The Naked Truth About Male Nudity When reviewing the prominent movie events of the past year, one thing leaps out at us: Colin Farrell’s penis. It was, of course, famously going to be on full display in the movie adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel, A Home at the End of the World. And--just as famously--the offending footage was cut at the last minute. Different explanations abounded, including one that claimed that the organ was so prodigious that it would cause straight men to tear their eyes out in despair, and gay men and straight women to lose control of themselves and rush the movie screen in a frenzy of animal lust. Incidentally, Colin Farrell has some fine publicist, no?

Before the male lead in 1992’s Basic Instinct had been cast, director Paul Verhoeven vowed that his movie would include the first shot of an erect penis ever featured in a major motion picture. Fortunately, when it was Michael Douglas who was cast as that lead, God intervened in the form of a burning editing machine, commanding Verhoeven, “Thou Shalt Not Film Michael Douglas’ Erection!” For good measure, members of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, all chipped in to a buy a disembodied horse’s head, which they left as a warning in Verhoeven’s bed.

Meanwhile, Bruce Willis himself promised an eyeful of Bruce-y goodness in his 1994 project Color of Night. But again, the finished project left movie-goers disappointed (in more ways that one). One of the few male members that actually did make it to movie screens in recent years--Mark Walberg’s ultra-endowed porn star in 1997’s Boogie Nights --wasn’t even real. It was prosthetic, designed by someone who had apparently never seen an actual penis.

A few actors have gone naked repeatedly--most notably Ewan McGregor, who drops trou in The Pillow Book and The Velvet Goldmine, and who, on the set of the first new Star Wars movie, reportedly begged George Lucas to shoot a scene in which he moons Jar Jar Binks. For now, glimpses of male danglies are consigned mostly to arthouse movies.

Perhaps the most famous arthouse nude sequence is the skinny-dipping scene in 1986’s A Room with a View, during which a naked Rupert Graves caused a whole generation of gay boys, including both of us, to simultaneously come of age.

On arthouse screens now, the often-naked Peter Saarsgard is currently in all his glory in Kinsey, in a fascinating seduction scene that may be the first non-gratuitous nude scene in the history of cinema.

Why don’t more American movies feature male nudity? It’s certainly not an issue in foreign films, especially French ones like Grande Ecole, which is not a good movie, but which includes several locker room scenes which are perhaps the most gratuitous nudes scenes in the history of cinema. (Yes, Netflix carries it.)

Keep in mind that major American movies are still mostly produced, directed, and written by heterosexual males, for heterosexual males. And for some straight guys, the scariest thing in 2002’s break-out British thriller 28 Days Later wasn’t the maniacal zombies or virulent viruses; it was the sight of lead actor Cillian Murphy‘s penis on full display in the first ten minutes of the movie. For heterosexual men, an on-screen penis is a lose-lose proposition. If it’s big, which it almost always is in movies, he can’t help but feel inadequate. And if it’s attractive, as it also almost always is, he can’t help but feel a little, well, gay.

Meanwhile, the actors themselves are probably not wild about subjecting themselves to the scrutiny of the world. With all the brouhaha over A Home at the End of the World, even we started to get tired of the idea of Colin Farrell’s penis.

Okay, maybe not.

But Richard Gere has had to endure twenty years of hamster jokes, probably in part due to the fact that his appearing naked early on in his career in American Gigalo and Breathless made some see him as “gay.” And Tom Cruise surely regrets his very brief, but much-discussed nude scene in 1983’s All the Right Moves, not because he necessarily has anything to be embarrassed about--maybe he’s a grower, not a shower!--but because it eliminates some of his mystique.

And for movie stars like Cruise, who don’t have much in the way of talent, mystique is all they have to offer.

In any event, gay culture has already had a big impact on the world of theatre and television, and will eventually affect the world of movies too. We think this will lead inevitably to more penises on screen. This will not cause the fall of civilization, nor will it to lead to some fabulous new Promised Land. But it is one small part in the Big Gay Picture.

Two Cheap Bastards are Brent Hartinger and Michael Jensen, partners since 1992. Brent is the author of the gay teen novel, Geography Club, and its sequel, The Order of the Poison Oak (brenthartinger.com). Michael Jensen is the author of the gay historical novels Frontiers and Firelands (michaeljensen.com).