To not understand the attraction of watching sex scenes

[Slipjigger]

A new Irish drama called "Normal people" is getting rave reviews in many countries. I hadn't watched it but heard what it was about. During an ad break last night I flicked over to watch it for 2 minutes. It showed two people walking down the street hugging and then cut to a sex scene. It was fairly intense, close up shots of them etc. I watched for about a minute and it was still going strong so I switched off.

I just don't get the attraction of watching two people pretending to have sex. I can understand people watching pornographic films, its people actually having sex, its graphic and people get turned on by it.

But watching orchestrated scenes of pretend sex??

I feel the show has a bit of the "Emperor's new clothes" about it, like people feel they should like it because they are being told its trendy and popular and we should all be keen to watch people having sex.
I read the blurb of the book and while it seems an interesting story, I don't see what constant sex scenes offers to it.

Anyone care to share why they enjoy this kind of show!

I find it hard to find things to watch that don’t have sex scenes in them

I wish there was a site or option for how many sex scenes a show has or if a show has one or not.

I read an article a while ago where actresses stated that they feel this way about filming and auditioning for sex scenes.

I do think people shouldn't audition for sex scenes if they have a problem with sex scenes. Hardly makes sense to audition for it, get the part then complain about "having to" do sex scenes.

there is no gratuitous sex or violence. I wish there were more programs like that. Also think that filming the sex scenes can be very unpleasant, bordering on abusive for the actresses, and I read an article a while ago where actresses stated that they feel this way about filming and auditioning for sex scenes.

But the sex isn't 'gratuitous' in Normal People it's not a novel/series where the real story is about spying or police corruption something and they just shove in sex with a Bond girl for titillation usually with an actress showing her breasts and/or buttocks, and the actor remaining covered. It's about the relationship between two people which is (among other things) highly sexual. And the interviews with the cast and crew have focused to an almost tiresome extent on the show's 'intimacy director', who was specifically there to choreograph the sex scenes without anyone feeling exploited -- both the actors have talked about this in some detail, how they had to come up with their own 'rules' about what they were comfortable with. The actress who played Marianne I remember said that her main rule for the school-era sex scenes was that the actor playing Connell wasn't allowed to touch her hair, because she was wearing a wig and afraid it would come off.

I dislike scenes with people eating food in them. Why do they have to include it, with close-ups of people chewing and soforth. Yes, we can see they are heading into a restaurant, there is no need to subject us to actually watching people eat. It's just so unnecessary. Especially when eating food bears no relevance to the plotline, they have just shoehorned it in because the director thinks that people will enjoy it or whatever.

🙄

Well I really enjoyed it and I love a good well-made sex scene!

It’s a depiction of normal sex between two young people who have a long relationship and care about each other deeply.

Given we’ve got a generation of kids growing up learning about sex through PornHub I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all.

YY I would much rather watch a sex scene than close ups and noises of people eating.

DH and I always roll our eyes and say something along the lines of ‘here we go again, it wouldn’t be a good storyline without a crap sex scene’. Sometimes they’re totally unnecessary and add zilch to the overall story.

Sex is a very normal part of life so it would pretty strange if we didn't see sex scenes in a drama about a romance.

Normal people does a good job of depicting normal relatable sex and also shows parts of conversations we don't usually see around contraception and consent. In a world where young people are being exposed to porn which doesn't depict sex realistically and can actually be quite damaging I think this is more important than ever.

@Mustardfan totally and think a lot of actors (especially female ones) have had abs experiences, but for normal people they used an intimacy coordinator to help them all feel safe whilst filming. She had a background in dance and helped them to choreograph the scenes and only say what they weren't comfortable with.

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/25/normal-people-intimacy-coordinator-works-sally-rooney-sex-scenes

Hopefully this will become more common practice within the industry.

a piece of "art" beamed to millions of viewers about private intimacy between two people (fictional or not) is something of a non sequitur

I'm watching normal people ,partly because I'm from Dublin,lived away for a long time and love to see it. I think the story is well set and beautifully acted but the sex scenes just seem unnecessary, I'm just forwarding through them.I haven't missed any of the storyline from doing that.

I won’t be watching Normal People as I thought the book was a pile of angsty adolescent rubbish.

I've just finished the book. I got about a third through it and thought it was absolute shite too, but fell for the sunk cost fallacy - I'm this far in, I might as well carry on reading.

It didn't get better.

I sort of get what you're saying although personally I found the sex scenes far sexier than porn (which I find about as erotic as meat on a factory production line). Sexy to me is about emotions and physical attraction rather than bits of flesh inserted rammed into other bits of flesh. Maybe i'm just female weird.

I don't think anyone has claimed that the sex scenes in Normal People are 'a piece of art' as they might have done in other shows.

It's a story about first love, so sex is central. I thought it was well done and realistic. I haven't read the book. I nearly bought it last year but the reviews are very mixed. I thought the series was good though, very beautiful actors, clothes and settings from an aesthetic point of view. And lots of feeling. I believed in it.

I nearly bought it last year but the reviews are very mixed

I've just bought the book after watching the series, think it's meant to have more internal monologues from the characters so will be interesting to read those.

I don’t want to watch 21 year olds shagging. They’re the same age as my kids. It makes me feel creepy as hell.

I think the story is well set and beautifully acted but the sex scenes just seem unnecessary,

How can they be 'unnecessary', when it's a story about two people's sexual awakenings and sex?

It's ok @LunaNorth one of them is 24.

I loved watching Normal People. All of the passion and awkwardness took me right back to that age!! Wishing I could rewind time 🤣

I thought it was great. I watched it with dd19. I don't mind sex scenes as long as they aren't rapey.

I have watched it all and thought it was pretty good but I did ff a lot of the sex bits. In my opinion the scenes went on too long. We get the idea without having to drag it out. I even said to my friend, if I was the writer, I'd be worried people would think I was a bit of a perv writing in so many sex scenes with the length of them

The sex scenes didnt stay with me, but Connell starting Uni, knowing no one and spending time alone got to me. (My oldest goes to uni this year).