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Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

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Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#101

Post by Koshkin »

Zababa wrote: post #96
ravenstine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when we do show sex, it's in ways where it's always "complicated". Sex, according to the mainstream, must involve some sort of transgressive participation. You must be committing adultery, or be "in the closet", or committing incest, or doing it with total disregard for responsibilities, or doing it in inappropriate circumstances, or by committing rape. Unless you're watching a deliberately romantic film, I don't…

That's a different point. People don't show "normal" sex in movies for the same reasons they don't show people eating, going to the toilet and that sort of stuff.

> they don't show

But they do! (And I agree with the general sentiment.)

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#102

Post by Zababa »

d3nj4l wrote: post #20

There's actually one really interesting point in here: Zoomers are incredibly "puritanical" and anti-sex. It seems extremely weird that one of the most liberal generations ever is so sex negative.

I don't think that was the point of the article. The point of the article was that they are against sex on camera unless there is a good reason for it. The article tried to explain it with feminism, which could be a cause.

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#103

Post by ravenstine »

Koshkin wrote: post #85
ravenstine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when we do show sex, it's in ways where it's always "complicated". Sex, according to the mainstream, must involve some sort of transgressive participation. You must be committing adultery, or be "in the closet", or committing incest, or doing it with total disregard for responsibilities, or doing it in inappropriate circumstances, or by committing rape. Unless you're watching a deliberately romantic film, I don't…

Would you find interesting a movie in which people shoot at cardboard figures instead of each other?

To suggest that films must feature graphic violence is like saying that comedy can't be funny unless it involves swearing.

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#104

Post by jason0597 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38

The article touches on this, but in the past three decades movie making has been "optimized" to the point that there has been a great deal of "convergence" of the movie formula down to just a couple major themes. Either you have general audience, big budget, Marvel-type movies, or you have designated Oscar-type fare, which as of late means something extremely depressing that says how bad humans are. "Horny sex" just…

>Not too sad, though, because I feel like the exact opposite has happened with TV, where the rise of streaming services has ushered in a "Cambrian Explosion" of sorts with all types of varied topics and interesting content.

Can we even call it TV anymore? It's all streamed to our laptops our tablets

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#105

Post by dragonelite »

Does sex scene even sell a movie these days, the internet is saturated with porn. When I grew up as 90s kiddy porn was hard to get by no one had acceptable internet. Porn tv channels were all scrambled to pretty much white noise with sometimes a glimpse of a boob and a nipple.

We would get excited if a movie had like a nip slip in early puberty. After like 2004 almost everybody had decent internet and access to porn. Only exciting thing was maybe a leaked celeb sex tape.

I cannot imaging gen x or z even getting excited about a nip slip or boobs in a movie.

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#106

Post by powersnail »

Jedd wrote: post #71
powersnail wrote: post #47

Aren't there plenty of sex scenes in TV shows these days? So much that I frequently want to fast-forward. So much that I wonder if "sex" has become the ultimate plot device. Strangers? One-night stand, and they are best buddies ever. Angry at each other? Rage sex, and all the animosity gone. Not thinking clearly? Sex with your partner calms you down. Thinking clearly? Sex with a seductive villain dazzles your mind. S…

> Aren't there plenty of sex scenes in TV shows these days? Very probably. TFA does not include the string 'TV' or 'television', but has 16 occurrences of 'movie', so perhaps you're arguing against a point that's not being asserted. > I don't understand sentences like these. And that's okay. As TFA points out, China (and elsewhere) are significant markets with specific and (to western culture) peculiar requirements i…

> The question is cogent, concise, and valid -- if you're a movie maker (motivated by money/fame/whatever) why would you try to contend with complex and difficult material if you could instead, as they author asks, more easily rake in billions by having two asexual fictional character punch aliens.

I guess my confusion is stemmed from the fact that I don't think sex scenes are inherently more complex and difficult than alien punching. Perhaps more difficult to sell due to ratings, but that's a given.

I'm not endorsing the way Marvel is making movies; I think it's quite formulaic and intellectually lazy. But on the other hand, sex can easily be just as formulaic and lazy. My opinion is that Marvel didn't include sex in their movies simply because PG-13 has a bigger market and makes more money. If sex would sell better, they'll put sex in there with very little effort, and it wouldn't make those movies any less formulaic.

Of course, I'm anything but a movie expert; sex might really be more difficult to contend with, but the author hardly provided any explanation to support this claim, and thus I remain unpersuaded.

---

And as a Chinese person, I'd suggest that Marvel is successful in China, because as formulaic as it is, it simply produces far better movie than current mainstream Chinese movies in almost every aspect. Chinese film making (mainstream) has been pacing backwards for at least the last decade.

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#108

Post by ravenstine »

Zababa wrote: post #96
ravenstine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when we do show sex, it's in ways where it's always "complicated". Sex, according to the mainstream, must involve some sort of transgressive participation. You must be committing adultery, or be "in the closet", or committing incest, or doing it with total disregard for responsibilities, or doing it in inappropriate circumstances, or by committing rape. Unless you're watching a deliberately romantic film, I don't…

That's a different point. People don't show "normal" sex in movies for the same reasons they don't show people eating, going to the toilet and that sort of stuff.

You're taking my point to an extreme that obviously wasn't my intent. I never said that all sex in entertainment must be missionary position under sheets with the lights off between a Christian husband and wife.

First of all, it's rather interesting that you equate sex to taking a shit.

But also, what have you been watching to conclude that they don't show people eating on-screen? It's rather common, especially in film, to have characters eating real food. the primary reason it's not as frequent as in real life is because having actors eat food is actually a complicated thing to with multiple takes while maintaining continuity.

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#109

Post by Koshkin »

jason0597 wrote: post #104
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38

The article touches on this, but in the past three decades movie making has been "optimized" to the point that there has been a great deal of "convergence" of the movie formula down to just a couple major themes. Either you have general audience, big budget, Marvel-type movies, or you have designated Oscar-type fare, which as of late means something extremely depressing that says how bad humans are. "Horny sex" just…

>Not too sad, though, because I feel like the exact opposite has happened with TV, where the rise of streaming services has ushered in a "Cambrian Explosion" of sorts with all types of varied topics and interesting content. Can we even call it TV anymore? It's all streamed to our laptops our tablets

Well, it’s still “tele” and “vision”… (Most laptop ads now focus on using computers as essentially TV sets.)

Re: Where Have All the Sex Scenes Gone?

#110

Post by Koshkin »

stared wrote: post #35

It saddens me that we live in a culture in which movies showing violence (including torture and murder) are acceptable, whereas ones showing consensual, non-pornographic intercourse - aren’t. You might argue that on Netflix every second movie have a lot of sex scenes. Yes, must mostly with partial or implied nudity (think of all of these scenes with sex with bra on, waking up clothed, or L-shaped sheets). At the same…

Not just movies. It looks like most computer games, too, involve fighting and killing. I think there is something there that speaks to human nature.
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