If audiences see more queer sex in movies, and it becomes common, fun, zesty, sexy, and playful, then the "curse" is taken off. Hiding sex from movies is an aggressive act that forces queer people back into the celluloid closet. With all sexless figures, everyone can be imagined as straight, and there's suddenly no queer representation whatsoever. Perhaps this is borne of paranoia, but I personally suspect that many calls to remove sex from feature films are using the argument as a Trojan Horse for homophobia. Many companies have skirted the notion of including queer characters in their PG-13-rated entertainments by making everyone more or less sexless (although there are exceptions America Chavez openly sports a pride pin in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"). Queerness has long been a bugaboo of the MPA's rating system, and queer kisses have often received harsher ratings than heteronormative ones. The author can only call to mind one studio film that has ever had a "that was awkward, but now we can talk about it and still be friends" scene, and it was in Kay Cannon's vastly underrated 2018 sex comedy " Blockers." More positive conversations from negative experiences, please.įifthly, if there's no sex in films, then there's no gay sex in films. Our art should reflect that.įourthly, not all sex is perfect, and more sex scenes would allow for a moment of embarrassed vulnerability wherein two partners can openly talk about how what they did might have been awkward or just a bad idea. Sex shouldn't be hidden from an adult audience. If they cannot talk about sexual issue, then sex once again becomes something oblique, shameful, and clandestine. If they are only sexual in private, then they will be encouraged to be silent about sexual issues they may face. If people aren't sexual in movies, then they are only sexual in private. Removing sex from movies is, in a vital way, removing it from everyday conversation.
It also feeds into a widespread fear of sex and sexuality that has been deeply infecting an increasingly conservative discourse at large. And while leaving most characters' sexualities abstract might provide a broader canvas for writers of slash fiction, it is, in many ways, a form of censorship. Audiences have reached a point that mainstream cinematic entertainments are largely sexless, and any tiny crumb of sexuality is savored. So while it may be understandable why audiences weaned on fantasy violence may expect sex to be deliberately removed from their preferred stories, in doing so, many vital elements of the human condition are being deliberately excised.