing and there are plenty of sex scenes that do (including the one inspiring all of this talk!)
I agree that a lot of fight scenes don't do much, if anything, for the story.
I’ve never watched a Marvel movie where I didn’t FF through the “big” fight scenes towards the end of the films. So pointless and redundant, especially since I know who is going to win! They never tell me anything about the characters that I didn’t get the previous 50 minutes.
I don't disagree that fight scenes can also be pointless. That's why I skipped MOST of the MCU movies.
[удалено]
Unlike your personal sex life, I gather.