I just finished watching Heated Rivalry, which is what prompted me to ask this question. I saw this show being recommended constantly and lauded as a gay content masterpiece, so naturally, as a gay guy, I wanted to watch it. I haven’t been this disappointed by a show or movie in a long time. It’s basically just softcore porn. The plot is almost nonexistent, the dialogue is scarce, there’s a random filler episode (episode 3) even though the show is short to begin with (only six episodes), and it relies heavily on the same tired gay clichés. As a horny and kinky person, I never thought sex in a show could bore or turn me off, but apparently, I do have a limit. After the first two episodes, where repetitive sex scenes make up about 90% of the runtime, I’d had enough. If I wanted to see that much sex, I’d rather just watch porn.
I don’t mind sex scenes if they fit the characters and plot (and won’t complain about seeing naked beautiful people anyway, as long as it’s fine by them), but the feet on Tarantino’s films and the anime adaptation of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (of course the first episode of season two had to have one; seriously, Madhouse, what the actual fuck) start getting tiresome after a while…
I quite enjoy movie and show sex scenes / nudity - they’re more special than porn and can easily be more artistic than pornography.
There is actually a very high upper limit on how much sex can fit into a show, IF it is a “meaningful” sex scene and adds to the plot… you could theoretically have 50% sex scenes if it was a show about sex or a very sex centred episode. But that would be a bit like watching porn, which is just one reason why movies tend to cut away or interrupt the nsfw action. (Anothee reaskn is that they can’t be bothered to film it all, because it’s not actual sex.)
Case study: I actually tried to watch a show largrly about sex. “The Girlfriend Experience.” All of the storytelling and excitement of this series goes into the sex scenes, which they honestly should have had more of, given that it is a show about sex.
The rest of the show was incredibly flst and boring - LITERALLY just people conversing with one another in a sterile corporate high rise.
old-ish movies: If you watch movies from the 70s and 80s you’ll notice a ridiculous adherence to having as many female stars or background characters showing their breasts as possible. It reminds me of how people (e.g asmongold) get about video game character design - they think the lack of smutty stuff is a personal attack.
I’m not sure what to think of this gratuitous nudity, because i do of course like it, but it’s very tacky and obvious. Doesn’t waste as much time as unnecessary sex scenes, i suppose.
almost none. my only complaint about shameless (US) was the amount of unnecessary cringe sex scenes
If I want to see sex, I’ll just watch porn where I can actually see it and not just the implication of sex. I can not think of a single sex scene in a TV show or movie that was memorable and hot. And the one that was memorable? The one from Team America. Because it was funny.
The moment I started reading “I can not think of a single sex scene…” I started thinking, and the only scene that came up was Team America. It is probably the only memorable one, lol.
I’d like to see a big-budget, proper TV show or movie, with strong dialogue, a real plot, thoughtful cinematography, etc., that includes unsimulated, fully explicit sex. I think that would be genuinely innovative. However, I’m not sure it will ever happen because of regulations and the social taboo and stigma surrounding it.
I’ve seen movies like that but it’s basically immediately cheap porn with a plot instead of a movie with a real sex scene
I don’t recall the name of the movie but one director created one full length movie only to have the lead actress make him a blowjob on screen.
Yeah, there are already gimmick movies like that, Love (2015) is another example with unsimulated, porn-level sex. But those films tend to be niche or underground, and the explicitness feels like the point rather than a meaningful part of the storytelling. What I mean is a truly mainstream, blockbuster movie or TV show that incorporates that kind of content.
Now I just remembered one: Lars von Triers’ Nymphomaniac.
It didn’t have unsimulated, genuine sex. It’s also an “erotic art film”, so I wouldn’t call it mainstream or blockbuster. In my opinion, it’s just another example of a gimmick.
Brown Bunny?
I have one good scene: Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair.
The kiss the hero after being saved is a trope that makes me tune off from whatever the film is about almost immediately…
Typically I prefer if sex scenes tell us something about the narrative, themes, or characters. It feels dated to just have a scene that only serves to titillate the audience. Like from a generation that was averse to porn consumption or access.
I absolutely don’t mind if a couple of actors can tell us something about their characters though sex and nudity. It’s part of being human, it’s part of storytelling. But the show should be about something or I’m just gonna get bored.
