Sex scenes in movies typically make viewers wonder how actors handle to show so much passion. But a couple of people recognize that their favorite erotic scene can in fact be a real sexual act. This takes place seldom, however real sex still slips into the movie industry.
Real sex in movies is among the most interesting and taboo topics at the same time. First adult films appeared at the dawn of cinema but quickly became a different genre. Since the 70’s, pornography got out from the underground, and lots of traditional film directors started to include erotic scenes in their works. The reason for this is quite basic – bring in viewers. Every film with sex scenes gains amazing popularity, ending up in the center of several scandals at the same time. This always has a favorable impact on the box office.
However still, despite the arguments of challengers of sex in feature films, intimate scenes in them can’t be compared to porn, where the main focus is placed on physical contact. In feature films, sex works as a tool for strengthening the psychological connection between the characters, improving the effect of viewer involvement in what’s happening on the screen. You can see the distinction for yourself and check out among the 10 mainstream movies with unsimulated sex.
10) Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)
Indie director Melvin Van Peebles understood exactly what he needed when he composed the script, filmed, and edited the film about the misadventures of a black sex maker called Sweet Sweetback. The lead character broke much of the genre taboos that existed in the early 1970s: he eliminated canines and cops, urinated and, naturally, had sex, including interracial. Such atrocities, as well as real sex in mainstream movies, were inappropriate, getting a star for such a function was impossible. So the director himself played the main role, performing a number of sexual show people he barely knew in front of the electronic camera. As it turned out, the outcome was worth it: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song became one of the most commercially effective and disputed films of 1971, producing an entirely new subgenre called blaxploitation.
9) Pink Flamingos (1972)
This popular John Waters’ movie about 2 freak households is strictly not suggested for light porn fans: your nerves may not endure such stress. Considering that the director’s objective was to trigger the emetic reflex, the techniques and strategies were appropriate: sex, masturbation, blowjobs, defecation, and so on. The film is packed with a lot of revolting scenes that it makes other movies with real sex scenes look like Disney cartoons.
8) Caligula (1979)
Those who are not acquainted with the history of the creation of Caligula might question how Tinto Brass managed to get such stars as Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, and Helen Mirren to play in an adult movie. Everything is rather simple: in spite of Brass’s reputation, the movie wasn’t expected to be adult– the director truly prepared to make a historical film about the bloody Roman emperor, and all the sex he recorded was simulated. However, when the sponsor (Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione) demanded to include some ‘true hardcore’ in the film (at that time, scenes with unsimulated sex in movies could increase the cost of tickets), Brass declined and was fired. Then Guccione himself beinged in the director’s chair and recorded additional 6 minutes of pure porn, which was pretty approximately installed in the finished product without alerting other actors about it.
7) Cruising (1980 )
This one is a bit various from other movies with real sex. William Friedkin’s thriller about a serial killer, who dismembers gays, ended up being a thing not only because of Al Pacino’s involvement in it but also due to gay sex scenes the director shot in a couple of gay clubs. According to Friedkin, all of them were real, and initially, the New York gays he fulfilled at bars assisted him to gather the product for the film and played in it. Friedkin paid these men as bonuses, but in fact, they were simply hanging out near the spots where he was shooting the movie. The studios that financed Cruising weren’t enthusiastic about the movie (which, by the way, almost got the X score) and forced the director to get rid of many sex scenes.
But the film still failed at package office– it’s thought that it was Cruising that scored the last nail in the casket of the New Hollywood age which offered many independent filmmakers cash to make movies ‘not for everybody.’ The cut scenes were later brought back by James Franco in the documentary Interior. Leather Bar.
6) Irreversible (2002)
We know what you are considering, but no. We’ll have to disappoint you: the popular ten-minute scene of Monica Bellucci’s anal rape in the underpass which assisted Gaspar Noe make a profession is an imitation from the very first to the last second. But the film includes other unsimulated minutes, such as blowjobs and masturbation. Noe is a fan of a specific sex in mainstream movies – you can find a few hardcore scenes in almost each of his films, from his launching work Seul Contre Tous to various brief films. In Enter deep space, he handled to reveal a sexual act from the inside with the help of photorealistic computer system animation. By the way, the erotic scene starring Bellucci and Vincent Cassel was also real due to the fact that at the time the film remained in production, the actors were married.
