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♪My mama said you'll
break my heart♪

♪I should have listened♪

♪My mama told me to be smart♪

♪And pay attention♪

♪My mama said you'll
break my heart♪

♪I should have listened♪

♪My mama told me to be smart♪

♪And pay attention♪

- [Narrator 1] Uncontrolled
sexual behavior,

usually is a sign of an
immature and insecure person.

(romantic music)

All things considered,

it's the girl who sets the
level of conduct on a date.

(romantic music)

You create or prevent situations

of sexual arousal and demands,

by your manner, your dress,
by your general behavior.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator 2] Sex has always
made Americans nervous,

particularly in Hollywood.

Why today is a woman
still wearing a bra

when she makes love in
so many American movies?

Even in the iconic
"Sex in the City",

that claims to be
addressing sexuality,

the breast is
always bursting out,

but the heroin still
cannot get rid of her bra.

(upbeat music)

Why is sexuality still taboo,

40 years after the
sexual revolution,

and the emancipation of women?

In the '70s, women
burn their bras.

America is ready for
a sexual revolution.

Women take to the streets

to fight for abortion
and contraception.

They gain power and believe
that concerning their sexuality,

this will suffice to
counter the puritanical

and hypercritical vision
of the American mentality.

Hollywood cinema is
the main witness.

And that's nothing new.

In the '30s in Hollywood,
sex does not shock.

In "Blonde Venus" for example,

Marlene Dietrich and
her friends bathe naked

under the lustful
eyes of the hunters.

The "Ballets" of Busby
Berkeley show bodies

in extremely erotic postures.

Sex sells.

Tarzan and Jane
swim totally naked

in the movie "Tarzan
and His Mate", in 1934,

in an aquatic ballet,

unequivocally representing
the sexual act.

That same year, Hedy Lamarr,
the greatest vamp of the era,

has the first female
orgasm on screen

in the sulfurous "Ecstasy".

(gentle music)

But so much sexual freedom

finally wakes up the
American Puritan League,

and they forced
the movie industry

to establish the famous
code of censorship,

known as the Hays Code,

which has the mission
to moralize Hollywood.

No more breasts and
buttocks on screen,

no kissing for more
than 30 seconds,

no unmarried couples
in the same bed.

Sex becomes banned overnight.

And that pervades for
more than three decades.

But this can't continue.

The winds of freedom that
blow in with the '60s,

and the mutations
that accompany it,

the pill, the sexual and
cultural revolutions,

sign the end of the
code of censorship.

America wants sex, and believes
that the time has arrived.

(gentle music)

- When we think about sex
in film, in the 1950s,

it was something very chaste.

You think of a film
like "Pillow Talk"

with Rock Hudson and Doris Day,

and they're living
separate lives.

They're just talking
on the phone,

each lying in their bathtub.

And a split screen has them
only just their feet touching.

- You'll find that most people

are willing to meet you halfway.

- American in the
1950s was in a sense

still trying to keep sex from
happening both on screen,

as well as in real life.

But as the '60s arose,

those old social mores
started to crumble.

Changes in society

and what people had maybe
seen in World War II

or experienced in the '50s

could no longer be
kept under wraps.

The 1960s became a time
of great experimentation,

whether that involved sex,
drugs or rock and roll.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator 2] America
then seems ready

to open Pandora's box,
and talk about sexuality,

while still failing
to show it head-on.

(upbeat music)

sexuality becomes
a serious topic.

Educational films are
made for teenagers

in adolescent turmoil.

(upbeat music)

Finally, science can
seize the opportunity,

to be able to speak
about the unspeakable.

(upbeat music)

- Dr. Alfred Kinsey
began as a researcher

looking into the sexual
activity of wasps,

and his research soon
expanded into humans.

(upbeat music)

So he founded the
Institute for Sex Research

at Indiana University in 1947.

And shortly thereafter,
the first Kinsey report

on sexuality in the human
male was published in 1948,

and created a bit of a scandal.

No one had ever
sort of talked about

or studied sexuality
in such a kind of plain

and clear and
daring ways before.

(upbeat music)

Alfred Kinsey's work

was extended by William
Masters and Virginia Johnson

at Washington
University in St. Louis.

Their research into human
sexuality, using prostitutes,

and other people to
study everyday practices

was unparalleled at its
time, caused a great scandal.

It was on the cover of
places like Time Magazine.

