How TV Sex Got Real
May 21, 2015 4:34 AM Subscribe
Whether it’s two female prisoners competing to see who can coax the most orgasms out of their fellow inmates in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black or a good, old-fashioned kiss-and-cut-away on ABC’s Scandal—the way intimacy is shown on the small screen has come a long way since 1952 when CBS forbade Lucille Ball from calling herself “pregnant” on national TV, substituting instead the priest-approved word “expecting.”
Apologies for the spoilers! Mentions OITNB, The Americans, Girls, Transparent, How to Get Away With Murder, House of Cards and Scandal.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:21 AM on May 21, 2015
posted by ellieBOA at 5:21 AM on May 21, 2015
The porn angle is interesting, and not one I had considered.
What's more interesting is that the fake intercourse found on tv regularly looks more "real" than the real sex in porn. Intercourse in porn quite often ends up looking quite cold and mechanical and not at all inviting, whereas the simulated stuff on tv shows tends to look a lot more "real" (or, at least, more fun), probably because they are under more pressure to make it believable to sell a certain story point or fantasy.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:47 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
What's more interesting is that the fake intercourse found on tv regularly looks more "real" than the real sex in porn. Intercourse in porn quite often ends up looking quite cold and mechanical and not at all inviting, whereas the simulated stuff on tv shows tends to look a lot more "real" (or, at least, more fun), probably because they are under more pressure to make it believable to sell a certain story point or fantasy.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:47 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
What's more interesting is that the fake intercourse found on tv regularly looks more "real" than the real sex in porn. Intercourse in porn quite often ends up looking quite cold and mechanical and not at all inviting, whereas the simulated stuff on tv shows tends to look a lot more "real" (or, at least, more fun), probably because they are under more pressure to make it believable to sell a certain story point or fantasy.
Yes, very much so. On TV, at least on the better shows like Girls or The Americans, the sex is contextualized -- there is a before and an after -- and the actors portray some kind of connection. Sometimes that connection is intimacy, sometimes something else (like the bar pickup the article references) but in either case it isn't just two random people stripping down and boning to a bow-chicka-bow-bow soundtrack.
And purely at a physical level, the kinds of sex acts portrayed on these shows falls a lot more into the "oh yeah, we do that sometimes" category rather than the weird and acrobatic sequence of moves in porn. Not many people enjoy a piledriver followed by unlubed anal and finished with ass-to-mouth on a nightly basis, but there's a good chance that a random porn clip will follow that sequence.
The idea that freely available porn has taken the pressure off the shows to be porny is interesting, but I'm not sure it totally holds up. Game of Thrones and Marco Polo are easy examples of shows with tons of porny, male-gaze-style content. Just because some shows are being very smart and thoughtful about this, as featured in the article, doesn't mean that a very specific kind of sexual content isn't effective for driving ratings.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:03 AM on May 21, 2015
Yes, very much so. On TV, at least on the better shows like Girls or The Americans, the sex is contextualized -- there is a before and an after -- and the actors portray some kind of connection. Sometimes that connection is intimacy, sometimes something else (like the bar pickup the article references) but in either case it isn't just two random people stripping down and boning to a bow-chicka-bow-bow soundtrack.
And purely at a physical level, the kinds of sex acts portrayed on these shows falls a lot more into the "oh yeah, we do that sometimes" category rather than the weird and acrobatic sequence of moves in porn. Not many people enjoy a piledriver followed by unlubed anal and finished with ass-to-mouth on a nightly basis, but there's a good chance that a random porn clip will follow that sequence.
The idea that freely available porn has taken the pressure off the shows to be porny is interesting, but I'm not sure it totally holds up. Game of Thrones and Marco Polo are easy examples of shows with tons of porny, male-gaze-style content. Just because some shows are being very smart and thoughtful about this, as featured in the article, doesn't mean that a very specific kind of sexual content isn't effective for driving ratings.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:03 AM on May 21, 2015
I was listening to the audio commentary for a network show, and it was mentioned that everything they show in a sex scene must have plausible deniability - hey, maybe these people are just making out! In a bed! Mostly naked! So no thrusting motions, arched backs, etc. In the hands of a skilled director, those limitations can actually make sex scenes sexier and less... mechanical.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:13 AM on May 21, 2015
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:13 AM on May 21, 2015
probably because they are under more pressure to make it believable to sell a certain story point or fantasy.
