People who take exception to the depiction of graphic sex in film are often chided if they do not appear to be as offended by violence in movies. However, there is an important distinction in the depiction of these two things that is often overlooked in discussions: the violence is not real but the sex often is.
I was reminded of this when I was watching one of my many Christmas presents from a good friend. That present was a DVD of Caligula starring Malcolm McDowell and produced by Bob Guccione. The movie has many graphic scenes of violence and sex. A man is shown having his urethra tied off, wine poured down his throat, and then his belly ripped open.
However, Caligula was no snuff film of urban legend. It is a certainty that the actor who played this abused character was quite alive after the scene was shot with his innards intact. On the other hand, we watch both men and women with penises in their mouths and those are in fact . . . men and women with penises in their mouths. We see a woman fondling another woman’s genitals and that is an actual sex act.
In another scene, a character is brutally killed and his genitals cut off and fed to dogs. It is a horrible scene but the actor was not castrated in order to make it and that a fake penis was created for the purpose. By contrast, when we see a woman urinating on the ersatz corpse, we are seeing her actually releasing urine – as we earlier saw McDowell urinating.
When we discuss violence and sex in the movies, it is important to keep the distinction between simulation and reality clear.