And it gradually opened up
people into discussing things

that had previously been hidden,

and kind of covered up
amongst the American public.

- I ran across this
idea for doing a show

about "Masters of Sex",
because my producing partner,

Sarah Timmerman read a
review of Tom Maier's book

in the New York Times.

It was about six years ago.

And Tom had written
this biography of
Masters and Johnson.

And he was the only one to
have researched their lives

as thoroughly as he did.

People knew that
they were famous

and that there were
sex researchers

back in the '60s and the
'70s and into the '80s.

But really no one
had ever explored

what their lives
were really like

and explored their work
to the depth that Tom did.

(upbeat music)

And when they collected,

they watched over 10,000
individual acts of sex.

They monitored these
people, they charted it,

grafted the whole thing.

- [Narrator 2] This
scene from the TV series,

perfectly illustrates the real
work of Masters and Johnson.

(gentle music)

- When they got done with
looking at all this information,

they realized that women were
incredibly sexual creatures,

sexually robust,

in fact much sort of a
more robust than men.

Men can have one orgasm and
then they have to recover,

and the idea of men
keeping erections

is all very delicate
sort of mechanism

whereas women could
have multiple orgasms.

They didn't have to perform
in the same way that men did.

And what they discovered
was that women

could have incredibly fulfilling
and satisfying sex lives.

Now, this was news.

This was real news
when this came out,

when they were discovering

in the late '50s
and into the '60s,

because the idea of men
being dominant in sex

was just prevalent.

So they became, completely
without even trying to,

real feminist
spokespeople for women

and their relationship to sex,

and its relationship with
the feminist movement,

the women's movement
that was emerging.

It wasn't really by design,

but the science had
led them there anyway.

(people shouting)

- The sexual
revolution in America

was probably unlike
a sexual revolution

elsewhere in the world,
probably having something

to do with the rather
puritanical history and heritage

of the United States.

We had lived, sheltered,
you might say from sex.

That's a pretty long adolescence

to be sheltered from
the idea of genital,

or anything but oral sex
in the form of kisses.

- [Narrator 1] Dating
calls for the ability

to share good times, to
learn from each other.

And when suitable,
to show affection,

without endangering
your wellbeing,

physical, emotional, or moral.

- So, we Americans,
had to go to the movies

to see foreign films
in order to see sex.

For example, I was a kid.

I went to the
movies in Berkeley,

which was a town that had
movies back in those days.

And I saw two films in
the spaces of maybe, well,

maybe over a year.

They were both foreign. One was
Italian and one was Swedish.

The first one was
"The Virgin Spring".

The second one was "Two Women".

They both had rape scenes.

They didn't have a lot
of other sex in them,

but these were fairly
graphic rape scenes.

(people shouting indistinctly)

Seeing those two films
as maybe a, I don't know,

a 15, 16 year old, that was
the first time I ever felt,

that there was something to sex,

if even if you're
just watching it.

In fact that it moved
me in some ways.

And it moved me in ways
that I think disturbed me.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator 2] Sex
Comes from Europe.

The erotic and almost orgasmic
dance of Brigitte Bardot

in "Bedrooms" film, and
"God Created Woman",

excites and shocks
the American public.

These foreign films
from the early '60s

will pave the way for Hollywood.

- Another film of the late '60s

that fits into the
tendency of American movies

to talk rather than do sex,

is "Bob & Ted & Carol & Alice".

I don't know if I've got the
names in the right order,

but this is that tendency
of American films

where we were all being...

We were able to be
frank and to use words

like virgin and sex,

and we were still not
up for showing sex.

So this is a film
about couples swapping,

that never shows you
anything exciting.

- First, we'll have an orgy

and then we'll go
see Tony Bennett.

- We have to remember
that the old code

had adultery was one of the
things that you couldn't show,

or if you showed it, you
had to punish the people

who committed
adultery in the end.

But in "Bob & Ted
& Carol & Alice",

they planned to have a
kind of four way orgy

and you see them
undressed in bed,

but they just don't really
have the guts to do it,

or the desire to do it.

(gentle music)

And they end up
talking, some more.

And then they go to,

I think it's the
Tony Bennett concert

as a very tame outcome
to the evening.

♪What no one needs now♪

♪Is love♪
So this was a time

when people were talking
about encounter groups,

and getting naked and orgies

and all sorts of
things like that.

But American films were
still very, very timid

about doing much of anything.