Also, the writers/actors etc. are actually real writers/actors who spend real time on the scripts/performances.
In porn, the qualifications for entry seem very different.
This writer has a somewhat different take:
"You can imagine my surprise when the camera showed the reporter whipping out his penis and urinating on the metal plate. I sat in immobile disbelief, staring at his penis, thinking, "There's his penis. There's his penis peeing, and it is on primetime British TV."
I had a good laugh thinking how this would never make it on North American television."
If you'd been raised in the 60's and 70's on The Wednesday Play/Play for Today, etc. you would have been exposed to a diet of regular full-frontal nudity, simulated sex and all the fucks, cocks and shits a teenage boy could hope for.
I always wondered how Dennis Potter's stuff would manage to make it on PBS. Were they sending out a bowdlerized version for the Americans?
And I bet you *still* aren't ready for Jerry Springer: The Opera
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:48 AM on May 21, 2015
Also, the writers/actors etc. are actually real writers/actors who spend real time on the scripts/performances.
In porn, the qualifications for entry seem very different.
This writer has a somewhat different take:
"You can imagine my surprise when the camera showed the reporter whipping out his penis and urinating on the metal plate. I sat in immobile disbelief, staring at his penis, thinking, "There's his penis. There's his penis peeing, and it is on primetime British TV."
I had a good laugh thinking how this would never make it on North American television."
If you'd been raised in the 60's and 70's on The Wednesday Play/Play for Today, etc. you would have been exposed to a diet of regular full-frontal nudity, simulated sex and all the fucks, cocks and shits a teenage boy could hope for.
I always wondered how Dennis Potter's stuff would manage to make it on PBS. Were they sending out a bowdlerized version for the Americans?
And I bet you *still* aren't ready for Jerry Springer: The Opera
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:48 AM on May 21, 2015
Not sure about now but in the '70s and '80s, PBS had much more lenient standards than the commercial networks.
posted by octothorpe at 8:00 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 8:00 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
OITNB, The Americans, Girls, Transparent, How to Get Away With Murder, House of Cards and Scandal.
Not to mention I Love Lucy!
posted by chaiminda at 8:10 AM on May 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Not to mention I Love Lucy!
posted by chaiminda at 8:10 AM on May 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
American TV is fascinating - the gulf between the cable channels (there was some serious banging in every season of 'Boardwalk Empire' bar the last) and Fox News blurring out the boobs on that Picasso last week, because heaven forfend someone would see a nipple.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:13 AM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:13 AM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
That's the difference between basic cable and premium channels. You don't get boobs and banging unless you pay extra for HBO, Showtime, etc.
posted by octothorpe at 8:25 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 8:25 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
FWIW, the first time I ever saw nudity of any sort on tv was during a PBS showing of Steambath. In 1973.
Valerie Perrine topless and her naked butt. And a couple of male actors' naked butts. It was quite a surprise to see.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:26 AM on May 21, 2015
Valerie Perrine topless and her naked butt. And a couple of male actors' naked butts. It was quite a surprise to see.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:26 AM on May 21, 2015
Fox turned into a hardcore porn channel so gradually I didn't even notice.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:30 AM on May 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by sexyrobot at 8:30 AM on May 21, 2015 [7 favorites]
That's the difference between basic cable and premium channels. You don't get boobs and banging unless you pay extra for HBO, Showtime, etc.
That'll change, particularly if/as network ratings continue to decline. You'll get HBO-style scenes in primetime - heavily hyped, of course - which will force HBO to up the ante. As in, future HBO series may well include unsimulated sex. Which, at some point, will make its way to broadcast TV, because this road only goes in one direction.
posted by kgasmart at 8:46 AM on May 21, 2015
That'll change, particularly if/as network ratings continue to decline. You'll get HBO-style scenes in primetime - heavily hyped, of course - which will force HBO to up the ante. As in, future HBO series may well include unsimulated sex. Which, at some point, will make its way to broadcast TV, because this road only goes in one direction.
posted by kgasmart at 8:46 AM on May 21, 2015
Billy Crystal played the first openly gay character on Soap in 1977
Everbody always forgets Vincent Schiavelli on The Corner Bar (Grant's Toomb) in 1972.
