Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Sex Scene?

Just because it's hard to watch doesn't mean it's wrong.

"Nymphomaniac"; Photo: Zentropa Entertainments/the Kobal Collection I think a lot of what we're reacting to when we criticize graphic sex scenes we're confronted with is our own compulsion to abide by societal standards. If we say the sex in Blue is the Warmest Color "bored" us, then we're communicating to others that we respect women and refute the male gaze. If the sex in The Wolf of Wall Street upset us, then we're subtly saying that we're upstanding citizens who would never reduce women to playthings. And if we found the sex in Nymphomaniac about as erotic as watching paint dry, we clearly have a healthy appreciation of intimacy. Our statements on these movies are just as much about us as they are the art. But by damning these depictions, we are also damning a part of our psyche. So what if these movies turned you on? What if Child of God turned me on? Does that make me an outlaw, too?

In James Franco's latest directorial effort, Child of God (based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name and out August 1), the protagonist, Lester Ballard (played with furious intensity by newcomer Scott Haze) is an outcast. While he may or may not be mentally challenged—a lot of his decision making certainly seems impaired— what's most striking about him, other than his penchant for dead girls, is his will to live according to his own standards. After he's had his land sold out from underneath him, he becomes a lawless man squatting in the rural outskirts of Sevier County, Tennessee. Even in circumstances more dire (and way grosser) than humanly imaginable, Ballard starts each day with intention. Even when trapped in a corner, he's able to cockroach out of it. His daily life is a living hell and yet, he doesn't want to die. But back to his penchant for dead women. Over at Esquire, Stephen Marche comments that sexually explicit films such as Blue is the Warmest Color and Nymphomaniac (about which I have also opined ), are machinations of "someone else's porn." And to a certain extent, I agree. What seems risqué, lewd, or sexy to one person may seem benign, commonplace, or vanilla to someone else. And vice versa. But for anyone who's seen David Lynch's Blue Velvet, depictions of bizarre, porn-level proclivities have been de rigueur since the '80s. Feeling tortured instead of titillated during a sex scene isn't a new phenomenon.

Blue Velvet"; Photo: Mary Evans/ Ronald Grant/Everett Collection Related: Love in the Digital Age: 'Eternal Sunshine,' 10 Years Later And then, there is Child of God. As Variety pointed out in its post-Cannes review, the film is faithful to its literary namesake. Even a scene in which Ballard wears a dress and dons a wig made from a scalped woman's hair is pulled directly from the pages of McCarthy's 1973 novel. However, the most alarming moment comes in the form of sociopathic tenderness: After discovering a dead girl in a car (she and her lover have seemingly asphyxiated themselves as a result of living in a town more depressing than Winter's Bone ), Ballard proceeds to have sex with her body, and then makes her his live-in girlfriend. Yup. As questions about her rotting corpse infiltrate your subconscious ("But does she smell yet?" You force yourself not to wonder), he dresses up her limp body in an off-the- mannequin frock, brushes hair off her ice-cold forehead, and chides her for being "the most forward girl he's ever met." It's a pretty traditional preamble to casual intercourse, really. That is, if you don't factor in that she's dead. Of course, this isn’t necessarily intended to be erotic. Director James Franco probably wants us to feel uncomfortable—to force us into a small room with a necrophilic murderer and dare us not to squirm. But he does so without any judgment. There is no moral axis guiding the viewer to reprimand or relate to Ballard. It's just there. And for most, it's awful.

"Blue is the Warmest Color": (c) Sundance Selects/Courtesy Everett Collection