I am not a teen.
If it does not serve a purpose for the plot, then it’s not needed. Simple as that.
Character development? It might not directly impact the plot or move the story forward, but how a character relates to sex can tell us (the audience) a lot about them.
Exactly this. A lot of media is atrocious about shoehorning in things even if they are jarring and dont make sense. Token characters (race, sexuality), token ideologies (veganism, feminism, religion, etc), stereotypes, you name it.
Edit: and famous celebrities for no apparent reason. Surprise! Your favorite character from the book this movie is based on is now played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Yeah because everyone in media needs to be straight, white, and Christian. 🙄
Representation matters.
Sure, but I get what they mean. Sometimes you have a minority character that doesn’t very much seem to interact with the plot, nor has many discernable personality trait beyond being part of a minority.
Representation matters, but it should be done in a way that makes the characters actual people, not just a tick in a checkbox.
And there is definitely a tokenism issue in Hollywood. There’s a reason why the “gay best friend” is a Hollywood stereotype.
They’re saying that characters irrelevant to the plot having diverse roles feels forced. Wouldn’t you agree diverse roles should be in meaningful roles like leads?
No, I don’t think I would agree. If I walk down the street, I’m going to see people of all types. Why should including people of all types in media be any different? Having more diversity in lead roles is preferable, yes, but I don’t see what feels “forced” about more diversity across all roles. If anything, it seems like that would be more realistic.
People downvoting as a reactionary for making them feel bad, but I agree.
Having a stereotype as a character for the sake of “representation” is not representing anything good and is not doing justice to anyone who would be more than a single note character.
I’m tired of bad writing and gimmicks to get people to have a reaction to an otherwise bad story, but that doesn’t mean I want movies with none of the topics in it, I just want it to mean something when it’s there.
Exactly.
(Natural/Organic storytelling) The Boys: Maeve, Kimiko, and Starlight, beating the shit out of Stormfront
Vs
(Forced/jarring) That scene in Avengers Endgame, where every female character from across a massive battlefield appeared next to each other. As opposed to the scene in Infinity War with Proxima Midnight which felt fairly natural.
Or even better, movies actually dedicated to telling stories about underrepresented cultures such as The Woman King
I remember seeing trailers about that, completely forgot to actually go watch it. I’ll add it to my watch list (someday I’ll start watching things on the list)
Actual no holds barred sex of every sort you wish to see, as often as you wish to see it, a click away on the interwebz, the titillation found by past generations in R rated movies and late night Television, no longer computes, and is wholly unnecessary
Yea that was my thought too. When I was a teen we had one PC and it was in a shared room. Had to rely on the TV for jerk off material. These days everyone has the whole internet in their pocket. TV is for watching good stories, they can skip the sex scenes.
Writing a story and having to make my characters not want to have sex because of the existence of an unrelated industry outside the context of their universe.
Striking out any gambling references in my stories because of the rise of online gambling.
Then I realize I’ve stupidly written scenes where my characters eat, having forgotten like a stupid hack how many restaurants there are in the real world.
Dude, there’s a difference between romance and full-on extended sex scenes. Fade to black and get on with the plot.
The sex scenes that most mainstream dramas have traditionally had are brief and not explicit.
And also not necessary. You don’t need to see two people fucking to know they’re in love. I assume you don’t need to see your friends fucking to understand that they met someone they’re really into.
Nothing is strictly necessary, you can tell instead of show any aspect of a relationship. But if drama is going to show a representative cross section of what human relationships are like, sex will be a part of that like romance and friendship aspects are.
It’s not about how no drama should show sex. It’s about how it is regularly getting shoehorned in at the expense of story, character development or run time.
And they don’t show a representative cross-section. Almost all sex in mainstream films is heteronormative and done by beautiful people. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
When we see a proportionally accurate representation of queer sex screens on our scenes, I’ll concede that they’re at least showing a broad representation, even if it does ignore all sorts of sexual kinks that would also need to be represented.
What if it’s not about love? Sex can be about many things and for the sake of the story.
Saying it only happens as the result of a perfect romance story is puritan and not beneficial to demystifying sex as an act that humans do.
