Art has always walked a fine line between the erotic and the censored; and sex occupies an uneasy space within it. History is littered with examples of moral crusaders attempting to sanitize creativity. From ancient Greek theater to the works of Shakespeare, depictions of sex have shocked and beguiled, and have often been used as metaphors for power, desire, and conflict. In literature, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Anaïs Nin’s diaries, sex contributes to the examination of the human condition, to the exploration of the intersections of love, power, and identity. In visual art, figures like Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt used sensuality and eroticism as a way to explore both the physical and emotional nature of the human body. In the 19th century, Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde — a startlingly explicit depiction of a woman’s genitalia — appalled audiences, but it also forced them to confront the unadulterated truth of human existence. Ancient Greek pottery was unflinching in its celebration of the human form and acts of love, treating sex not as taboo but as intrinsic to life.

In cinema, films like Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses pushed conservative boundaries in the 1970s, exploring the psychological depths of intimacy. Even in the sacred art of religious iconography, sex was sometimes used to exemplify the bond between humanity and divinity, as seen in medieval and Renaissance depictions of the Annunciation or the creation of Adam. Art’s job has always been to explore, provoke, and reflect. When there is a demand that it conforms to conservative personal moral codes, its power becomes diminished.

Too much sex in tv shows. Take the sex out and give us a real plot. You can suggest that they had sex, don’t show us. https://t.co/aYDhrzOiQR

— pookie (@palesadali) January 16, 2025

The decline of adult audiences’ tolerance for sex scenes in movies is, quite frankly, an interesting trend that betrays a worrying shift towards puritanical squeamishness. While the pendulum of public taste has swung across various extremes over the decades, the current climate reveals an unsettling aversion to one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence. There’s a claim that often comes wrapped in pseudo-intellectual packaging, with the argument that “good storytelling” shouldn’t need explicit content. But this reductionist view ignores the many ways sex scenes deepen plots and develop characters, the ways in which it can expose the darker, more fraught recesses of a character’s psyche that might otherwise remain hidden: their desires, insecurities, vulnerabilities, perversions, etc and how all of these make them who they are. The way a character approaches intimacy can reveal how they relate to themselves and others. It can uncover fears, such as the fear of abandonment or a deep-seated lack of self-worth, that propel their actions throughout the rest of the story.

In Fleabag (2016-2019), the sex scenes are employed very impressively as a tool for the protagonist’s emotional self-flagellation. Phoebe Waller-Bridge uses her character’s sexual encounters to lay bare her self-destructive tendencies.

Fleabag uses sex to punish herself, to fill the void left by her grief, one that gapes wider with every meaningless tryst, and to grapple with her own self-loathing. Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), a luminous adaptation of James Baldwin’s work, portrays Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny’s (Stephan James) relationship as tender, romantic and deeply emotional, and this is bolstered via their lovemaking which is rendered with an ethereal softness that demonstrates their bond.

In Blue Valentine (2010), sex is a thermometer for the deterioration of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy’s (Michelle Williams) marriage. Their early intimacy is full of life and possibility, but as their love erodes, their physical connection becomes stilted and painful to watch.

Sex scenes also demonstrates how characters who struggle with body image or self-acceptance, relate to their own bodies, desires, and the world around them. The sexual interactions between Annie and Ryan in Shrill (2019-2021) lay bare the layers of fatphobia, uncovering Annie’s internalized insecurities about her body color and how they color every facet of her life, even sex.

What keeps the backlash against sex scenes alive is how it ties into deeper cultural anxieties. Nigerian films and television are expected to adhere to moralistic frameworks that reflect communal values. As a result, Nigerian cinema largely dilutes physical intimacy or cloakes it in euphemisms. Similarly, when actress Nancy Isime appeared in a film where her character’s breasts were shown, Shanty Town, public uproar necessitated explanations that the scene used a stunt double.

There are many instances where sex scenes are handled poorly, where they appear gratuitous, exploitative, or male-gazey. Because there’s a long history of the objectification of women’s bodies deeply entrenched in society, that translates on screen, too. Thus, there’s a vast difference between a scene included for shock value or cheap titillation and one that serves a deeper narrative purpose. A well-executed scene is to deepen our understanding of the characters and propel the narrative in ways that are integral to the story’s themes and emotional arcs. It should deepen our understanding of the story. Our bodies are not separate from our emotions; they are the vessels through which our most intimate feelings are lived. To pretend otherwise is to create a world where the physical and emotional realms remain artificially divorced from one another. In this version of reality, emotions are reduced to abstract concepts, floating in a vacuum without the grounding, corporeal connection that makes them real.