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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   26185 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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Compare this to the 80s and 90s when every action-oriented movie ever had sex scenes, if not also completely gratuitous nudity.

I'm still amused at how "Demolition Man" had gratuitous nudity that was completely separate from its "sex" scene.

One note about HBO is that 10 years ago the app had a "Late Night" section that was soft-core porn. And given the amount of nudity in its flagship series, including having parts of The Sopranos and The Wire set in strip clubs, I strongly suspect that a certain amount of female nudity was a requirement, at least for early seasons of a series. Nowadays HBO presents as more respectable, but I lay that mostly on Warner and AT&T exerting more influence - HBO went from a sub-sub-brand that had freedom to innovate and pursue quality, to the face of the media conglomerate owned by AT&T, and I fear that their glory days are over.

The discussions of HBO on here often make me feel like I am watching a different network. Euphoria has lots of sex and is a great show. White Lotus, particularly season 2, has plenty of sex and is good. In my view, the are the 2 best shows that HBO has made in a very long time, and The Idol, execrable as what I watched of it was, had lots and lots of sexualized scenes.

soft-core porn

As someone with an interest in erotic stories, but relatively little interest in seeing nudity or sex acts (which I can either experience or imagine, depending on the exclusivity) I miss those days. Sure, the stories were terrible, but I'd rather some schlocky plot that the lazy quasi-incest "plotting" of modern pornography. The only saving grace (excuse the expression) is that the internet has led to an explosion of amateur erotic writing, most of which is terrible, but which is at least more creative than most of the soft core era.

The only saving grace (excuse the expression) is that the internet has led to an explosion of amateur erotic writing, most of which is terrible, but which is at least more creative than most of the soft core era.

You may want to know that all the major platforms are clamping down on anything horny:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4P9yCMNpV-I

Sorry it is a link to a youtube video, but it looks like this more recent push isn't being reported on the news.

Makes sense. The normalisation of any culture sphere leads to the introduction of pearl-clutching women, and humans tend to have strong instincts for ensuring that women feel comfortable.

I also posted about this earlier.

Well, yeah, that’s the entire reason AO3 even exists.

I'm still amused at how "Demolition Man" had gratuitous nudity that was completely separate from its "sex" scene.

Huh? I don't remember that at all.

There is a part where he is checking out his new apartment after getting booted by Huxley, where a random lady wrong-number video calls him while topless.

Good point. I wouldn't call that gratuitous though.

The part where Stallone is frozen in a block of ice, in cryo-imprisonment.

Well, that's technically nudity, of course, but calling it gratuitous nudity in this particular context is rather misleading.

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