And yet generally they’re romance scenes and not scenes involving lust or rape.
I am not the one saying it. Hollywood is.
No you are speaking from a specific point.
Poor things had lots of sex, not about love or romance.
Teeth, is rape.
Even Pretty Woman has a sex scene that is about the lust of the main character with no kissing to show it.
There are plenty of examples to prove you wrong as much as you have examples of your point.You are the one saying it cause you are making a broad statement from your perspective ignoring all that doesn’t fit into it. It doesnt make you right to selectively pick your examples because it’s the ones you think of and have a problem with you try to apply to the rest of it.
Uhh… some boob first, then fade to black.
If that’s an example of your writing, you’ve got much larger problems, my friend
Do you characters take big stinky poops? Because that’s a real thing too. Do they pop pimples on their body or on their partners? The list goes on. There’s an audience for everything, but it’s pretty obvious sex isn’t as much of a driver for movies anymore.
Sex is an important part of one’s life, bowel movements aren’t. (Hopefully)
Bowel movements are a vastly more important part of one’s life.
They’re more biologically necessary. They are less important to storytelling.
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In what respect? I feel confident in saying many if not most people take some pleasure in a good poop. Perhaps not as much as having sex but the point remains in a critical part of life.
Drama is largely about character relationships and sex is a part of that. There’s rarely any drama to our necessary biological functions. Pooping can be part of a story’s plot like sex, just much less often.
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I’m not a teen (far from it), but I’m with the kids on this one. The vast majority of sex scenes in movies are awful. They’re awkward and totally unrealistic. It completely takes you out of the movie. Most sex scenes are not engrossing or engaging, they don’t immerse you in the story, they push you out of it.
Most every sex scene feels like it was made by someone who’s never had sex. Every angle is the right angle, every thrust is ecstasy, it’s nonsense. It’s like someone who thinks the covers of romance novels are depictions of real life.
There are a lot of intimate moments that can be portrayed convincingly enough on film, but sex is rarely one of them. And it’s just not necessary. Let the audience infer, let us use our imaginations.
I have a friend who’s dated a bit but has never really had a boyfriend. I think she gives up too soon because she expects a Hallmark movie where everything’s perfect and every kiss is magical.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing, I kind of wish my standards had been higher when I was younger. I dated a lot of people longer than I should have, thinking that that was as good as it got. The fact that she is going on dates is a good thing- it means she’s at least getting an idea of how she fits with different types of people and she’s socially active.
Obviously she might overdo it, but as long as she’s content alone as well, she’s not really hurting herself. I guess it’s a function of how regretful a person she is and her age.
She’s 30 and has a physical disability that is obvious when she walks and requires her to use a wheelchair for longer distances. That makes dating difficult, so i hate to see her give up on people just because there’s no magic on the first couple of dates.
C’mon, didn’t you wanna see Oppenheimer reach criticality?
Soft coreHard coreDemon core
There’s a really good BBC miniseries about Oppenheimer made back in the 80s with Sam Waterston in the lead role.
On the one hand, it doesn’t have mind-blowing special effects.
On the other hand, there’s no sex scenes in a show about the scientist who helped make the atom bomb because why would watch a TV show about him and hope to see him fucking?
I wouldn’t even want sex scenes in a Feynman movie and he was fucking every woman who was willing. It’s just not a necessary thing to tell his story. You can show he was a horndog and not show him fucking.
Anyway, here’s the miniseries.
I agree, every sex scene looks like something that is not how people have sex. Except for the guy in office space https://youtu.be/JNVqMgCAHmk. That sex was real.
And no one is laughing or having a good time. It’s always some serious ass business.
ass business
I’m sorry, but this take feels out of touch. Every shot in a movie is at the right angle. Of course they’re unrealistic. Movies are unrealistic. Sure, some try to take a more gritty, grounded approach but in general art is trying to capture the highest and lowest points of life. Obviously it’s going to be unrealistic.
