The Naked Truth

I think I've reached the saturation point with graphic depictions of simulated love-making in the movies, and it has nothing to do with prudery.

I learned a long time ago that babies aren't found under cabbage leaves, and the stork doesn't bring them. People make babies. They always have, always will, and sometimes they practice, just for the fun of it.

Once upon a time, when no mention, much less the visual portrayal of heterosexual acts, was permitted, movie-goers had to use their imaginations if they were that way so disposed.

No longer.

Gratuitous sex scenes are just part of the cinematic landscape, and actors who don't participate are an endangered species.

But one of the unexpected consequences of the increasingly ubiquitous custom is the progressive desensitization of the significance of the act in the eyes of the audience.

And another by-product is the opportunity it affords for a good chuckle.

I particularly get a kick out of the frenetic stylization of an interlude: Boy meets girl; they embrace, pull back, their eyes glaze over as they stare soulfully into each other's eyes, and then, in a mad rush to the finish line, they frantically tear off their clothes; nature takes its course, and they have sex standing up, at an anatomically-impossible angle, before the scene shifts to the next problem-solving episode.

After all difficulties are resolved, the wildly ecstatic bride-to-be, and the beaming groom, stare soulfully into each  other's eyes, as the pastor proclaims them, man and wife; they kiss, and run down the aisle, out of the church, and into the car, ready and eager to live happily, ever after, as the music swells, the scene fades, and the credits start to roll.

Ain't love grand?