Are American Movies Getting Religion When it Comes to Sex?

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

It was one thing when Hollywood released two "friends with benefits"-themed movies this year a few months apart: No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits.

But a mainstream movie about an outright orgy? A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, which opened last weekend, seems like something new, right? Could it be that Americans, and American movies, are growing up? They're we're finally getting, um, religion on the topic of sex in film?

Of course, the problem with movie trend articles is that there are so many movies released every year that you can always find examples to support almost any point you want to make. I mean, when it comes to sex, Cruising (1980), Basic Instinct (1992), and Showgirls (1995) weren't exactly chopped liver.

Cruising's infamous gay S&M club

And let's face it: the mere inclusion of sex and sexual topics in movies doesn't necessarily mean the film is "sophisticated" or its viewers are more mature. If it did, the regularly reoccurring explosion in popularity of teen sex comedies like Porky's, American Pie, Risky Business, and The Last American Virgin would mean America has long been in the midst of another cultural Renaissance.

But the question is still worth asking: could it be that Americans are becoming slightly less giggly about sex and sexual themes in films?

There's no doubt that TV has become much more bold and explicit, especially when it comes to gay sex. (Much of the credit or blame goes to Sex and the City, IMHO, which introduced middle America to quite a few of the more exotic sexual practices. And while the show originally ran on premium cable, it's long been syndicated, albeit with considerable editing, on commercial TV.)

There's also lots of evidence that, thanks to computers and home video, Americans are much more willing to watch outright sexual content in film – namely, porn, which, thanks to the Internet, no longer requires even a trip to the video store.

So what of mainstream movies?

The conventional wisdom has always been that European filmmakers have long embraced sexuality – and sensuality – in film. But Americans, Puritans to the core, are supposedly still too uptight to openly celebrate wanton or even guilt-free sex.

The premise has never been completely true, of course – at least not since the fall of the Hays Code in the 1960s. Even before then, Hollywood's notorious censorship code allowed us a fair amount of erotic subtext and maybe even sparked a whole subtext-y genre, film noir.

Gay subtext in 1946's Gilda?

Americans have long loved erotic thrillers such as Dressed to Kill and Body Heat. And as I said, since the late 1970s, we've gone nuts for the teen sex comedy.

Sure, you can argue that these films aren't sexy-sexy, not like "sensual" European films. But then you really are sounding like one of those America-haters that conservatives love to rail about.

Next Page! Americans all agree: no movie penises! (Right?)