I think they’re probably referring to films that were otherwise meant to be realistic, then there is this terrible, unrealistic sex scene that is just a distraction
Fair enough, though calling this stuff art is a bit much. Most TV shows and movies are better described as visual junk food than art. I think a bare minimum standard is for the work to stick with you longer than 5 minutes after you finish watching it.
Fair enough, but when you’re trying to recreate something as intimate and vulnerable as sex, it just stands out more. Of course when I’m watching a movie I consciously know that what I’m seeing on the screen isn’t real, but when it’s done right I’m so immersed that that part of my brain turns off and I’m able to get completely lost in the story or spectacle. But more often than not, when there’s a sex scene I get completely taken out of it and instead of seeing characters having sex, I see actors engaged in an awkward simulation.
It’s just boring, and defeats the purpose of good story telling IMO. It’s either uninteresting showing very little, or it’s like porn, and when I watch a movie, I’m generally not in the mood for porn.
If they had great sex, it may not mean the same to everybody. But if you show them at a later point, like breakfast or something, and they are glowing and smiling bigly to each other, we all know what happened, and how it went.One point to disagree on: less teens than ever are having sex, and with no actual experience, their imaginations are based on porn. No wonder they’re terrified of it, if their first impression is what comes up when you Google “boy girl have sex”.
Too many parents are not open with their kids about sex. I made sure my daughter understood that there’s nothing shameful about watching porn or masturbating, but she should not expect actual sex to be like what she sees in porn and she will enjoy it a lot more if she won’t have those sort of expectations.
It’s not enough to just tell kids where babies come from. You need to tell them all sorts of things that they really need to know about sex because otherwise they’ll learn bullshit from the internet and other kids. Tell them about the things I mentioned and also about things like contraception and consent and even about kinks and why you shouldn’t feel shame or be worried if your kink involves consent all around.
It’s the stupid toxic “romance” that I want rid of. It gets so boring and tedious to watch. If it’s important to the story, then fine. But otherwise can we just normalize friendship between opposite gendered people without the need for bad relationship drama, jealousy, and normalizing the idea that when someone says no, they’re actually just “playing hard to get”.
can we just normalize friendship between opposite gendered people
Great idea. I would love a prominent TV show to have main characters of the opposite sex that are good friends and a romance is never shoehorned into it at any point.
Warehouse 13 got sooooo close.
Stargate SG1 did it as well or evem better than WH13 in my opinion. Sure Jack and Sam have some sort of romance but Teal’C, Sam, and Daniel are great friends. Atlantis did it even better with Ronon and Teyla.
Yeah, but not all the characters on any show were hooking up with each other outside of soap opera stuff. There was still an idea that two of them will end up falling in love. Why does that need to be part of the show at all? Let them all have partners outside of work.
Romance sells. Will they won’t they sells. Sex appeal sells.
It might seem cheap to you, but people do want and enjoy that kind of content.
Don’t you think people also might and want shows that don’t have those things? I really don’t think a single show where there is a mixed gender cast and no one ever ends up in bed with anyone else is going too far.
I’m sure some exist, but you’re an exception in not wanting that at all; most people want sex appeal and some romance.
Sex is an intrinsic part of being human and influences a lot of our decisions, it’s only natural for it to be in our media.
This is what I said:
Great idea. I would love a prominent TV show to have main characters of the opposite sex that are good friends and a romance is never shoehorned into it at any point.
A prominent TV show.
As in one. Singular.
So I’m not sure where you have gotten it into your head that I want no romance at all in media.
Honestly, Law & Order is good for this imo. Especially Benson and Stabler from SVU, and some of Criminal Intent with Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erba.
If you haven’t seen it. Ted Lasso is a great one for this.
I’ve had that show recommended to me before and I keep avoiding it because the subject matter doesn’t interest me, but I keep being told to watch it despite that, so it is on my long list.
I’m not sure what you think the subject matter is, but I was completely caught off guard. The main character is ostensibly in a “fish out of water” story, and that certainly creates a humorous backdrop. But the show is really all about mental health and wellbeing. People supporting each other while they learn to love themselves, deal with anxiety, trauma, and prejudice… It’s immensely beautiful, uproariously funny, and I will happily be the next person to recommend you watch it.
