This has been a very eye-opening and often shocking series of posts. Thank you. You've changed what I think about sex scenes from a self-centred point of view - 'can I avoid lust?' - to one that takes other human beings into account.
This has been a most difficult series to read through. I think I'm a bit sour over this. I just want to slap some people for giving away their agency while claiming they are expressing their agency. No. Being part of that world for decades gives one a first-hand look at how it all works. No wonder marriage rarely works, especially in Hollywood. I'll lump every human in this group, since very few of us is not impacted by watching Hollywood make sex look like the ultimate goal. Couples engage in this sort of thing specifically for the project/script/play, then decide they'd like to continue the sexual relationship, get married (maybe), but then the sex gets old. You start seeing the other person as a real person - no make-up, cellulite thighs, saggy boobs, coughing or puking, snot-nosed, possibly unhinged due to hormones - anything that would make a person very undesirable. The sex is no fun anymore. The "magic" is gone. The attachment is to the orgasm not the person. Time to split and find a new sex partner. It happens ALL THE TIME. How many couples became a couple after doing some sort of sex scene together, got married, then broke it off due to "irreconcilable differences"? But yet, "We're still great friends"? Yeah, the sex was just meh, so it was time to move on. Oh, how I would love to communicate how the body and soul are one and you cannot separate them - not even a Jedi can do it. Besides, there's no such thing as a Jedi anyway. If you want the character to come across as real, you will be who that person is and do what that person does. That's how you get the "his/her character was so real." Yep. This is why Heath Ledger committed suicide. For the time you are that character, everything you do and say is real.
This has been a very eye-opening and often shocking series of posts. Thank you. You've changed what I think about sex scenes from a self-centred point of view - 'can I avoid lust?' - to one that takes other human beings into account.
Thanks for the encouragement, Euler_notyouler!
This has been a most difficult series to read through. I think I'm a bit sour over this. I just want to slap some people for giving away their agency while claiming they are expressing their agency. No. Being part of that world for decades gives one a first-hand look at how it all works. No wonder marriage rarely works, especially in Hollywood. I'll lump every human in this group, since very few of us is not impacted by watching Hollywood make sex look like the ultimate goal. Couples engage in this sort of thing specifically for the project/script/play, then decide they'd like to continue the sexual relationship, get married (maybe), but then the sex gets old. You start seeing the other person as a real person - no make-up, cellulite thighs, saggy boobs, coughing or puking, snot-nosed, possibly unhinged due to hormones - anything that would make a person very undesirable. The sex is no fun anymore. The "magic" is gone. The attachment is to the orgasm not the person. Time to split and find a new sex partner. It happens ALL THE TIME. How many couples became a couple after doing some sort of sex scene together, got married, then broke it off due to "irreconcilable differences"? But yet, "We're still great friends"? Yeah, the sex was just meh, so it was time to move on. Oh, how I would love to communicate how the body and soul are one and you cannot separate them - not even a Jedi can do it. Besides, there's no such thing as a Jedi anyway. If you want the character to come across as real, you will be who that person is and do what that person does. That's how you get the "his/her character was so real." Yep. This is why Heath Ledger committed suicide. For the time you are that character, everything you do and say is real.
Thanks for commenting, Stacy. I always appreciate hearing from folks with experience in the entertainment industry.