- Mike Nichols, who
challenged American audiences

with "Who's Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?",

came back a year later
with "The Graduate".

In "The Graduate",
director, Mike Nichols

and screenwriter, Buck Henry,

get at the zeitgeists
of the 1960s.

You have a young graduate
played by Dustin Hoffman,

who's disaffected
from the world,

doesn't really know
what to do with himself.

He lingers in the
pool, and is not sure

what direction to
pursue in life.

♪(indistinct)♪

Until Mrs. Robinson corners
him in her own bedroom.

This famous scene where Mrs.
Robinson seduces Benjamin,

may be disturbing to
contemporary audiences.

We're not used to seeing a
woman take such authority,

and literally guard the door.

Benjamin cannot leave.

- Oh God! Huh! Let me out.

- Don't be nervous.

- Get away from that door.

- Say something first.
- Jesus Christ!

- Benjamin, I want you to know
that I'm available to you.

And if you won't sleep
with me this time-

- Oh my Christ!

- If you won't sleep
with me this time,

I want you to know that you
can call me up anytime you want

and we'll make some
kind of an arrangement.

Do you understand what I-
- Let me out.

- In the 1960s, young people
were disaffected in many ways.

They're dealing with the
struggle of the draft.

They don't want to
serve in Vietnam.

They're not sure what
lies ahead for them,

outside of war in Vietnam.

(upbeat music)

And so some turn to
drugs, others turn to sex,

some turn to rock and roll.

In "The Graduate",
we see a merger

of the '60s sounds
of Simon & Garfunkel,

singing a song
about Mrs. Robinson.

And then when we
arrive at the theater,

we see Mrs. Robinson
engaging in activities

that we didn't know that
housewives would ever dare,

to attempt.

Mrs. Robinson represents

a certain kind of maybe
now 1950s housewife,

who is bold, who is indifferent,

who is just struggling to
feel anything for anyone.

And she targets Benjamin,
this young college graduate,

as her prey.

And he becomes her way

of trying to awaken feeling in
herself, once again, via sex.

The sex in "The Graduate"
could be seen as comic,

but it also has a tragic side,
as Benjamin takes Elaine,

Mrs. Robinson's
daughter on a date,

and takes her to a strip club,

and in a sense, almost
embarrasses her,

shames her, and has to apologize

for his own kind of twisted
notions of sexuality.

- [Benjamin] Why don't
you watch the show?

(upbeat music)

- Benjamin, do you dislike
me for some reason?

- [Benjamin] No, why should I?

- I don't know.

(upbeat music)

- We begin to see the '50s
and the '60s merged together,

into this messy
sexual conundrum,

that becomes a revolution that
everybody gets wrapped up in.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator 2] Certainly,
America is talking about sex,

but it mustn't
enjoy it too much.

The failed sexual orgy,

the disenchanted marriage
in "The Graduate",

or the impotence of
Hollywood sexiest man,

in Bonnie and Clyde
illustrate this.

Sex, yes, but no
pleasure, please.

- As Bonnie and Clyde

go on their bank robbing
escapades together,

it's revealed that Clyde really

cannot perform in the bedroom.

(Bonnie panting)

And his impotence in the bedroom

manifests itself in
his violence on screen.

What he cannot do himself,
he carries out via the gun.

And so America, this pattern
of a sexual frustration

manifesting itself
in violent acts,

becomes a pattern that will
be repeated over and over,

throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator 1] Rapists like
dark and lonely streets

where they can search
out an unwary victim.

- [Narrator 2] From
now on sexuality

is going to be
associated with violence.

Sex becomes a national subject,

to the point that
the American Army

produces a series of educational
films, (indistinct) women,

warning them against
sexual violence.

(woman screams)

- Sexuality is now coming out
into the open in the 1960s,

as experimentation
comes forward.

The sexual revolution
in America was unleashed

through a series of
landmark court cases,

as well as scientific
breakthroughs.

You had the invention
of the pill,

a contraceptive device that
could just be ingested orally.

It happened in 1960, but it
took a court case in 1965

before the pill was widely
available to married couples.

The possibilities of taking
chances in the bedroom arise

like never before.

(upbeat music)

Unmarried women didn't have
access to the birth control pill

until a court case,
landmark court case in 1972.

But removing the
fear of complications
from sexual activity

was a big leap forward
in terms of encouraging

what we now call the
sexual revolution.