It’s the sports part that held absolutely no interest to me because I think sports are really, really boring. But I’m told I’ll like it anyway, and you seem to back that up.
There are plenty of shows “about” subjects that you really don’t need to have any interest in to enjoy, because the show is actually about the characters. Like Succession, is any knowledge about or passion for corporate takeovers necessary? In Ted Lasso, the sport is there to motivate the characters, and is only very occasionally on screen.
I want to believe.
Sherlock sorta did it. I don’t think those two ever got together?
Edit: I did very much mean Elementary
I think you meant Elementary, but good point! I forgot about that show!
Not only did they not get together, Watson made it clear that ain’t gonna ever happen within the first two or three episodes.
Twilight really fucked up the romance genre, huh? Lol
If there’s a 1 minute sex scene in a 90 minute movie, you’re guaranteed to have your parents walk in during that one sex scene.
Watching softcore porn with your friends and family is kind of undesirable.
I can’t think of a single sex scene in a movie that added value to it. They’re pointless and akward to both the audience and actors.
Other poster had a
goodonly example.Team America world police
Any art house film trying to portray reality.
Basic instinct interview
Off the top of my head, scenes in:
Poor Things
Nymphomaniac
Antichrist
Requiem for a Dream
Saltburn
Blue is the warmest color.
Disagree, if it’s in a romance movie it’s sometimes a necessary addition
The Room
Sounds like someone has never seen MacGruber! Pointless and awkward absolutely but the value added was immeasurable.
Euro trip
Black Swan
Brokeback Mountain
Eyes Wide Shut
Poor Things (which even makes it an important plot about finding your own power through sexuality while it also being a tool that can be used to take advantage of you)
Oh forgot TEETH very different movie if there was no sex
Lars van Trier’s Nymphomaniac would be very confusing without sex.
Yeah a lot of people proclaimimg from their own soapbox of limited perspective that sex is pointless and gratuitous when there are so many stories that don’t work.
We literally have stories that revolve around sex as its own topic like Nymphomaniac Last Tango in Paris that don’t work without sex. But someone got the ick watching Titanic so now apparently all sex scenes are derivative.
Eurotrip is excellent
Debbie does Dallas would’ve been a rather mediocre high school drama without the sex scenes.
Long shot
The McGruber movie had a good one
That’s a pretty blanket statement on it being awkward for actors when We Live in Time is in theaters right now and this is a story about a sex scene in it. https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/andrew-garfield-florence-pugh-we-live-in-time-sex-scene,
LOL I love the camera man hiding in the corner cause he can’t leave but wants to give them some privacy if they are having a moment.
American Pie
Team America World Police
Most of the (supposed) younger generation people I interact with online seem even more prudish and conservative about sex than my very religious parents were growing up. It’s super weird to be the older person who’s ok with sexual content. I don’t really get it.
And yes, I know people will claim it’s because it’s only when it’s not done right or when it feels shoved in, but honestly from the way they talk about anything dealing with sex, it feels like that’s just an acceptable excuse and they really just don’t want the content to exist at all, even if ‘done right’. It’s like a huge chunk of the generation is asexual or something.
I’m with you, and I’m worried about it because I see this sexual puritanism as both counter to good efforts of the sexual liberation movement and frankly as a trojan horse for future conservatism to take root.
I’m of the radical acceptance, not abstaining from the topic mindset on this topic, personally.
I think a huge part of the problem that not enough people are talking about are these kids grew up in heavily corporate controlled spaces and have begun to confuse advertiser-friendliness for social acceptability, and I think that is a huge problem.
I think it has less to do with their attitude on sex, and more to do with the availability of actual porn. I’m an older millenial, and even I’m of the opinion that full on sex scenes very rarely add anything to the plot. Implied sex is often more than enough to do the required plot advancement. If I wanted the sex specifically, I’d just go watch porn.
I tended to get the impression that implied sex (such as fade to black scenes) were also not appreciated. That effectively they just didn’t want their media to include references to sex pretty much at all.
Maybe most people are reasonable about it, but online at least it feels a bit like the old Tumblr days, except now these people are super anti sex everything and want to erase all mention of it.
