'' (1964) was the first of
Russ Meyer's films where the leading actress,
Lorna Maitland, was selected on the basis of her large
breast size. The inclusion in film of any form of sexuality has been controversial since the development of the medium.
Kissing in films, for example, was initially considered by some to be scandalous.
The Kiss (1896) contained a kiss, which was regarded as a sex scene and drew general outrage from movie goers, civic leaders, and religious leaders, as utterly shocking,
obscene and completely immoral. One contemporary critic wrote, "The spectacle of the prolonged pasturing on each other's lips was beastly enough in life size on the stage but magnified to gargantuan proportions and repeated three times over it is absolutely disgusting." The Catholic Church called for censorship and moral reform – because kissing in public at the time could lead to prosecution. Perhaps in defiance of the righteous indignation and "to spice up a film", the film was followed by many kiss imitators, including
The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) and
The Kiss (1900). Other producers would take the criticism on board, or in mock of the standard, and use an implicit kiss, which would be obstructed from view just as the lips would touch, such as shielding a possible kiss by placing, for example, a hat in front of the actors' faces, or fading to grey just as a kiss is to take place, etc. The display of cleavage created controversy. For example, producer
Howard Hughes displayed
Jane Russell's cleavage in
The Outlaw (1943) and in
The French Line (1953), which was found objectionable under the
Hays Code because of Russell's "breast shots in bathtub, cleavage and breast exposure" while some of her
decollete gowns were regarded to be "intentionally designed to give a bosom peep-show effect beyond even extreme decolletage". Both films were condemned by the
National Legion of Decency and were released only in cut versions. The selection of actresses for a role on the basis of their breast size is controversial and has been described as contributing to
breast fetishism, but has proved to be a draw card. Producers such as
Russ Meyer produced films which featured actresses with large breasts.
Lorna (1964) was the first of his films where the main female part, played by
Lorna Maitland, was selected on the basis of breast size. The producers and exhibitors of the film were prosecuted for obscenity in several US states. Other large breasted actresses used by Meyer include
Kitten Natividad,
Erica Gavin,
Tura Satana, and
Uschi Digard among many others. The majority of them were naturally large breasted and he occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy to enhance their breast size even further. Author and director
William Rotsler said: "with
Lorna Meyer established the formula that made him rich and famous, the formula of people filmed at top hate, top lust, top heavy."
Blue Movie (1969), directed by
Andy Warhol, was the first
adult erotic film depicting explicit
sex to receive wide theatrical release in the
United States. To forestall legal problems, the film was screened without credits. The producer of
Mona,
Bill Osco, went on to produce other adult films, such as
Flesh Gordon (1974),
Harlot (1971), and
Alice in Wonderland (1976).
Boys in the Sand (1971) was an American
gay pornographic film, the first gay porn film to include credits, to achieve crossover success, to be reviewed by
Variety, and one of the earliest porn films, after
Blue Movie to gain mainstream credibility, preceding
Deep Throat (1972).
By genre In North American films, erotic films may be primarily
character driven or
plot driven, with considerable overlap. Most dramas center around character development, such as
Steven Shainberg's
Secretary (2002). Comedy films, especially romantic comedies and romantic dramas, tend toward character interaction. Mystery films, thrillers, drama and horror films tend toward strong plots and premises.
Erotic thrillers Erotic thrillers are a popular American erotic subgenre, with films such as
Dressed to Kill (1980),
Angel Heart (1987),
Basic Instinct (1992),
Single White Female (1992),
Color of Night (1994),
Wild Things (1998),
Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and
The Boy Next Door (2015).
, The Handmaiden, Elle, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Deep Water'' illustrate how sexual relationships and sexual violence are integrated into narratives of crime, deception and psychological conflict. In these works, sexuality functions as a central narrative mechanism through which filmmakers examine interpersonal control, gendered power relations, emotional manipulation and social transgression, reflecting a broader shift in film practice and criticism toward analysing sexual content as a vehicle for thematic and character development rather than as a defining genre attraction.
Horror In
horror films, sex is often used to 'mark' characters that are doomed to die. Characters that engage in sex acts are often the first to be claimed by the antagonist(s), or will die shortly after their sex scene or (sometimes) in the middle of it. From the late 1960s onward, exploitation and transgressive horror cinema increasingly combined explicit sexual themes with graphic violence. Films such as
The Last House on the Left and
I Spit on Your Grave are frequently discussed in scholarly debates about the ethical boundaries of representation, particularly in relation to sexual assault and its depiction as part of horror storytelling. This convention of it being bad luck to have sex in a horror film is notably illustrated in the
Friday the 13th film series, where supernatural villain
Jason Voorhees takes a special dislike to teenagers and young adults having sex because, as a young boy, he drowned in a lake while the camp counselors who should have been supervising him were having sex. In some interpretations of this "rule", the sex acts themselves directly cause the character's demise. In
Cabin Fever, a man catches the deadly illness because a woman who was infected (but not yet symptomatic) seduces and has impulsive sex with him. They do not use a
condom because the careless woman believes she is healthy. Ironically, the woman (and the audience) only realize that she is infected because of red welts that are brought out by their rough lovemaking.
Species (1995) and its sequels also feature many sexual deaths as virtually every human who mates with an alien in the franchise subsequently dies – female aliens kill human suitors regardless of whether they have poor genes, resist the alien's advances, or mate successfully. Human women who mate with alien men die shortly after sex as their abdomens burst during the unnaturally rapid pregnancy that always follows. Most times in horror movies the
typical survivor is a young girl who is still a virgin. In the film
Scream, which satirizes horror movies, this rule is somewhat broken as the character
Randy Meeks points out that one of the rules of horrors is to not have sex. In an intersecting scene, the film's main
protagonist,
Sidney Prescott, loses her virginity to Billy Loomis. After they finish, Billy is stabbed by
Ghostface and Sidney is then chased. Randy himself survives a gunshot wound at the end of the film because, as he explains, he is a virgin. However, he dies in the sequel,
Scream 2, after which it is revealed that he lost his virginity sometime prior to his death. Contemporary horror continues to employ sexuality in more varied and self-reflective ways. Recent films such as
It Follows use sexual relationships as a central narrative mechanism to explore themes of contagion, responsibility, and adolescent anxiety, while other works incorporate erotic imagery to interrogate identity, consent, and power rather than simply to provoke shock. ==Mexico==