- So the sexual
revolution, I think,

could probably be seen as
being reflected in movies

through the career
of Jane Fonda,

which I find very
emblematic of the period,

because there were
three films she made

in which her orgasms mattered,

and challenged that male
model of sexual excitement

and release.

It's very prescient
that Jane Fonda

has sex in a Sci-Fi fantasy
in which she's an earthling,

and earthlings have long
ago transcended sex.

They just do something like
take a pill and touch palms.

And so they have
very unmessy sex.

- Five years, I've waited
for this experience.

- My group must...

- And then finally, she's
captured by the villain,

and is going to be
tortured to death

in a particularly sexual
way in his machine

that he calls the
"exsexive machine".

And the "exsexive machine"
looks like a kind of steam bath.

So you don't really
see a lot of flesh.

So she gets into this steam
bath and he turns on the power,

and she says, "Oh,
that feels nice."

And we don't know
what's happening,

but pretty soon she
has an orgasmic kind
of look on her face

and then more and more
powerful orgasmic expressions.

And finally the machine
starts to go haywire,

and to blow fuses, and
she outlasts the machine.

- I don't believe it.

I don't believe it.
- Therefore approving,

I think Masters'
and Johnson's point

that women could potentially
have many, many orgasms.

And it's not really until 1978,

I believe it is,
with "Coming Home",

which is interestingly
enough, an antiwar film.

And in that film,
she plays a figure

who is not very much
like Jane Fonda.

She's a good housewife to a
soldier who goes off to Vietnam.

And we see them having bad sex.

(man panting)

And he comes back from
Vietnam, a wreck, but she,

in the meantime has
become something of
an antiwar activist,

through her relations
to a Vietnam vet,

played by Jon Voight, who
has become a paraplegic

and therefore has no
sensitivity from his waist down.

And the sex that
she has in that film

with the paraplegic vet,

is I would argue the most
important sex of American movies

up until that point in the sense

that it pays attention to
the pleasure of the woman,

precisely because the man
is unable to have orgasm.

(man panting)

- [Jane Fonda] Can
you feel that at all?

- [Jon Voight] I can't
feel it, but I can see it.

- But it's very interesting
because in this film,

Jane Fonda and Jon
Voight, her costar,

decided that there was
going to be no erection

on the part of the man,

that they were going
to play it that way.

But the director, Hal Ashby,
had interviewed some vets

and it is true that sometimes

they can sort of get
random erections.

And so he wanted to
make it a sex scene

in which the vet
achieves orgasm,

and Fonda and Voight wanted
to make it a sex scene

in which the man enjoys
her sensually and visually,

and wants the light on.

- [Jon Voight] Turn the
light on! I want to see you.

- So the sex that they
have is a bit of a war,

because there was a body double,

who was obeying the director
for the longer shots.

And then there was Voight and
Fonda for the closer shots

who were presuming that
there was no penetration

and that it was
a sort of overall

and that she achieves
multiple orgasms.

And even at one point
says, "Oh, softly,"

rather than the way
sex had been portrayed

in all American
movies, harder, faster,

what Pauline Kael called a
"jabbing thrusting eroticism".

(Jane Fonda panting)

So that film is really
interesting to look at

because you do see a little
bit of jabbing thrusting,

but you could also imagine that
she's just riding his thigh

or something rather
than his penis.

And it was that's the direction
that the director gave,

"Ride him, ride him," because
it was two different ideas

of what sex was played
out in that movie.

But I think that
Fonda and Voight won.

- [Narrator 2] America of
the '70s is disillusioned.

The war in Vietnam drags on.

Protest movements are growing,

and anti-war riots are springing
up all over the country.

The icons, Robert Kennedy
and Martin Luther King,

are assassinated in
the same year, in 1968.

America is in mourning.

In 1971, the oil and
economic crisis erupts,

and pushes the country
towards recession.

The Watergate Scandal
the following year,

forces President
Nixon's resignation,

and marks a series of
traumas for a country

that believed that the sexual
and cultural revolutions

of the '60s would bring
a wind of freedom.

(people shouting)

At the same time,
America is agonizing

about the legalization of
abortion in the United States.

In 1973, the Supreme
Court recognizes abortion

as a constitutional
right for women.

Only a year later,
homosexuality is finally removed

from the list of
mental illnesses,

and the US Government lifts
the ban on hiring homosexuals

in public service jobs.

America is confronted
from all sides,

and forcibly pulled out
of its puritan shackles.