I get it. Our generation was over exposed and so were they by proxy. They’ve also been listening to us telling them about stds, unwanted pregnancies and all the baggage that comes with sex. They also have so much other stuff to do, we didn’t have as many choices so we got bored, got underage drunk and boned. The younger people also see that it did to us and they don’t want to be like us I guess. A lot more pressure and stress these days to succeed and survive, they’re too busy trying to get educated or just survive
Well yeah, I think this is universal. No one wants to watch a sex scene with their parents
I watched GoT largely with my parents. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. That said, does it add anything? I can watch as much porn as a I want whenever I want.
But can you watch it with your parents??
Fair point I guess. If you want to watch porn with your parents, for some reason, but feel like that’s too far, I guess sex scenes is the best you can do.
The issue isn’t sex itself. It’s putting a sex scene in most movies meant for adult audiences. Imagine if there had to be a shootout or extended martial arts fight in every romance movie or Hollywood just wouldn’t fund it.
Use it where it makes sense, and leave it in the tool box when it doesn’t.
It’s fucking crazy to me that this is a hot take these days. I just want movies to be good. Throwing unnecessary sex scenes into a movie to drive ratings up usually does not achieve that.
Edit: And by unnecessary, I don’t even mean just not plot relevant. Only that they should add to, not detract from, the characterization, tone, or plot/story. Fucking loved Challengers (check it out, it’s great) and that had a sex scene like every 5 minutes. I just wanna watch some good fucking movies. If I wanted to watch good fucking-movies, I’d just find those online.
I saw… killing joke? Whatever movie was made off of that. The Batman Batgirl Makeout was completely unnecessary and more than a bit disturbing.
I thought they added romance to action movies for the female viewers. Lack of creativity turned romance into mostly sex.
Not jusr sex. Most romance can be deleted from series and movies and they would not lose any plot. It is virtually always shoehorned in.
Yeah that annoys me actually more. You often already see in the beginning what kind of (predictable) romance is developing, which just distracts from the main and more interesting plot, adding some kind of annoying drama that is just not necessary.
The kids are right.
Lol, If someone puts a gun against my head and says guess the most lied about thing in human history, honest to god I would say, Teens lying About sex.
For some reason I question the validity of this study.
There is porn now. Everyfuckingwhere. For free. So much porn. Niche porn. Hardcore porn. Fetish porn. You don’t have to jerk off to a lingirie catalog like we did when we were kids. Or sneak National Geographic magazines to see boobs. Sex in movies is just sad, stupid, and often unnecessary tittilation.
It’s this.
I remember walking to the video rental store in the 90s to hire VCR tapes. We always tried to get that ones rated 18+ because there would be some boob stuff. Usually the attendant wouldn’t care.
Now, fuck. Filtering porn out of my social media feeds is a daily ordeal.
Yeah “sex sells” only works when society is not constantly exposed to more extreme content.
So what, we’re gonna remove gore and action scenes too? I’m not saying sex scenes inherently have more “value” than any other scene, I’m not even arguing they have any “value”, but there are a lot of movies out there that are 90% “unnecessary titillation” in one way, shape, or form.
So what, we’re gonna remove gore and action scenes too?
If they are unnecessary to the plot, and add nothing, then yes?
Sex scenes are fine if they’re important to the plot, and/or they add to the movie or show in a valuable way. It just turns out that ~99% of the time, these scenes are completely unnecessary.
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Disagree, in the world full of all sorts of sexual depictions this just feels like you’ve accidentally switched to porn - something you’re currently not intended to do and if you would, you’d look for it directly.
It’s awkward, unnecessary and usually excessively artsy to be taken seriously, and actors might not be the kind of people you’d love to see sex scenes with.
While I appreciate and share your look at sex as a continuation and natural part of romance, I think it is necessary to show the main part - love, devotion, trust, butterflies in the stomach - and the rest can be figured out.
Something like “they lived happily ever after”
Yeah except people in relationships have sex.
