Last week, I spent hours watching actress Naomi Watts shagging. The series Gypsy has her bumping uglies with onscreen and real-life husband Billy Crudup, a lot. Oh, and there’s steamy girl-on-girl action aplenty, too. It’s all supposed to be arousing and edgy but, frankly, I was bored.
Not because the series is bad (it’s not) or because the acting is awful (it’s strong). I only mention this series as it’s the most recent one I watched. But it could have been any show, really, as there are few these days that don’t include sex scenes that are too long and too much. The result: I have seen the orgasm faces of nearly every working actor, and I really didn’t need to.
I’m happy to get the idea that hot sex is ahoy in a show without seeing it played out with Cirque du Soleil-worthy acrobatics. If I must witness the act for the plot’s sake, anything more than a few seconds is overkill. I know what’s to follow when a couple start slamming each other against walls. But when they go beyond that and start switching positions, I’m likely to switch channels.
Sex scenes have lost their potency to the point where I now see them as a cue to make a cuppa. I know they will run for a few minutes and add little to the plot. Like car chases and fight scenes, they’re all same-same, not different. I’ve seen it all before, too many times. And it just won’t go away.
I might sound conservative, but I can assure you I’m not. I’m all for uninhibited sex and have no judgment whatsoever as to how someone enjoys it – providing all parties are consenting, of course. But that doesn’t mean I want to see what normally happens behind closed doors played out in my lounge room. If I wanted to watch porn, I would. When I sit down to engage with a show, I want to watch a story unfold, not a potential conception.
Casablanca conveys the passion and desire of enraptured lovers like no other. We didn’t need a shot of Bogart’s butt or Bergman’s boobs to bring this message home.
WENDY SQUIRES
Sex on screen has been so oversold it’s lost its value, and art is suffering as a result. Scriptwriters and directors of films in the past had to find artistic ways of conveying the act without reverting to the cowgirl position. The ethos around sex in film was that it should be known, not shown. And I miss that creative subtlety.
Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett up a staircase in Gone with the Wind, and the “cat that got the cream” smile that followed, said everything. The details were left to our imagination. Another classic, Casablanca, conveys the passion and desire of enraptured lovers like no other. We didn’t need a shot of Bogart’s butt or Bergman’s boobs to bring this message home.
I concede that sex has a place in film. And sometimes that requires more than a “ripping clothes” scene. But Sydney Sweeney dressed as a doll licking a lollipop, legs spread, in Euphoria is not intrinsic to the story, it’s unnecessary. The sex acts in White Lotus are also unjustified. In the first series, I saw an intimate act I know is performed, and enjoyed, but which I never wanted to witness. How did producers follow up such a shock tactic? With a lingering incest scene between brothers, of course. I will be interested to see the next series. Necrophilia, anyone?
Yes, there is the argument that screen violence is much more damaging and gratuitous than sex, and I wholeheartedly agree. But think about how acclimatised to violence we have become, how murder is so commonplace we are numb to its enormity. The punch in fight scenes has fallen flat; brutality has become benign. And this is what concerns me most about all the sex I’ve been seeing: it’s just not sexy any more.
Cinema is saturating something sacred and diluting its potency in the process. And it is making me angry because I don’t want to be desensitised to sex. I want it to remain mysterious – known, not shown. I would rather visit the bathroom than witness another couple climax. And I wish it would stop.
Is it really relevant to have characters writhing and humping for minutes? Or are the writers just lazy, the producers perverse, or both? Because there’s a difference between art and OnlyFans, and sadly, the line is fading fast.
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