Sex on the Big Screen Is Falling Out of Fashion

You wouldn't know it if you've recently seen Saltburn, Poor Things, or Challengers, but sex scenes in Hollywood movies are actually experiencing a downturn. That's according to data analyst Stephen Follows, who was commissioned by the Economist to look into the status of erotic content on the big screen. Follows reviewed 250 of the highest-grossing live-action films each year, starting with 2000, by scouring data from such sources as IMDb, the Motion Picture Association, Common Sense Media, and others. "I excluded films if their portrayal of sexual content was limited to sexual violence such as rape or sexual assault," he writes. "This wasn't a large number of films, but I felt it was important, as there is a difference between sexual content designed to titillate and those designed to repel/disgust."

What Follows found is that, compared to the baseline set in 2000, sexual content in movies has plummeted over the last quarter century or so, falling almost 40% in that period, reports the Guardian. The drop was steepest in action movies (sexual content dropped 70% from 2000 to 2023), while romances saw a decline of just 20%. Follows was also curious to see if that decline was due to "more sedate" sex scenes in individual movies, or if fewer movies were including sex scenes at all. He found it was the latter. "In short, there are more movies which are squeaky clean," he notes. In 2000, only about 18% of the top-grossing films were sex-free, while last year, that figure jumped to 46%.

Follows cites several possible reasons for the decline, including shifts in cultural norms and audience preferences; the prevalence of adult content available elsewhere all over the internet; and "the rise of intimacy coordinators," staffers on movie sets who try to keep things safe and harassment-free for actors. "Their presence could be discouraging gratuitous sex scenes unless they serve a critical narrative purpose," notes Follows. In the Economist, which tapped into Follows' findings, Rachel Lloyd writes that even though the sex scenes might be fewer these days, those that make it past the cutting room floor tend to be "more graphic than ever before." Read more of her take here. (More sex scenes stories.)