It's in this
inflammatory context,

that cinema once again, reflects
the violence of society.

Sex then becomes an outlet.

Films, such as
"Deliverance", "Straw Dogs",

"High Plains Drifter",
and "A Clockwork Orange",

all have the means to sexualize
the violence of the time.

(upbeat music)

- American films have a
very twisted relationship

between sex and violence.

With Sam Peckinpah's "Straw
Dogs", you see Dustin Hoffman

playing a mathematician with
this attractive young wife

played by Susan George.

She just robes and in front
of some construction workers.

Is she toying with
them, playing with them?

When she eventually is raped
by these construction workers,

it turns very violent,
very sick and very twisted.

- No, no.

(woman panting)

No.

(woman panting)
(romantic music)

No.

- The implication in the film

is perhaps that Dustin
Hoffman's impotence

is answered by these
construction workers'

virulent and violent sexuality.

But in American film,

it seems to always
be getting confused.

1972 in a film
like "Deliverance",

you have four
businessmen from Atlanta,

going to the outdoors,

wanting to do sort of
a rugged canoe trip

and sort of prove their manhood.

And yet what happens,
Ned Beatty, one of
the four, is raped,

made to squeal like a
pig by a back woodsman

who interrupts
these businessmen.

- You can do better
than that boy.

You can do better than that.
Come on, squeal, squeal!

(man squeals)

- So it doesn't matter
whether it's heterosexual

or homosexual.

The relationship
between sex and violence

is intermingled in really
messy ways in American cinema.

In 1969, "Midnight Cowboy"
comes to the screen.

It's one of the first
major films from Hollywood

to earn an X rating.

It stars Jon Voight as Joe Buck,

a hustler from Texas
who comes to New York,

wearing cowboy hat
and cowboy boots.

He is the American cowboy,

and yet he is here to
make love for a price.

How shocking for audiences
to see an American cowboy,

now being paid to have
sex with men, with women,

with older women,
like Sylvia Miles,

with maybe Jesus' Loving Men,

with scenes that Americans
had never considered,

that a Texas cowboy would be
paid for his sexual services

in New York city.

- You know who cares?

That's a funny thing
you mentioning money,

'cause I was just about
to ask you for some.

- You were gonna ask
me for money, huh?

- Hey, why you think

I'd come all the way
up here from Texas for?

- You were gonna
ask me for money?

Who the hell do you think
you're dealing with,

some old slot on 42nd street?

- The intertwining of sex and
sin and guilt and salvation,

becomes a potent dramatic mix.

In 1969, "Midnight
Cowboy", an X-rated film,

was awarded the Oscar
for best picture.

What a groundbreaking
moment in Hollywood history!

(gentle music)

With Harold and Maude, 1971,

American audiences see a romance

they'd never imagined
on screen before.

Harold is a 19 year old,
obsessed with death.

- You'll be furious, but
I've had such a tragic day.

And with guests coming to see
me, oh, I will do that soon.

(Harold chocking)

Tell him, I promise
to be in on Tuesday.

- Maude is 79 years old, and
defiantly obsessed with life.

There may be a case of
opposites attracting.

We've never seen such
intergenerational romance,

or such a divide before.

Harold and Maude inverts some
of the Hollywood tendency

for the older man to fall
for the younger woman.

How strange for audiences
to now see an older woman,

who is enjoying sexuality
with a younger man!

(gentle music)

Harold and Maude pushes
Hollywood to extremes

that it had never
imagined before.

- 1972 was an amazing
year for American movies

because in that same year,

one had the emergence
"Deep Throat"

which was the first popular
hardcore pornography

to go into theaters and to
be seen by normal audiences,

which is to say male
and female, together.

And it was a huge hit,
made a lot of money.

And in that same year,
"Last Tango in Paris"

by Bernardo Bertolucci was
maybe not quite as popular,

didn't get as many
people rushing to see it,

but critically, very, very
important in the United States.

(upbeat music)

"Deep Throat" was a
kind of a crude affair,

but what it did was
locate the clitoris

in a place other than where
it was expected to be.

That is to say in the throat
of the female protagonists.

- Open your mouth wider, wider!

Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!
- Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!

- Well, there it is, you
little bugger, there it is.

- What?
- Your clitoris.

It's deep down in the
bottom of your throat.

- That allowed a
kind of visibility,

especially visibility to
the sexual act of fellatio,

but it became a popular act.

And in novels at the same time,
John Updike, Phillip Roth,

novels were having
sex in their pages.

