Everyone is saying sex scenes aren’t needed. I present my evidence that sex scenes are needed: Office Space
The sex scene shows that Peter is paranoid and deeply uncomfortable with the fact that his girlfriend, Joanna had sex with his boss. A fact that Peter heard as a rumour from a horny co-worker. Lumbergh would never talk about their sex life at work as that would inappropriate as a manager.
The scene also shows how Peter see Lumbergh as a person. It also sets up for the conflict between Peter and Joanna as Peter acts on his nightmare like a child.
Granted the scene is extremely soft core and played for laughs. However, I think the movie would be a little weaker if Peter had gone to to the office the next day and told everyone about the nightmare without showing it. Yes, you could cut out the scene as the party scene sets everything up for the future conflict. The sex scene shows how deeply uncomfortable Peter is with the situation. It’s truly a scene that does “Show, Don’t Tell”.
I think they mean scenes that are in earnest. The one in office space is used to intentionally make us uncomfortable, just as Peter is. So it works great here for us to connect more with the main character. But yeah I basically agree. They can work when used with intent.
strange, I thought it was aimed at them, hence the shitty Netflix billboard that I am impossible to scroll with my kids around and tbh, I feel also this shit as an aggression, like ads.
This is definitely a cultural prudishness emerging. But that’s only part of it. There has also been a shift away from artistic filmmaking and toward high-grossing tentpole movies. Because nudity is a taboo in our society, you need an artistic purpose to the nudity (or sex scene) in the film or it won’t serve any purpose to the film, and people will notice that it’s out of place. If most of the movies you have are cookie-cutter concept movies with little to no artistic expression, you just can’t make anything taboo work in them.
Obviously everyone has different taste in movies, but some films that made on-screen sex work really well are Basic Instinct, Blue Velvet, and Eyes Wide Shut. It also adds a lot to really campy movies. Nightmare on Elm Street comes to mind. Species became a cult classic because of its use of nudity and sex. For just plain nudity, It Follows used it well in the briefest of glimpses of the antagonist. It also added a lot to Ex Machina.
Those are just the movies off the top of my head that were made more impactful by sex and nudity.
Oh! Airplane also has a big laugh thanks to a scene of gratuitous nudity. Let’s not forget the comedies!
Original Sin comes to the forefront of my mind when I think of gratuitous sex scenes in movies, yet the movie still worked, since it was pretty much all about sex.
How does Gen Z feel about nudity in films? Either nudity that fits the scene and feels logical or nudity just for fan service?
I’m cool if your just not a fan of shoe horned in and cringey sex scenes, but lots of younger folks come off as weirdly puritanically prudish to me. Why are we so much more comfortable with casual violence than casual nudity? That bothers me.
I feel like Gen Z are very conservative when it comes to sex and nudity and not just in films. The amount of swerfs and “sex positive” individuals is staggering.
Sex-worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists. They are individuals who are against sex work and workers to the point of sexual confinement. From my experience, most are sex negative, puritanical, and end up supporting policies that increase abuse.
Gen Z in the macro sense is a very prudish generation. It’s weird because they clad themselves in sex-positivity, and are conceptually pro-sexuality, but individually are often quite prudish and reserved.
This is very different from my personal lives experience, and those of most people I know, but again my entire point here is that I don’t really know the current experience of young people.
I wonder to what extent that it could be an observation bias? genZ are very online and very used to having a public persona that’s safe and detached - it’s very true that online most genZ seem almost corporate, they’re less likely to say something wild than the Wendy’s lady.
When I think of the ones I actually interact with personally very few of them are like that, obviously this is likely to be selection bias but in person or private conversation they’re very different to their social media persona.
They’re a very nervous and shy generation because they’ve been so in the spotlight on social media, their parents are generally at least internet aware too so it’s not like the private world it was for us. I wonder if they’re just more used to guarding their statements.
As a Gen Z I wonder the exact same thing, and that violence seemsto be better than nudity bothes me too.
Personally I’m perfectly fine with nudity in media be it fitting or fan service.
If something bothers me about nude scenes or sex scenes for that matter, it isn’t about the nudity or sex in of it self, but more so that extremely shoehornd in romance and sex just because it has to happen if a male and female lead or support, spends any amount of time together.
I really hate that sort of practice and I much more prefer a crime movie with two friends as the main characters. Over the same crime movie but now they have to be in love, because one of them happened to be a woman. Of it’s a good love story or it makes sense I buy it, but more of the time it really doesn’t.
And as this is a very common trope in movies, this dose lead to me choosing movie that doesn’t feature romance or sex at all. Because that is easier than trying to find one that doesn’t just shoehorn the stuff in for the sack of it.
Apparently I’m the only one that likes being titillated by movies. I don’t get the “it adds nothing to the plot” complaint. Tons of movies have action scenes and gratuitous violence that add nothing to the plot, yet i don’t see complaints about that. 90% of John Wick is gratuitous violence that added nothing to the plot, but I still love it.
I think this says more about American prudishness and people’s unhealthy attitudes towards sex than anything.
