There is a growing trend in cinema, especially so-called Independent and World Cinema, to show real sex on screen. This trend is especially true in Europe and raises the interesting question of censorship and its value and place in a civilised society. My personal view, after much thought, is that censorship should be kept to an absolute minimum except in cases where it could demonstrably cause greater harm to society or encourage harm to others. As far as the depiction of sex in cinema is concerned, I see no harm whatsoever. If people are going to be offended by it, they have a simple option of not going to see the film. I think it is part of the greater argument for freedom of expression (where I believe one should be allowed to express one’s opinion as long as it does not harm another) but I will restrict my argument to cinema (and, by extension, video and DVD i.e. home entertainment) only.

Of course, if one was to plot a graph of time against censorship in cinema one would find that what is allowed to be seen by adults has consistently been becoming more and more explicit. There was a time, even in Europe (the US is very different in this case and I will discuss it later) when even an onscreen kiss was considered risqué. Then we gradually began to see more and more flesh and nudity, to a time in the Seventies when a few so-called ‘arthouse’ directors began to show actual sex—but these films were restricted to a few cinemas and banned from public release—especially in the UK which, until a couple of years ago, had the most restrictive censorship laws in all of Europe—with copies of films being captured by police officers and any cinemas showing them prosecuted. One particular example is that of Nagisa Oshima’s film Ai No Corrida (In the Realm of the Senses) which was banned for many years in this country.

Suddenly,however, at about the turn of the Millenium, European directors began to show actual, as opposed to simulated, sex in their films. Predictably, it was the French who led the way! Catherine Breillat’s film Romance caused an outcry when it was released uncut with an 18 certificate and depicted erections, oral sex, gynaecological close-ups, group sex and even ejaculation. That film started a trend. Soon, a number of European films and directors came in on the act (pun deliberate): Breillat, again, with A Mere Soeur, Gasper Noe with Irreversible, Julio Medem’s Lucia y el Sexo to name a few. As one critic wrote, ‘Penises are rising all over Europe!’ What for decades had been a cinematic taboo was now becoming common-place. However, with the release of Baise-Moi (F*** Me), we had a watershed. This film was initially banned in France for being too explicit but after an outcry by the liberals was re-certified with their equivalent of the 18 certificate. It featured pornographic-style sex and terrifying violence—at one point the two female protagonists shove a gun in a man’s rectum before pulling the trigger. Suddenly, anything was game. Or was it? Perhaps in Europe but in the UK, another French film, Le Pornographe (reviewed by me for Chowk), caused an outcry when the newly-liberated UK censors decided to cut 11 seconds from the movie: a scene of a man ejaculating on a woman’s face. The liberal newspapers were up in arms: why could a French sixteen year old watch something which UK adults were denied? After all, argued one commentator (female), what is so dirty about semen on the face that the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)has to protect us from it? This, perhaps, was a limit which the British censor’s would place on themselves. However, subsequent events proved otherwise—perhaps the BBFC had been chastised by the furore over Le Pornographe? In the years that followed we have seen 9 Songs, Michael Winterbottom’s story of a love affair between an American student and a British rock fan, released uncut—which showed almost continuous sex for its running time (and an ejaculation); Intimacy, based on a story by Hanif Kureishi; Anatomy of Hell (again by Breillat) featuring, amongst other things the drinking of menstrual blood and rakes inserted inside anuses; Y Tu Mama Tambien, a lovely coming of age tale from Mexico; and, this year, we’ve already had Battle in Heaven (again from South America, which begins and ends with an obese man receiving a blowjob); Destricted, which featured just about every sexual act you can imagine and which was a collaboration between a number of directors from both the Europe and the Americas and which really did blur the distinction between Porn and Art, and now, the upcoming American film, Shortbus, which the BBFC has again decided to release uncut, which apparently does for homosexual sex on screen what the Europeans have been doing for heterosexual sex for the past five or six years. Yet in the UK we have not even a murmur anymore—not even from the Daily Mail or the religious Right. Explicit sexuality on cinema has become accepted as normal.

In America however, where, it seems, they are much more puritanical when it comes to showing sex on screen, the film Destricted, Larry Clarke’s Ken Park, and the film Brown Bunny (in which Oscar winner Chloe Sevigny agreed to fellate the director and actor on screen—the only case, so far, where a mainstream actress has performed real sex on camera) and now this, Shortbus, have all had to be released as unrated by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), which means the film-makers did not submit them for censorship as they knew the films would get the dreaded NC-17 certificate which means commercial death for films there—as hardly any cinemas will show them for fear of a backlash.

By contrast, in the UK now it is even becoming common for 18 certificate films which feature real sex to be released uncut in both mainstream cinemas AND on DVD for home viewing. Just last month, for example, my local Blockbuster stocked the film Destricted which showed erections, oral sex, anal sex and ejaculations.

I am puzzled by this huge difference in attitudes towards on screen sex between Europe and the USA—especially when the Americans are blasé about showing violence. Surely violence is more harmful than sex?

Anyway, the trend has been set now and, it appears, at least in Europe, one can now show anything one likes in a movie and leave it for adults to decide whether they want to watch it or not and the films have a warning on them (‘This film contains scenes of explicit real sex’). One wanders how long it will be before Asian film-makers become able to show real sex on screen too? Fifty years is my guess for the Subcontinent (India), probably much earlier for China and Japan.

After all, it is a question of freedom of expression.