The audience will never be prepared for this awkward moment.
The movie industry always snips a love storyline into their films. It adds a connection between the characters, and we are suckers for romance. However, the sex scenes in movies are outrageously uncomfortable. To be honest with you, it doesn’t make any sense why it’s there.
A sex scene is the audience’s worst two to four minutes of their life. You can be watching a movie alone in your room and get stuck watching people make love. You might just take a peek at your phone so the scene passes. It’s even worse when you are with friends and family. It’s an awkward shared moment you will never bring up again … literally ever. You plan to go to the theaters to catch the newest blockbuster, but you don’t plan to sit and watch a sex scene in front of a big screen.
Most mainstream movies throw in a sex scene like it’s paprika to a dish. “Christmas with The Kranks” has a sex scene, not one of Tim Allen’s finest holiday movies, but it’s sprinkled in. It doesn’t really add to the plot. In “Seinfeld,” it’s noted Jerry gets laid all the time. However, we never see a scene with him in bed. The story can continue without audiences enduring a soft glimpse of missionary.
In coming-of-ages movies, teenagers face a constant dilemma: should they lose their virginity to maintain status or not? For starters, virginity is a construct –it’s basically the equator. It is a huge theme in these movies and we see actors (usually age 25, but somehow still playing teens) wind up in a sex scene.
Sex is a confusing topic for teenagers. The movie industry may influence young adults to have sex or share this “perfect” moment they saw in a rom-com. They’re stuck wanting to know what others think about them and their actions. Films like “The Breakfast Club” sum up this perception pretty well: people see you as a prude or a whore. However, it doesn’t matter how people perceive your sexuality, it’s about what makes you feel comfortable.
There is no real value to a sex scene rather than making the movie a bit longer. From my understanding, sex scenes are very technical. The directors try to nail angles, so the audience can assume the actors are fully naked. I can understand it might be uncomfortable for the actors too, seeing a handful of cameras pointed at their bodies. If it’s awkward watching them, I can only imagine how awkward it is to act it out.
There are movies we expect to see a sex scene from like “Fifty Shades of Grey.” It might not be our first choice for family movie night, but at least we know what we’re getting into. Sometimes, we are stuck watching our favorite actor get naked with our parents or siblings near us. Honestly, I can’t think of a more perfect time to pull our masks above our eyes.