Bunch of unnecessary death? Cool and fun! An unnecessary titty? Awkward and gratuitous.
Fuck all of you. I want more nudity and sex in my movies and the comparative lack of it compared to the 80s and 90s feels like we’re going out of our way to exclude a huge part of life from art because it makes the prudes out there uncomfortable. But those same people are happy to watch nameless dudes get creatively and graphically killed for half a movie’s run time.
I want more gratuitous sex and less gratuitous moral pandering
I don’t want porn. I want art to stop awkwardly excluding a major part of life.
“Everyone is beautiful and no one is horny.” It’s like movies these days are all set in this weird Twilight Zone world where sexuality just isn’t a thing. I find this far creepier than the gratuitous sex scenes of the 80s.
This is because some people aren’t on the spectrum and ignored. They deserve representation. If you find that weird this is more a problem with you because maybe you have been submerged into sexuality for far too long that anything lacking sex is weird. It’s like being addicted to a food taste and realizing there are other types of food and you think it’s weird that other types of food exist , well then : you’re the weird one.
Porn is super easy to access. There are more hours of porn recorded than there are hours of my life left.
R-rated sex scenes are literally competing with a host of just better options.
Not once has a fake sex scene in a movie not trigger cringe in me. It’s nice to see the actresses’ titties but that is it. Fade to black, imply they fucked and move on. Pornhub literally is a click away.
The fact that you only equate sex and nudity to porn shows the problem. Sex and nudity can be fun, dramatic, scary, or funny depending on the context. It wouldn’t be “competing” with porn.
I can’t suspend my disbelief when media pretends sexuality just doesn’t exist or isn’t relevant.
It’s not 100%, someone else brought up Crank which has a hilarious sex scene that I wouldn’t cut and it’s vital to the plot.
Most sex scenes just have this feel of “the director wanted to see actresses’ naked and had the power of authority and money to make it happen”. It doesn’t feel fun it has an air of exploitation to it, which I’ll admit lots of porn does too, but not all. The best porn is when everyone involved likes it.
I think a sex scene in an otherwise not-pornographic film needs to be second guessed. Does cutting it ruin the plot? Could it just be implied and move on?
I just think they really need to justify it more than normally do.
I just think they really need to justify it more than normally do.
Why? Why can’t they just have it for fun like any other type of gratuitous scene in a movie? I agree it’s not usually done well, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be done.
99% of previous attempts have been, what I would call “weak shit”. It’s up to the writers/director/actors to bring their A game and prove themselves, because so far, I’ve yet to see one i wouldn’t mind being cut out entirely.
Because one of John Wicks main reasons for existing is choreographed violence? And the violence is sort of character building in the way it shows John Wick’s skill as a killer. There is a case to be made here where sex is sort of superfluous, because unlike John Wick, choreographed sex generally does not contribute to story beats unless it’s a porno. And there’s nothing unhealthy about being uncomfortable watching an intimate moment unless your porn addled brain has made you desensitizes to sex.
I’m not saying I want a movie with non-stop sex, that would obviously just be porn. I’m saying the “it doesn’t progress the plot” complaint about sex in movies is bullshit when those same people watch other movies that are full of gratuitous shit that doesn’t move the plot (violence, action, contrived drama).
Movies have been all but stripped of sexuality other than clumsy attempts at pandering to lgbt people. I think some of it is an overcorrection from Weinstein and Me-Too, some of it is just America’s puritan cultural hangups that have always been there, and some of it is the effect of Gen-Z growing up with an abundance of porn and now they can’t associate sex/nudity on a screen as art (or even just fun).
Violence and action do drive plot. They can build character and be narratively cathartic. Sex in movies does not do that because sex is a subjective experience between two people.
violence is not the same as sex. it’s expected to see violence in an action movie. it would be expected to see sex in a porno. i’m not surprised people don’t want sex in their action movies
You’re right, it’s way worse. And it’s disturbing that we’re culturally encouraged to find fun in violence but sex needs to be cordoned off to a containment genre and excised from mainstream art. I’m not saying it needs to be in every action movie - but its been obvious for a while they’re going out of their way to avoid it even in places where it would make sense or be fun.
With all due respect, have you read the article? Attributing this to prudishness misses a lot of what’s actually being said: that shoe-horning in romance or sex for no reason is the problem, as well as lack of attention being given to developing platonic relationships. Exploring non-romantic or sexual relationships better doesn’t necessarily mean cutting out sex and romance, and imo, would likely lead to better sex and romance in TV and movies.
But I agree with you also, that gratuitous sex and nudity can be used to great effect. Another user lemmy.world/comment/4888355 (don’t know how to link comments, hopefully this will work) posted a link to the article “Everyone is beautiful, no-one is horny” above, and this really highlights the problem on this side of things, in my view
After reading the article it looks like they aren’t being prude. They just wanted to see more healthier relationship spectrums. I think that’s a fair call. Not all story points have to be about sex.
Plus representation matters.
There are asexuals. And many other sexuality types in the world. Violence is not making a point on that so I don’t know where you’re going with that.