That being said, some older movies were spectacle first, light on plot, heavy on nudity and sex, and were meant as light entertainment. They often crossed lines of taste, so not for everyone. Kind of a dead genre, exploitation. I’m an age where I can still appreciate it but often hit a wall of ick and discomfort over badly aged tropes.
I like enough to move the characters forward in their story. If it’s gratuitous, it makes me go “meh!”
Just watched Pillion a few days ago and it was fairly steamy and funnier than hell in some points… it was odd, as a dom/sub story it somewhat fell flat at the end for me. The guy I was watching it with was likewise disappointed as he’s gay and said that most gay-centered stories rarely have a happy ending.
The sex scenes were okay and both of us ooohed and ahhed over seeing Alexander Skarsgard’s ass… which was quite delightful, but the sex scenes were… meh! Honestly the sex scenes in the John Cameron Mitchell film, Shortbus, did more for me.
For context, this was back when TVs were big boxes with a cathode-ray tube (a massive vacuum-“filled” glass bottle with the phosphorus-coated screen on the bottom and a literal particle accelerator on the top, put on its side, and powered with high voltage) inside.
If you can manage to have sex on top of a low cupboard put on top of a table you could probably have sex on top of one of these (though you probably shouldn’t, what with the glass, and vacuum, and high voltage, and whatnot), but falling off would probably be a common outcome.
Doing it on top of a modern flat screen would require a much less believable amount of acrobatics.
The problem I see with sex on the screen is that almost always it isn’t well integrated in the story. It looks like someone said “we need a sex scene at 47 minutes in the movie”.
Agreed, if the sex furthers the plot I don’t mind it at all. Implicated or otherwise. Early seasons of GoT have a few good examples. The tower fucking comes to mind.
If the scene just exists because sex sells, it is pointless to me and should be cut out.
I prefer no sex-scenes tbh as they extremely rarely add something to the story. The implication or the first few seconds are more than enough. They only time I’ve felt that a longish sex-scene have added to the story is in Bridgerton when Penelope finally finds her love match.
Same, sometimes I even skip forward
As much as necessary to make the story move forward. If something specific that happened in bed is necessary to further the story, show it. I’d much rather see nudity than someone’s brains getting blown out. Nudity and sex can be added in a way that makes movies or TV series worth less without it - they can actually add value to the movie/series.
There’s porn out there just jumps right into the fucking and there’s porn that tries to build a story yet the acting is downright awful. A good thing in the middle could be amazing, but most of the time, the needle isn’t threaded or threaded badly.
the spartacus series was only fighting and fucking. zero complaints here.
It got away with it due to period accuracy (and it had a decent plot too).
Now move that to a modern setting and it feels icky and gratuitous.
I feel like the sex can almost always be implied and not really be necessary for the story and sex scenes always feel like a cop out to fill time
The minimum necessary to advance the plot. I’m also with the “if I want sex I’ll watch porn” crowd, and I’m not much of a porn consumer to begin with.
Sex scenes in TV/Movies are lame. What do they really provide to the story? Like the stuff in Thrones. It was beyond gratuitous. I could definitely do without scenes of SA as well. (I know it was in the books). It seems pretty clear who these scenes with topless women are for. Clearly I am not in the target audience lol.
Perhaps I am just a bit uncultured when it comes to film as art, and the metaphors that are drawn by these scenes.
I’m fine with plenty of sex on TV. Game of Thrones seems to have broken the barrier in people’s mind for gratuitous sex and nudity in the mainstream and streaming services have capitalised on not having the same restrictions as terrestrial TV. Sex is an important part of human existence and it’s fine to have it feature heavily in our media. The same rules apply as for anything else in story writing… It must make a point, fit into a narrative and be done well.
A few media review sources have had good video essays and articles about the fact that:
- The most recent generations are really objecting to sex in their media. So tastes are changing. Objectively there is less and less sex in our movies and TV shows.
- It is very important to show normal sex as part of a normal story. If this is not maintained, then the only way to see any depiction of sex will be porn, and porn is so warped and far from reality that it really should not be our main depiction of sex.
If stories are going to be written, then there will inevitably be bad stories and poor implementation too, and we just have to put up with that. I haven’t seen the media you mention… Maybe it was bad, or maybe it wasn’t for you. Either one is fine. If you want to find good shows, you risk watching some bad ones.
