Online, it feels like discussions about sex onscreen are as fervid (and often as unreasonable) as they were in the early ‘90s. So when Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction cut to a few minutes of skin slithering all over the screen, it felt like a service was being provided. There were simply fewer avenues to experience depicted sex back then, especially as someone who was below the age of 18 and without access to a large stash of porn VHSes. I came of age in the early ‘90s, when erotic thrillers were all the rage and even movies that weren’t exactly erotic thrillers (like Single White Female) had the good sense to play like them. Well, that’s not precisely true-no one was going to die if they didn’t get to see men’s bobbing butts and women pantomiming going from zero to orgasm in 15 seconds-but it kind of felt that way. In my day, sex scenes were placed in mainstream movies out of necessity.
