the_dunk_tank

I didn’t mean that as a quote of you, I should have used ‘paraphrase’ instead of “quote” as it’s a sentiment I’ve seen expressed on Hexbear quite often.

Don’t you see how attacking the existence of sex in public entertainment and art feeds into the puritanical sex freak spiral and doesn’t help us in any way? Sex scenes don’t all have to “forward the narrative” that’s plebeian Reddit tier art analysis I’m sorry, the narrative and plot aren’t even the most important part of a work. Sex scenes could be entirely gratuitous to the narrative and still add to the overall aesthetic and emotional impact of the piece, we use gratuitous slice-of-life and characterization footage all the time in our art and separating gratuitous sex out as “bad” is a double standard we don’t do with gratuitous eye candy scenes of other types like say, Wes Anderson’s gratuitous use of 2D dollhouse cutout type effects. That doesn’t “add to the narrative” either but is an essential part of what makes his work unique and his.

I see sex scenes like guitar solos in rock songs. You can have one or two, and some are a lot better than others, but if you spend the whole song doing a solo without a melody it’s just wankery and becomes obscene. Guitar solos are just gratuitous ear candy. The “melody” here is analogous to the “narrative” of a film or TV show.

Gratuitous sex is exactly the kind of thing that shouldn’t even make you blink, it’s the kind of thing we should be aiming to normalize. The fact you find it offensive and want it gone is proving my point, you find sexual gratification offputting inherently due to cultural conditioning. Sexual gratification and titillation is fine and healthy, there’s nothing wrong with being aroused. Tons of gratuitous sex in our media is perfectly fine and not a problem, and in my opinion American society is over correcting in the opposite way and needs to loosen up here not tighten the screws.