Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America

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The second official effort of the Dogme 95 movement, Von Trier’s impish provocation tells the story of a woman named Karen who, eager to escape from her life, falls in with a group of able-bodied adults who pretend to be mentally handicapped in public. We are living in puritanical times. If you’ve followed the ongoing debate over sex scenes that’s carried out on social media over the last few years – and if you haven’t, well, congratulations – then you’ll know the one thing that unites progressive-minded zoomers and pearl-clutching conservatives is an aversion to cinematic boning. The argument goes that sex scenes rarely add anything to the plot of a movie, nor develop characters, and exist simply to gratify the perv in the director’s chair and make the prudes in the audience squirm in their chairs. It’s a flawed viewpoint, but in fairness, given Hollywood’s general shift away from showing sexuality on screen, it’s entirely possible that younger folks have simply never seen a good sex scene.

Goodie-goodie Amy greets her would-be saviour – Harris’s ultra-rich, domineering tech bro – with some particularly rough after-work nookie. Then, mid-coitus, she slashes his throat, showering her with blood. She then she frames the extra-stiff stiff for kidnapping and sexual assault. In the ultimate show of commitment to their characters, the Idiots retreat to their house in the suburbs of Denmark and launch into a haphazard orgy, all while still pretending to be handicapped (they refer to the performance as ‘spazzing’). Karen isn’t explicitly involved in the action, but the rest of her newfound pals are a jumble of naked bodies on the living-room floor, erect penises poking out in all directions as the men and women groan and shake with fake palsies. Beineix’s erotic drama, a sensation when the French film first debuted in 1986, details the deteriorating relationship between Zorg (Anglade), a handyman, and the eponymous spitfire (Dalle) who resents him for not living up to his artistic potential. The local nuns, convinced that they have been possessed by the devil, are having their demons exorcised by a witch hunter. But when their psychosomatic condition remains unresolved, they promptly descend into an orgiastic fever, some of them using a giant crucifix as a dildo, commencing a sequence that has since become known as the Rape of Christ.

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There isn’t any actual sex in Goodbye to Language, but one nudity-filled sequence invites so much audience interaction that people might remember things differently. As actors Chevallier and Bruneau have a conversation in the nude, Godard splits the image apart, assigning each of his 3-D cameras to its own eye. The resulting effect allows viewers to choose their own adventure, closing one eye to see Bruneau’s pubic hair, and another to see Chevallier’s flaccid penis.

Godard’s DIY 3-D experiment abstractly dissects the relationships between two separate couples in its effort to dismantle the conventions of stereoscopic filmmaking. Danish provocateur Von Trier explores the increasingly troubled sex life of self-confessed sex addict Joe, played by two different actors at different ages. Von Trier’s epic was so long, he split it into two volumes. Wong won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for this romantic whirlwind, starring Leung and Cheung as two Hong Kong expats living in Buenos Aires. A violent drifter (Elizabeth Berkley, of Saved By the Bell fame) blows into Las Vegas, determined to climb the ranks of Sin City’s glamorous and highly competitive exotic dance scene.Well, allow us to offer a counterpoint – 101 of them, to be exact. On this list of cinema’s greatest sex scenes, you’ll find multiple examples where a roll in the hay is meant to convey more than just mere titillation – it’s part of the story itself. In some cases, sex is a punchline. In others, it’s downright horrifying. Sometimes it’s supposed to make you uncomfortable. And sometimes, yes, it exists to be arousing. But there’s value in that, too. Pichul’s nihilistic drama, an enduring emblem of the Soviet Union during perestroika, follows a wild Russian girl as she falls in love with a man whom her family violently disapproves of. For his first sex scene, Diggler (Wahlberg) is paired with veteran porn icon Amber Waves (Moore). As the astonished crew witnesses the emergence of a major new talent, Amber’s warm maternal instincts help put her young costar at ease. The movie is full of professional penetration, but this scene – the Big Bang at the beginning of Dirk’s new life – is unique for its sweetness. Having shared a dark childhood secret – about his kid brother getting murdered by apes – actor-turned-secret paramilitary officer Gary finally seals the deal with teammate Lisa, as the two retire to the boudoir to bump wood in a variety of positions no major studio would dare attempt with two flesh-and-blood humans. Eternals, Marvel’s sprawling, cod-philosophical saga of godlike beings protecting Earth from alien beasties.

Having spent their beach trip scrambling the boys’ image of themselves and their sexuality, Verdú initiates a threesome where, in their orgiastic delirium, Luna and Bernal share a sudden, passionate kiss. A widower (Brando) and a young Parisian woman (Schneider) engage in an anonymous sexual relationship that can’t honestly be called ‘casual’, and soon goes beyond gratification into realms of dominance and obsession. Cary Grant is a New York ad man mistaken for a spy and pursued across America by a shady cabal, sending him scurrying through cornfields, scaling Mount Rushmore and eventually crawling into the arms of femme fatale Eva Marie Saint, who might also be playing him for a mark.Written by Dave Calhoun, Joshua Rothkopf, Cath Clarke, David Ehrlich, Phil de Semlyen, Daniel Walber, Trevor Johnston, Andy Kryza, Daniel Walber and Matthew Singer

Sensual and sensitive, funny and forlorn, Alfonso Cuarón’s break-out follows two exceptionally horny teenage boys (Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, both also breaking out) on a transformative road trip through Mexico with an alluring older woman (Maribel Verdú). As it seems like their scheme is unravelling, the three principles reconcile in a motel pool, sans clothes, in a scene studiously examined by teenage boys in dark family rooms with their fingers hovering over their TV remote’s power button. The worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival’ according to Roger Ebert (before Gallo trimmed 26 minutes from his original cut, prompting Ebert to reconsider), this meditative art-house drama follows a motorcycle racer’s cross-country journey as he’s haunted by the memory of his ex-girlfriend.

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Russell’s enduringly controversial masterpiece revisits the severe religious hysteria of 17th-century France, where a priest is bequeathed control of a small rural city only to find himself the defendant in a witchcraft trial.