Like it just is a thing that people do for reasons of intimacy or power or excitement. There are lots of excuses for sex and just reducing life to
"And they lived happily ever after and maybe had sex at some point
Isn’t even the kind of stories I would want to read or watch.In the real world people have sex and if I want stories to feel real they are gonna do that if it feels right. Doesn’t mean it needs to be gratuitous but hiding it feels Puritan and not true to reality either.
People in relationships also take a shit etc. Doesn’t mean we have to demonstrate it for further engagement.
But I guess that’s a matter of preference anyway. Let’s just agree that there is no single best option.
Sex should not be a myth that people are scared of and hiding it behind the extra that happens after true love does no help for the people who are now going to be afraid or perfectionists about a normal human experience.
I don’t like bad writing as a sell point but sex in stories is not that most of the time. The things trying to sell themselves on shock will turn to other aspects just fine. Look at the romance movie that ended with 9/11 instead of a sex scene for that.
I also think bathroom use can absolutely be included in a story if it works and is important to the story which sex as an intimate act with multiple characters usually is.
I just don’t think pushing a side of less sex should be talked about is a good side to suggest as equally valid as it does not help anyone but those that want it to be a controlling force and act.
If the plot is they slept with one another and now it’s awkward, it is better to at least show them passionately kissing the night before to set the stage for awkwardness later on
Dunno. There are better sources too look for sex. Watching a movie with your mates is just awkward.
There’s lot of ‘need to touch grass’ level of discourse of sex being icky these days.
Disclaimer: Based on my infrequent visits to tumblr and related subreddits.
I have zero sources to back this up but I blame American puritanism
Absolutely. Sex is viewed as either a prideful event to be overly open about or a dark hidden secret that only one should do.
If all we have is extremes no wonder neither side feels very interested in it. It loses the fact that it’s a thing that you just can do. It’s an action that can have lots of intent behind it and some of it is needed for procreation.
As is now it’s too surrounded by argument.I think that there’s a lot of anxiety more than puritanism. There’s a lot of reasons, but one of them is certainly the growing political divide; women are trending more and more liberal, and men more and more conservative. Women don’t want to get trapped by a man that doesn’t think that she should have rights, while men seem to think that they are ‘owed’ a woman to have their babies (…and how are they going to fucking pay for those kids, when they think their wife is going to stay at home, and they have zero fucking job prospects…?).
TBH, if I was a woman, I sure as fuck would not want to risk dating men right now.
Yeah I think that anxiety is the reason people don’t want to see it.
The study also shows that they want escapism and fantasy stories that are only happy more than ever as well.
Ignoring the harsh bits is the point and the anxiety of the topic of Sex itself is I think the key factor in it being taboo because people want to ignore that which makes them uncomfortable.
Team America World Police is the only movie that ever got the sex scene right.
MacGruber?
I promise. I’ll never die.
🎶 ONLY A WOMAN, IS ALLOWED TO TOUCH ME THERE🎶
I have argued this a bunch of times at this point, but movies should choose a target demographic and then go for it:
- Make family friendly movies without awkward implied sex under covers or while wearing underwear and such nonsense. Something that I can watch with family without it getting awkward
OR
- make adult, explicit movies where the actors are actually, explicitly, visibly fucking during sex scenes. Doesnt have to be straight up porn, just make sex scenes sex scenes.
TLDR: Make actual family friendly movies without, and actually adult and explicit movies with. The middle of the road stuff makes it awkward and/or unsatisfying for everyone present
Sex scenes peaked when Tommy Wiseau passionately made love to a belly button and you can’t tell me differently.
I was praying for a reference to The Room in this thread.
Charlotte Gainsbourg cutting off her clit with a pair of scissors in Antichrist was the absolute depth of the valley of sex scenes.
Jesus fuck that movie was not sexy. But, the sex is what made that movie. A horrific, depressing, Lars von Trier trauma device.
On a lighter note: when I was working at a local film festival, I got to meet Greg Sestero and watch a showing of the room followed by a q&a.
Lars von Trier understands the ugly side of sex, which is why his sex scenes work so well in his films. The sex scenes in Breaking the Waves were definitely needed. They were also pretty hard to watch.