"Prior to Peter's introduction, viewers may have suspected TV characters were gay but their sexuality was never discussed on the air." -- USA Today
Schiavelli (who later played lectroid John O'Connor in Buckaroo Bonzai) was not only the first, but at 6' 6", probably the tallest.
A year earlier, All in the Family was the first TV sitcom to specifically state that a (guest) character is gay. (A guy Archie knew and admired from Kelsey's Bar.)
posted by Herodios at 9:05 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Everbody always forgets Vincent Schiavelli on The Corner Bar (Grant's Toomb) in 1972.
"Prior to Peter's introduction, viewers may have suspected TV characters were gay but their sexuality was never discussed on the air." -- USA Today
Schiavelli (who later played lectroid John O'Connor in Buckaroo Bonzai) was not only the first, but at 6' 6", probably the tallest.
A year earlier, All in the Family was the first TV sitcom to specifically state that a (guest) character is gay. (A guy Archie knew and admired from Kelsey's Bar.)
posted by Herodios at 9:05 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Fox News blurring out the boobs on that Picasso last week, because heaven forfend someone would see a nipple.
I heard about this today and can't really believe it. In any event, pixelating cubism might actually covert not-nipple into nipple. Or rather, abstract nipple into concrete nipple.
posted by chavenet at 9:21 AM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
I heard about this today and can't really believe it. In any event, pixelating cubism might actually covert not-nipple into nipple. Or rather, abstract nipple into concrete nipple.
posted by chavenet at 9:21 AM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hey! "Concrete Nipple" came up on the Heavy Metal Band Name Generator yesterday!
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:53 AM on May 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:53 AM on May 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
One of the things I think "Girls" does really well is accurately portray the awkward, bumbling, imperfect sex I imagine most people have in the real world. So often on TV (and movies for that matter) sex is portrayed as an either/or of unbelievably passionate, pleasurable and erotic or on the flip side, comically, over the top terrible. "Girls" is one of the few shows I can recall where I thought, "Yup, that's pretty much how it tends to go".
posted by The Gooch at 10:05 AM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by The Gooch at 10:05 AM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
What's more interesting is that the fake intercourse found on tv regularly looks more "real" than the real sex in porn. Intercourse in porn quite often ends up looking quite cold and mechanical and not at all inviting, whereas the simulated stuff on tv shows tends to look a lot more "real" (or, at least, more fun), probably because they are under more pressure to make it believable to sell a certain story point or fantasy.
I think this is half true for the reasons Dip Flash cites - porn is (almost by definition these days) focused on being super explicit about showing genitals/penetration and also just does a bunch of weird and "extreme" stuff for novelty. But TV/Movie sex is still often aestheticized in a way that isn't entirely honest. Which is why I also think Girls' slapstick depiction is refreshing.
posted by atoxyl at 11:13 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think this is half true for the reasons Dip Flash cites - porn is (almost by definition these days) focused on being super explicit about showing genitals/penetration and also just does a bunch of weird and "extreme" stuff for novelty. But TV/Movie sex is still often aestheticized in a way that isn't entirely honest. Which is why I also think Girls' slapstick depiction is refreshing.
posted by atoxyl at 11:13 AM on May 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
So often on TV (and movies for that matter) sex is portrayed as an either/or of unbelievably passionate, pleasurable and erotic or on the flip side, comically, over the top terrible.
When usually, it's that thing you do when you're done washing the dishes and you're not so wiped out from the day that your partner has dozed off already.
and maybe one of you dozes off partway through anyway, no comment
posted by psoas at 1:59 PM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
When usually, it's that thing you do when you're done washing the dishes and you're not so wiped out from the day that your partner has dozed off already.
and maybe one of you dozes off partway through anyway, no comment
posted by psoas at 1:59 PM on May 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
The most shocking difference between American and British TV I've discovered since I got Netflix is that in Britain, people over forty have sex... like allll the time! And people over fifty! With bodies that look their age! WTH!
In the United States this is just not done.
My husband and I speculate that the British actors' union must be incredible compared to a world where Maggie Gyllenhall is too old at 37.
posted by RedEmma at 3:53 AM on May 22, 2015
In the United States this is just not done.
My husband and I speculate that the British actors' union must be incredible compared to a world where Maggie Gyllenhall is too old at 37.
posted by RedEmma at 3:53 AM on May 22, 2015
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RIP my The Americans season binge.
posted by digitalprimate at 4:55 AM on May 21, 2015