The NC-17 rating slapped on Ira Sachs’ ‘Passages’ and breathless talk about a few scenes in ‘Oppenheimer’ have renewed questions of whether — or why — American movies seem more sexually uptight than ever.
I just don’t see a point in showing the actual act (even if they don’t show any genitals). I’m not watching movies to get “hot and bothered”, and it rarely is sexy anyways. Most of the time it’s kind of just gross.
I feel this way even in the case of porn. I feel more interested when it’s finding creative ways of “showing but hiding” and leaving bits of the process to the imagination.
Actually, horror and sex tend to have a lot in common. When a horror movie shows someone being slowly and brutally disfigured, it’s rightly called out as a gratuitous and unsatisfying gore fest. When they’re dragged away into the dark, it’s truly scary and unsettling.
American?
It’s all a part of the human condition and a major motivation for many people’s actions, why wouldn’t you show it? Man, everyone is getting a bit too sensitive nowadays for the thing that put pretty much all of us on the planet.
