475
The decline of sex in films
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
475 points (97.6% liked)
Movies
7602 readers
95 users here now
Welcome to Movies, a community for discussing movies, film news, box office, and more! We want this to be a place for members to feel safe to discuss and share everything they love about movies and movie related things. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow!
Related Communities:
!books@lemmy.world - Discussing books and book-related things.
!comicbooks@lemmy.world - A place to discuss comic books of all types.
!marvelstudios@lemmy.world - LW's home for all things MCU.
While posting and commenting in this community, you must abide by the Lemmy.World Terms of Service: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
-
Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
-
Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
-
Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
-
Shitposts and memes are allowed until they prove to be a problem.
Regarding spoilers; Please put "(Spoilers)" in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers, as we do not currently have a spoiler tag available. If your post contains an image that could be considered a spoiler, please mark the thread as NSFW so the image gets blurred. As far as how long to wait until the post is no longer a spoiler, please just use your best judgement. Everyone has a different idea on this, so we don't want to make any hard limits.
Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread. Most of the Lemmy clients don't support this but we want to get into the habit as clients will be supporting in the future.
Failure to follow these guidelines will result in your post/comment being removed and/or more severe actions. All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. We ask that the users report any comment or post that violates the rules, and to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Okay, but what makes it “random” to you? It’s art. Nudity in art has been around since art began—took a few years off for puritanical reasons, sure, but we’re all human, we all share having a naked body in common. And sex is the most natural thing. So to include it in art is just as natural.
Our attitudes toward it have changed. Why, though? What makes you feel awkward about seeing sex or nudity
They're American. Not comfortable around nudity
I get art. But there are alot of nudity in the mainstream films that are not that. If i want to watch sex there is porn. If i want nudity in art those exist too.
Don't you feel awkward watching two actors play pretend? Or having your 5.1 audio system start moaning in a film when you are not expecting those type of content. Random naked body parts i don't mind those but often time you can remove those and nothing of value will be lost. So my question is why?
Do I feel awkward watching two actors act? No. Do you?
My point is, what makes you guys so uncomfortable with sex? Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd? Watching a movie with superfluous sex scenes with, say, your family, is definitely weird. But not because of the sex, but because you’re watching sex with your family there and that is awkward.
Everyone keeps saying “if I want to see sex, I’ll watch porn.” But that’s…such a weird take, I think. It’s not about getting turned on by sex scenes or trying to get off. It’s just a portrayal of a pretty massive part of life that everyone seems scared of or something. I just don’t get that.
Perhaps if it was included for character development between two individuals, you might have a point. But a lot of time its just shoehorned and out of place. Also, for the record, its not a major part of life for many people, which creates even more disconnect.
Um yea. Sex is a pretty major part of everyone’s life regardless of whether they have sex or have ever had sex.
perhaps if you exclude IVF babies.
The proportion of people conceived by ivf and asexual through their lives, with no romantic interests ever, and no other connections to sex has got to be vanishingly small … more power to you if you are, but you can’t claim that’s the mainstream experience
And most likely you would still have a menstrual cycle or a raging erection every morning.
Sexuality is pretty integral to the human experience, even if you are asexual. It’s unavoidable.
In IVF specifically the man generally has to jerk off to make the sperm donation.
My comment about IVF was tongue and cheek as the person i replied to was being pendatic. Im aware most people are conceived via sex. But thats not really whats the point or the emotions that is being depicted in movies now is it?
It’s really a tangent lol, but I just found it absurd that someone was suggesting sexuality is not apart of their lives, now I’m reading articles this morning about experiences of asexual folks and studies etc.
Feeling low desire or feeling asexual is not necessarily a disorder, I think that’s why the distinction was made. In the past low sexual desire was treated as a symptom for a larger disease or issue.
But this does not mean that sexuality is not a part of an asexual persons life. I’m just interested in the topic but I’m sticking by my point that sexuality is integral to the human experience whether you participate in sex itself or not.
Sexuality may be a big part for some people's lifes. But for others, it has virtually no part. Breathing is an intergal part of being alive, but you'll spend 99.9% of you life never thinking about it. Sure its there, its a thing... but unless you actively think about it, it doesnt actually effect who you are.
But it does. I think I understand what you are saying. But you can’t just ignore all of human evolution that brought made us all who we are.
If you are a monk who has committed to celibacy and given up money, who only eats what people put into your begging bowl, money and sexuality are still apart of your life. I’m arguing that it is impossible to separate our sexuality from our existence.
This is not to negate someone’s lived experience at all in any way. Whether we want it to or not money and sexuality are an integral part of our lives.
Maybe if we live in a cave and never interact with any other human beings, idk.