There is also echoing healthier relationships between men and women. I’ve known far too many people who cry friendzone and watch complete shit like friends and HIMYM and the various sitcoms that echo very dehumanizing, simplistic, unhealthy relationships between men and women where they stubbornly won’t relate to each other and sexuality is used as a tolerance or payoff of each other’s existence.
So whiile we could debate gratuitous violence has an impact, I think bad relationships and how they have been presented as a template has had a different impact they are trying to discuss.
I’m fine with asexuals and representation. But currently it feels like 99% of media is catering to either asexuals or homosexuals.
And I bring up violence to point out the double standard. When it comes to nudity people scrutinize if it’s relevant to the plot - but don’t tend to do that with violence or clunky moral preaching.
oh please you don’t need representation because you don’t want to have sex. that has been a thing for as long as can be and no one has a problem with it. the worst oppression you might face is family members asking you when you will be having a child
when did i say it takes anything away from me? I’m just saying it’s not particularly important every single minor facet of life needs to shoehorn representation for such a minor thing as not wanting to have sex.
A Boomer here, and I’m finding these comments to be very interesting–mostly because I’m realizing I agree in many cases! Far from prudish, just last night I fast-forwarded past the sex scenes in the first episode of a new streamer series. “Yeah, yeah, I get it…you’re hot for each other. Can we move it along, please?”
There it is again. People acting like genZ are the first to say no and protest to things…. This simply isn’t true.
Genz didn’t invent this idea of protesting it . Women against pornography was formed in the 60s. So we know people have been bothered by it for more than one generation and people have tried to act against it.
I don’t think this should be a generation topic. Film makers are by far and large trying to get people to watch their shit using gags and named actors. they use sex and violence in film like capitalists use sugar and salt in food to get people to consume it. It’s a crutch.
I find this so funny, how a lot of “Boomer media” makes such a fuss about discovering that Gen Z ist also just normal people, with some more progressed ideas and ideals but also tired of being overloaded with information and media.
I think part of it now is that they also realize that half of the fads they have been making up about how the youth of the 2000/2010 era with how sex, violence and drugs craving it alledgely was, were just bullshit.
I suspect that is true as well. Most of the really dramatic girls I’ve known have been super into romcoms and reality TV. If not causing the behavior they are at least reinforcing it.
I hate sex scenes in movies. By far the worst sex scene I’ve seen was sthe end of Sausage Party. I felt physically ill from it. I watched the movie with my parents and they thought my disgust was hilarious. Now I rarely watch movies other than superhero movies with them.
I can’t watch many movies from the 80s and 90s because of the cringe sex scenes. My parents think that time was the best time for movies and they’re just wrong lol
The new UCLA “Teens and Screens” study, conducted by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, found that across 1,500 members of Gen Z, ages 10 to 24, young people wanted to see platonic relationships between onscreen characters, and many felt sex wasn’t necessary for story plot. (Only the respondents ages 13 to 24 were asked about sexual content.)
“While it’s true that teens want less sex on TV and in movies, what the survey is really saying is that teens want more and different kinds of relationships reflected in the media they watch,” said Yalda T. Uhls
Somehow gen z’s early exposure to porn has made them more prudish than the religious. Literally. I’ve Seen so many posts on Reddit and had real life conversations with gen z people where they’ve said that they hate when couples publicly say their trying for a baby because it means they’re being “creampied” and that’s awkward for them.
It’s weird for two reasons. One, if you struggle to get pregnant it puts a lot of external pressure on you and you’ll have to go back and let people know you’re potentially infertile. Two, talking about biological things isn’t appropriate in some settings. I don’t want to hear about your colonoscopy. I don’t want to hear that you’re raw dogging your wife. I don’t want to hear about you surgery. Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
That sounds lonely. We all live together. Sharing is a much better default than walling everyone off and judging everyone for sharing really basic parts of life is kind of sad. Obviously there are limit, but “we’re trying to have a baby” and “I’m having surgery” shouldn’t be something that we’re pressured to not share.
I find it more weird that your coworkes talking about trying to get a child results in you imagening them “raw dogging”.
When one of my coworkers had a child born i also didn’t make a point of imagening the delivery process. I just congratulated them and asked them jokingly how much sleep they caught the last night.
Reminds me of some post I read on Reddit regarding a Rimworld sex mod. So many people thought it was completely immoral and had no place in the game.
A game in which you can kidnap and cannibalis children, make clothes of their skin and sell it, a game where you can strap people to a bed, steal all of their organs, cut of their lega so they cant escape and keep them as a blood transfusion slave for ever. Missionary sex between a married couple in their own bed room is wrong and immoral.
That was definitely one of the weirdest takes I have read in a while, still is.
This i can understand though. It is not that the sex itself would be immoral. It is that putting the sex into the context of this violence is immoral.
And i have to say i find this important. Sex to me is an expression of affection with my partner and “sacred” for that. I don’t want it tainted with the banality of pornography or the psychotic issues that make people connect sex and violence.
I just hate the wet noises that accompany it. Same thing with kissing scenes where they have a shotgun mic basically inside their mouths. It drives my sensory issues up a wall.
latimes.com
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