Editor Break Down: Are Sex Scenes Necessary in Film and Books?
The Debate
An old-but-new debate has been making its rounds on the Internet, as people consider whether sex scenes in film and television are necessary at all. The basic case of non-sex-sceners is that sex scenes are just uncomfortable to watch and/or gross and/or unethical to make, and they usually or always do nothing necessary to advance a film’s plot or ideas. The almost comical apex of this debate happened recently with this woman’s TikTok review of Oppenheimer, and how both she and her husband are triggered by sex scenes (after you watch that, do yourself a favor and watch the Shrek 2 comedic rebuttal). With some light Googling, it appears the debate over sex scenes first gained traction on the internet around 2019 when this opinion was upvoted on Reddit, a timeless proving ground for seemingly fringe takes that eventually become mainstream. The opinion shared there, which summarizes the general attitude, goes like this: “Sex scenes in movies/series are unnecessary and dumb…I can't watch a movie with my family when there are a lot of sex scenes in movies that make the situation awkward. It usually does not provide something important info for the movie, it is just unnecessary.”
This argument isn’t coming from journalists or critics. Like with the Roald Dahl censorship conversation earlier this year, you can’t find many cultural writers and critics taking the pro-censorship, anti-sex scene side of the issue. So why is it important to take this seriously if it’s just a small portion of regular people? Because despite not having wide support in the arts and critical communities, book publishers did feel the need to “sensitivity read” Roald Dahl; likewise, movies will feel the pressure to tame or cut down sex scenes for the consumer. This is how a growing number of young people view the world, and those views will in turn shape art. Before exploring whether sex scenes can serve artistic or story purposes in books and film, it’s worth asking: where is this all coming from anyway?
Generations
One possible cause is that Gen Z (born 1995-2012) just doesn’t care as much about sex. I worked on a book called Generations by Jean Twenge that essentially gathered all of the data available on generations across many thousands of national surveys and data points. In that book Twenge has a couple of stats around Gen Z and sex. The percentage of 18-year-old high school seniors that have had sex was around 68% in the early 1990s (when this question became part of the survey) and has fallen steadily until dipping below 50% for the first time in 2019. The percentage of high school seniors that had “ever dated” is down from around 85% in the late 1970s to nearly 40% in 2020 (pg. 373), with the biggest declines coming since Gen Zers started hitting their senior year of high school (in 2013 and on). An infamous Atlantic article in 2018 broke all of this down too. It’s important not to overreact to these statistics—it’s still half and half, not a supermajority—but it does make sense that a split that’s more 50/50 and less 70/30 means that those with a previously unpopular view—sex, yuck—might feel a little more comfort expressing it.
Either way, the phrasing of this opinion as sex scenes being “unnecessary” is a telling choice of words. What it reveals is less that they are offensive or morally reprehensible (like previous generations of censorship around sex thought), but that an increasing number of young people “just can’t be bothered.” Breaking no new ground, sex is complicated, it’s uncomfortable to confront, discuss, and oftentimes to look at (especially, you know, if you’re looking at it with other people as you might with a movie). If sex isn’t absolutely necessary and crucial—which one could infer a generation forgoing sexual relationships would feel about it — then why would you want it in your entertainment or art?
The Male Gaze
Laced into this shrugging attitude is the idea that, besides not being valuable for the viewer—who has little interest in seeing sex, if they’re in Gen Z—these scenes have even more risks behind the scenes that make them also not worth it to put on screen. It’s no secret at this point that art has been dominated by the male gaze for the better part of humanity. In film, men control the scripts and the camera (only 19% of writers and 11% of directors are women, respectively). While the view that sex scenes are unnecessary may be rooted in personal discomfort, there does exist a strong casing to wrap it in—namely that it is probably easier to recall more sex scenes in movies that feel done for the wrong reasons than ones done for the right reasons, such as to advance storytelling or character. Think of bodies used as props or scenery, like in a movie such as Animal House or art house films where drawn-out scenes of nudity seem entirely out of place and like they were shoehorned in by some leering writer or director. The status quo for a long time has been: Nude for no reason.
An interesting Buzzfeed poll speaks to the idea that more individuals just don’t want to be made to engage with sexually explicit material. The poll asks readers to decide whether sex scenes in certain films were “necessary” or “pointless.” In almost all instances what was deemed overwhelmingly necessary was sex played for love, and what was played for comedy was deemed pointless. Basically, the scenes that are made to be uncomfortable, or generally bad sex or gross—even the opening scene in Bridesmaids, which is totally in character, fits the story entirely, and has something to say—are marked as pointless. These paradoxical-seeming views display the open-minded but puritanical flavor of this argument overall—both a desire to be progressive in certain terms while also shutting their eyes entirely. What this poll shows is that the concern is not primarily about how sex fits into the movie thematically or ethically, but just that viewers don’t want to deal with their own discomfort. They don’t want to linger in a non-plot scene and be forced to think.
Does Plot Matter?
Perhaps the most interesting part to unpack in this whole conversation is the justification for getting rid of sex scenes because they don’t further the plot. Wrapped up in not wanting to see what you aren’t interested in seeing is the more insidious worldview that stories should be constructed only as a series of surprising happenings and that we should all serve Our Master, plot. My theory is that the backlash and derision from critics and artists to this take on sex scenes isn’t so much about the specific debate at hand—again, it’s hard to defend the majority of sex and nudity in movies across time—but rather the suggestion from consumers, viewers, and readers that they won’t tolerate anything that isn’t tailored to their entertainment and comfort. They seem to be saying: take out your sex scenes, your digressions, your quiet moments, your random observations, and Give Us What We Want (namely, a story that constantly moves). This is the most rankling part of the word “unnecessary.” That readers and moviegoers are moving increasingly toward a desire for non-engagement when it comes to their art, something non-challenging and frictionless.
Of course, “non-essential” scenes or moments in a novel are often ones that some readers find the richest and most rewarding. As the saying goes, “no idea is original” and we’ve basically been recycling the same plots forever, so if you’re an active reader or viewer a lot of the interesting stuff comes not from the story but how it’s put together—the settings, the specifics, the dialog, the details, the oddities. There’s a great video that breaks down the editing of the film Ocean’s Eleven. The video’s creator explains why this heist movie, which should traditionally be all about plot, was reworked by the director based on viewer feedback. At first, the director just cut the movie to keep the plot moving, but then after testing with audiences realized that what people actually wanted more of was the characters doing nothing and just hanging around and chatting. If you watch the video above or have seen the movie, then you know that these are some of the best moments in the film, they let the plot breathe, and reward repeat viewers many years later. Plot is important, but something “non-necessary” whether it’s a sex scene, people standing silently in a room, or a guy putting on his socks and eating breakfast, can be enduring.
No plot here, who cares?
One of my favorite authors is Elif Batuman whose two novels—The Idiot and Either/Or—have very little in the way of plot. They’re semi-autobiographical novels full of brilliant, original observations. The setting — a canonical college campus— and central conflicts — coming-of-age and navigating relationships — aren’t anything new, but the wanderings are well worth following. Elif is just the kind of storyteller we could lose if artists start to reflect consumer taste and are pushed further in a plot-only direction. Here’s a delightful newsletter she wrote about manhole covers. There’s not a lot of “plot” in this newsletter about manhole covers, but there is plenty of story and a search for meaning. And that might be better than figuring out what happens next.