But in the sense of a person who is an asexual or a monk who does not spend money, I see your point of view but it still is an important part of our lives, and their lives, if only because it affects so many our friends and family around us and in our lives, how we interact with others in the world.
Again, this is a huge tangent from the original post as you pointed out, it’s just interesting to me. I hope you’re having an awesome day 😊
Celibacy is a choice. they must acknowledge their desires and then reject it. What im saying is theres nothing to reject because it never comes to mind.
No one lives outside of community though, no?
I added / edited to my post above fyi
I think there is a misunderstanding. Im saying some people have a disconnect with others. Yes, you cant go far in the world without sexual things plastered everywhere... but theres people that dont really understand why that is.
A little anecdote story... a few months ago, I was messing around with AI art, and I genned some "waifu" art that wasnt even very lewd. I shared it with some friends and their response was "aw shes cute, I would totally go on a date with her", and I felt a bit happy that I could relate with them. but then, they made the additional comment "and afterward, take her back to my place and have fun ;)". it really caught me off guard and thought to myself "wait what? oh... I forgot people do that...". Now if the art was indeed lewd, it wouldnt suprised me as I understand the context well enough to make assumptions...
im not really sure my example helps you to understand. it's difficult to really explain honestly.
Sexual frustration is a massive part of peoples lives too. Only asexual people escape the influence of sex.
When it comes to surprise sex scene yes. The whole thing is just awkward. But when i am watching a film and i am expecting it to happen then no.
Uncomfortable with sex? No. My point was I don't want to be watching an action movie and get a surprise sex scene that last too long and add nothing to the story. Maybe i am weird but clearly i am not the only one that appreciate a good film without those unnecessary sex scene. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing a steep decline of sex in films.
Well I dunno if people not liking it is the reason we’re seeing a steep decline. If that were the case, we’d be seeing a steep decline in shitty movies. And that line is trending the other way.
I personally think it’s more a sort of return to Puritanism—in some respects. People are, in fact, very touchy these days. I mean, the intention is good in those touchy people. We want to see less exploitation, see less offensive or unequal treatment of people. And that’s great. But I don’t think sex in film is inherently exploitative nor does it necessitate unequal treatment.
But you know what else we’re seeing? A steep decline in young people having sex. Millennials were the generation having the least sex, until gen Z came along. Now they’re the generation having the least sex (in adolescence/young adulthood). I personally think there’s a connection there, too. We are more wary of anything that might get people upset—well, I say “we” but really I mean the capitalists. They want your money and will be as inoffensive as they think is necessary to get it. So really, what we’re seeing is a capitalist response to a seemingly more sensitive consumer.
And that’s just shitty all around. Thanks once again, capitalism.
Maybe it does all come down to whether you think most sex scenes are randomly inserted to sell the movie, or are actually connected to the plot or character development. Clearly there are both, and which dominates might be related to what each of us watches
I watch all kind of films and I have no issues with the latter. It is a good thing we are getting less of those unnecessary sex scene that add nothing to the story, plot or character development.
This is a benefit of sex being ubiquitous: you have to try a lot harder for shock value
Nudity can be art if it's not graphic. Sex scenes are graphic.
I mean, isn’t that a matter of opinion? Puritans thought bare shoulders and exposed knees were graphic. There’s definitely a discussion of what type of sex on film is exploitative. But “graphic?” Look to other culture’s cinema. Routinely showing full nudity, men and women—not glorifying it or exploiting it, literally just a naturalistic exposure of skin—makes the story grounded in reality. And has a way of not fixating on it or exploiting it, but rather depicting people and just exposing bodies.
And also, we’re talking about nudity and sex being “graphic” while network television has us hacking up human bodies. That’s not thought of as too graphic but exposed breasts and genitalia somehow is? How backwards is that? That type of behavior, I think, creates your type of outlook, because it’s hidden away and thought of as “too much.” I’ve never cut open a body or shot someone, but I’ve definitely been naked and had sex. How do you square that?
i just want to watch a movie without uneasy scenes that ruin the entire experience
I'm okay with certain movies having them, I'll just not watch those. But there are movies that you watch for other reasons that don't need them at all, like the matrix for example.
And yet in The Matrix, Trinity’s devotion to Neo is central to the plot, the sharp distinction between the gritty real world and colorful virtual world is central to the plot. Sex fits. (Unless you mean the newest sequel, that I haven’t seen)
(And yes, I give Carrie-Ann Moss bonus credit for that)
I mean, I get what you’re saying but my whole point is how does sex “ruin the entire experience?”
I think many people feel uneasy because they were taught sex (and nudity!) is something naughty, shameful. It's easy to feel that way when you grow up in certain culture and it's a hard thing to break free of even when you're adult and know better.