5) Ken Park (2002)
This, possibly, is one of the best movies with unsimulated sex on this list. After the scandalous but not so pornographic movie Kids that portrayed the sexual life of teens, Larry Clark shot Ken Park in which he made his characters go through cunnilingus, blowjob, masturbation, group sex, and other porn things revealed close-up. Offered the rather young age of the stars, who had to participate in sexual activities, the film caused quite a stir in the press and was prohibited in numerous countries, including the United States. The director’s arguments (he ensured that all the actors were 18 and older throughout the production of the movie) changed little in the eyes of one of the most part of the conservative society. It turns out that people still believe that teenagers can have sex if they want, however revealing it in movie theaters is wrong.
4) The Brown Bunny (2003)
No one would have remembered this film today if it wasn’t for Chloe Sevigny. The primary star and movie director Vincent Gallo (who was likewise the manufacturer and scriptwriter) handled to convince the starlet to blow him in a close-up scene. At the Cannes Film Festival, The Brown Bunny got a lot of criticism that Gallo assured him to give up film directing, however, he didn’t. The motion picture was so bad that Sevigny is still suffering the repercussions – for the next 10 years after the movie release, she has actually been telling about how much she is sorry for participating in this task. It ends up that films with real sex can actually damage an actor’s profession.
Today, in the age of celeb iPhone hacks, erotic videos starring famous starlets are a typical thing, but at the start of the 2000s, such scandals were brand-new, so Chloe suffered a lot. The reality that her heroine was a druggie, and a blowjob scene happened only in Gallo’s imagination, a little bit changed: it looked more than real on the screen. Thousands of audiences, who still download this film simply to see this extreme scene, can prove this.
3) 9 Songs (2004)
The third spot on our list of mainstream movies with real sex goes to 9 Songs. There’s an opinion that the pattern for films where sex covers the drawbacks of directing and acting began with the erotic drama 9 songs by Michael Winterbottom. Unsimulated sex between the heroes of Kiran O’Brien and Margo Stilley included everything that we typically see in porn: classic and oral sex, ejaculation, and other undisguised qualities of the category.
The actors had the chance to ‘rehearse’ before the shooting (some of this material was, later on, consisted of in the movie), after which they agreed to the primary shootings, however when the camera was switched off, O’Brien and Stilly weren’t interested in each other at all. The relations shown in the movie were recognized by most critics as weak, and the plot didn’t exist at all (this really wasn’t the movie’s strongest point) In addition, the British Parliament angrily judged the director, who decided to jeer at public tastes with the concern ‘Why can’t we reveal real sex scenes in movies? It’s just as natural as eating!’ The design, who played the main function, asked to eliminate her name from the credits prior to the release. Later, nevertheless, she stopped preventing promotion: no matter how weak the film was, for her, it was the start of a rather effective acting profession.
2) Shortbus (2006)
In his romantic comedy about the New York club of sex enthusiasts, John Cameron Mitchell handled to reveal a full series of adult pleasures, from masturbation and group sex to, well, autofellatio. The truth that all orgasms in Shortbus are real became clear to the audience right at the premiere. The director himself said that he didn’t think about the movie adult, as pornography is identified by the lack of creative jobs. Its function is to excite libido. He didn’t think that anybody would have an erection while seeing his film.
Porn or not, however, celebs can rarely afford to have unsimulated sex in mainstream movies. That’s why it took a lot of time up until the director discovered the right people for the task: Mitchell had to explore five hundred possible prospects from different nations prior to he discovered enough actors prepared to leave shame aside and do what was needed. To create the right atmosphere on set, Mitchell and the operator worked naked. In spite of that, the movie was shot beautifully and even had a rather amusing story, the conservative public was somewhat surprised by the quantity of sex in the movie. Canadian radio presenter Lee Suk-Yin, who played among the leading roles, even nearly lost her task after the release of Shortbus. Fortunately, Francis Ford Coppola liked the film, and his reputation assisted Mitchell to fend off haters.
1) Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)
In these years, unsimulated sex in films is still popular. Lars von Trier became famous as a pornographer thanks to Nymphomaniac that included a lot of sexual acts involving stars, but in fact, one can find adult elements in his earlier works, as well. For instance, in the drama The Idiots, the main characters, apparently mentally ill individuals, toss a group sex party, and Antichrist demonstrates close-up penetration. According to the producer, the most erotic moments were filmed with additionals involved, but despite this, reports claim that Willem Defoe’s sex with Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist was quite real. Besides, after the best, Shia LaBeouf, whose head, according to Nymphomaniac press release, was photoshopped to another person’s torso, admitted in an interview that the scene with him wasn’t modified. In general, you can argue whose penis we saw on the screen, but the reality that all of the above-mentioned films included sex scenes is beyond question.