Banging on Screen Is Great, Actually

Like many elder Millennials, my first experience with sex on screen came during Top Gun—and no, I don’t mean the iconic beach volleyball scene. I’m referring to the 79 seconds in which Maverick and Charlie get it on to the strains of “Take My Breath Away.” The entire thing is shot in blue-toned silhouettes, with billowing curtains, perfectly manicured nails, and tongue choreography. While there’s not much nudity, for a movie with a PG rating, it made my eyes pop.

The scene is famous enough that last year, Screen Rant ran a piece by entertainment journalist Cathal Gunning exploring why it’s “so bad” and celebrating that Top Gun: Maverick isn’t burdened with anything as cringe. Why are you polluting my action movie with stuff that doesn’t belong: that’s the argument.

Opponents of on-screen sex don’t stop there. In a review of Magic Mike, critic Ross Douthat asked, “Is sex necessary?” To which I would reply, “Is anything in a movie or on television necessary? Channing Tatum didn’t have to make a trio of films about masculinity, capitalism, and the power of the transverse ab, Ross, he chose to.”

And more recently, reviews of the latest season of Bridgerton focus on the show’s salaciousness, labeling it “steamy” when they like it and bemoaning that it feels “familiar,” though with more “ripping and removal of bodices,” when they don’t. If sex is present, it seems hard for some viewers to see anything else.

Look, I am not saying that all media needs sex, and I’m certainly not saying that you, dear reader, have to consume or enjoy these depictions. But arguments such as these come out of a tradition of censorship and ignore that sex in the media can add to characterization and that even when it doesn’t, it can be beautiful, fun, and, yes, titillating. Sex is as cinematic a subject as any other, and it should be treated that way.

When I read Gunning and Douthat, I hear the echoes of centuries-old arguments against spicy books. Seduction novels, which centered on what modern readers might call sexual harassment, assault, and even rape, were often denounced as obscene. But censoring those plot lines didn’t save society from so-called degradation. Instead, the hubbub meant that some topics and people stopped appearing on the page. Namely, writers omitted queer people—whose identity is often wholly conflated with their sexuality—and flattened the complexities of women’s lives.

When movies burst onto the screen, these debates followed. The American film industry famously adapted the Hays Code in 1930 to avoid government censorship in response to relatively liberated 1920s films. Seriously, check out the queer-themed Michael or the racy Flesh and the Devil. But golden age Hollywood films didn’t omit sex. They just presented it in coded or indirect ways. Sex and queerness are key subjects in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and where on earth would James Bond be without innuendo?

No, for all the controversy and attempts at censorship, sex kept showing up in the media because it can aid storytelling. Take Love & Basketball. The first time the protagonists have sex, it’s slow and fumbling. They repeatedly stop, lock eyes, and check in with each other, which shows their intimacy and care. There isn’t a lot of nudity, but the way that Monica and Quincy look at each other conveys exactly how overwhelmed they are by this moment. Also, A+ for the representation of condom use.

Or what about the concluding scene of “Old Friends,” the fourth episode of the most recent season of Bridgerton? The filmmakers and the actors have to convince us that in the space of a carriage ride, two friends reconfigure everything they know about each other and what they want for the future. If we don’t buy their chemistry, the entire thing will fall apart, but thankfully, it ignites instead. The best moments are specific to these characters: Colin’s bliss when Penelope rakes her fingers through his hair, Colin waiting for Penelope to nod in assent before he gets her off, and the couple giggling together when the carriage stops. On-screen sex that’s consensual and pleasurable? How indecent.

And these aren’t isolated cases. Depicting sexual intimacy can be a tool for characterization. Compare Nick’s sex scenes with Beth to those with Catherine in Basic Instinct, for example. Nick becomes a different man due to his involvement with the novelist/possible murderer, and we see that in his approach to intimacy. Or consider Dean performing oral sex on Cindy in Blue Valentine. Without that scene, it wouldn’t be clear why they would try to make their marriage work and not just walk away. Or what about the tenderness in Carol and Therese’s night together in the hotel in Carol, the way the threesome in Y Tu Mama Tambien embodies Julio and Tenoch’s changing friendship, or the desperation of Bai-Ling’s performance in bed with Chow in 2046? Sex isn’t superfluous in these movies—it’s the whole darn meal.

But despite its power to viscerally and succinctly convey character, it is amazing how rare portrayals of sex in mainstream media have become. If you’ve spent any time around internet film discourse, you’ve probably read RS Benedict’s “Everyone Is Beautiful and No One is Horny.” It’s a terrific essay, and it’s difficult to deny the key claim: bodies on screen are more perfect than ever, but they’re also more sterile. The omission of sex from the Top Gun sequel could be a data point to support Benedict’s hypothesis.

Now maybe this scarcity is because there are real concerns about how some on-screen sex is filmed. To pull just three examples: Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting filed a lawsuit (later thrown out) declaring that they were coerced into the nude scene in Romeo and Juliet, Maria Schneider alleged that she was assaulted while filming Last Tango in Paris, and Emilia Clarke called her experiences shooting nudity on the Game of Thrones set “terrifying.” But these stories, awful as they are, indicate that what we need is better representation and safer working conditions, not the suppression of on-screen sex.

Indeed, my upcoming book Bad Reputation takes place during filming for a historical romance series based on Walter Scott’s Waverley novels and complete with on-screen sex. To make the process healthier for everyone, the production brings in an intimacy coordinator—someone whose job it is to negotiate boundaries with the actors and to ensure that filming is safe and consensual. This is becoming standard practice, as it should be.

With protections in place, on-screen sex can be joyous and revelatory, even when it doesn’t convey character. Indeed, one of my all-time favorite salacious scenes is the conclusion of Cinema Paradiso. The protagonist, Salvatore, grew up in a small Sicilian town where he helped the local movie theater owner, Alfredo. Every week, the town’s priest insisted that Alfredo and Salvatore make cuts to the movies, eliminating kissing, nudity, and other “immoral” content. After Alfredo’s death, Salvatore watches a spliced-together reel his former boss created from the censored material, and it’s one of the most intoxicating affirmations of the human experience ever. Ross Douthat would probably loathe it.

Out of their original context, none of these racy snippets adds to the plot. Instead, this sequence is a love letter to movies themselves and to the potency of lust caught on film. I defy anyone to watch it and then deny that sex is a worthy cinematic subject.

At their best, sex scenes give filmmakers another component for characterization, and they can also be plain old fun to watch. Who knows, if we let them, sex scenes on screen might even take our breath away.