Sex scenes: they’re not just for gratuitous boob shots anymore!
“The Affair” star Ruth Wilson, currently on Broadway with Jake Gyllenhaal, recently spoke out on the one-sidedness of sex scenes in entertainment.
“It’s assumed that women will get their breasts out, and have to get their breasts out, and I balk at that,” she said. “It’s unnecessary and it’s unfair.”
She went further, asking, “Why have I always got to do the orgasm face? There should be a male orgasm face. Why is it always the woman who’s orgasming? Let’s analyze the male orgasm. Why aren’t we thinking about that a bit more?” said Wilson, whose character on the Showtime show is involved with Dominic West’s married novelist.
Wilson’s point is borne out by the vast majority of sex scenes since, oh, roughly the invention of sex scenes — but I think we’re seeing the beginning of a turnaround, a Golden Age of equal-opportunity objectification.
In just the past year, countless shows have featured the camera eyeing men just as much as, or more than, it did their female romantic partners.
Leading the charge is the BBC series “The Fall,” which just released its second season on Netflix. The crime show, about the pursuit of a serial killer (“Fifty Shades of Grey” star Jamie Dornan), stars a female detective, Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson), who unapologetically sleeps with younger men on the force. In her first hotel-room hookup, the guy is the one whose shirt comes off; hers remains on. When confronted about her behavior by a male colleague, she lays it down: “That’s what really bothers you, isn’t it? The one-night stand. ‘Man f - - ks woman.’ Subject: man. Verb: f - - ks. Object: woman. That’s OK. ‘Woman f - - ks man.’ Subject: woman. Verb: f - - ks. Object: man. That’s not so comfortable for you, is it?”
The first episode of this season of “Girls” startled viewers with an explicit scene involving Allison Williams’ character, Marnie, and her folk-singing partner, Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). But, especially for “Girls,” it didn’t involve much nudity (just some side-butt) on the part of Williams, who’s being serviced by Moss-Bachrach in a fairly unconventional manner — even for HBO. As Alex Karpovsky, who plays Ray on the series, remarked to Vulture: “Let’s explore all the cavities. Yeah, 2015 is the Butt Year. There is some type of sexual revolution happening, and maybe that’s one of the cliffs or peaks that we need to begin to incorporate into our societal representation of this revolution, specifically in television.”
Then there’s Starz’s “Outlander,” which focused most of an entire episode on the post-wedding bedroom antics of couple Claire and Jamie. The twist? His character was the inexperienced one losing his virginity to her — and he was the one who was ordered to get naked first so she could admire his hot Highlander bod.
Meanwhile, on “The Mindy Project,” Mindy Kaling is making good use of Chris Messina’s childhood training as a competitive dancer. This season, his character, Danny, was revealed to have had a former alter ego: Diamond Dan, a highly successful stripper in the tradition of “Magic Mike” (he’s busted when she finds his glittery personalized thong). After some initial denial, he breaks out his moves for Mindy in her bedroom.
And on “The Americans,” Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys got to star in a network milestone of sorts when their married, Russian-spy couple was caught in the midst of a, shall we say, numerically specific sex act by their daughter. Both are naked in the scene — but it’s Rhys who’s most exposed to the camera.
Earlier in the year there was HBO’s “True Detective,” in which Matthew McConaughey was the one who got naked during a brief but steamy tryst with Michelle Monaghan’s character. (I can’t link to the very R-rated scene, but trust me, I studied it. For research.)
The cast of the female-created Showtime show “Masters of Sex” have talked about the pointedly non-gratuitous nature of its sex scenes. Star Lizzy Caplan told Variety: “There’s a fair amount of sex and nudity in our show, obviously, but it never, never feels gratuitous . . . Without fail, when I’m watching television, I struggle to find one example of it not feeling a bit gratuitous. Our show is about sex and intimacy. Most shows are about other things. Maybe dragons?”
And Wilson’s own show is a pretty good example of the recent strides forward in egalitarian sex scenes, too: Though both Wilson and West spend a good amount of time with their clothes off, the camera tends to linger on his rear end more than it does hers; it also regularly ogles the muscular, shirtless frame of Wilson’s character’s husband, Cole (Joshua Jackson, who’s come a long way from his baby-faced “Dawson’s Creek” days).
The silver screen seems to be evolving, too: This year’s Sundance festival featured a variety of forward-thinking sex comedies, reported Yahoo!.
One minor cause for concern: As we move into a new era of male “orgasm face,” let’s just hope they steer clear of “o-face.”