And I think it was Jane...

No, I think it was Phillip Roth

who said something like
they were amazing fellators,

women were amazing fellators,
or became amazing fellators.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator 2] "Deep Throat"
soon becomes a cult film

for popular culture.

The representative of what is
described as chic pornography

from then on.

Although the film is
sued for obscenity

by judges declaring
it more dangerous

than the worst nightmares
found in Sodom and Gomorrah,

psychiatrist called into
support the defense,

declare the film quite
within the limits

of normal sexual behavior.

And in fact, exhibiting
empathy for feminine desires.

Pornography opens the
doors to a sexualization,

that is from now on
displayed everywhere,

especially in popular culture.

- Americans will
think that sex...

I think we still
think that it's dirty,

especially for the woman,
although, officially,

I don't think we believe that

in most of our
standard discourses and
ideologies about sex,

the fact that there has
been this double standard

for so long, and
that double standard

is by the way so much in
evidence in "Last Tango"

where you have
full frontal nudity

on the part of Maria Schneider,

and then Brando
probably would be partly

because he's a little overweight

and partly because he's
maybe the most important icon

of masculinity of a
slightly earlier period,

hardly takes off his clothes.

There's one scene where
you see him from the side,

where he's supposedly naked,
but it's from the waist up.

So in American movies, I
think that there often is,

women often don't
feel good about sex.

And I think of "Psycho"
as the good example.

Janet Lee, she
clearly has had sex.

She's having an
affair with this guy,

but she keeps her bra on the
entire aftermath of sex scene,

and then very soon after,
she gets brutally stabbed

in a shower, as
if being punished.

(woman screaming)

And this is one of the reasons

why I think pornography
is interesting

because pornography is at
least one genre that shows sex,

and does not believe in
punishing women for the sex.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator 2] But these
years of sexual liberation

come to a halt in the
beginning of the '80s.

On July 3rd, 1981,
the New York Times

describes a rare cancer
seen in 41 homosexuals.

For the ultra conservatives,
sexual liberation brings death.

Ronald Reagan's head of
communications talks about AIDS

as the revenge of nature
against homosexuals.

It is deemed necessary
to bring back morality,

and pull the country out of sin.

Reagan promises to ban abortion,

to bring prayer back to schools,

and condemn pornography
and homosexuality,

promises he will have
trouble keeping once elected,

but the puritans are back.

(gentle music)

1980, it's also the year
of Brian De Palma's movie

"Dressed to Kill",

which marks a turning
point in Hollywood cinema.

The beginning of the film
shows us Angie Dickinson

in the middle of a full
frontal masturbation scene,

mingled with a rape fantasy.

She then has an organism

from the hand of a perfect
stranger in a New York taxi.

De Palma shows here pleasure

purely from a feminine
point of view.

(woman moaning)

But once the adultery
has consummated,

she discovers that
the man in question

is suffering from
a sexual disease.

And as if this punishment
were not enough,

she's brutally murdered
in the elevator.

The enjoyment of sin
now has a fatal price.

(woman screams)

- The films of Brian De Palma,

I think are kind of twisted
and cautionary tales

that reflect a lot of the fears
regarding sex in the 1980s.

In films like "Dressed to
Kill" or "Body Double",

We see that anyone
toying with sexuality

is also maybe risking death.

And so murder, violent murder,

bloody murder becomes
a kind of a subplot,

or a result of sexual
experimentation in the 1980s.

Cinematic sex in the '80s
became risky business.

The dangers and fears
created by the AIDS crisis

were reflected in film.

The sexuality that you
see in "Risky Business"

almost makes sex
look transactional.

It becomes a
business proposition.

Tom Cruise may slide in to
the scene in his boxers,

but what he's really doing is
trying to pay for the damage

that he caused to
his dad's Porsche.

So, profit becomes maybe
more important than pleasure,

when it comes to
sexuality in the '80s.

- [Narrator 2] Indeed,
in "Risky Business",

Tom Cruise, a boy
from a good family,

turns into a pimp when
to make some money.

He organizes a prostitute's
evening with his friends,

at his parents' house.

- (indistinct) here?

- Yeah.
- You're on, honey.

- The 1980s, it's
very interesting

to think that maybe one
of the biggest sex symbols

of the 1980s was Jessica Rabbit,

an animated character from
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit".

It seemed that maybe people
preferred an animated woman,

than a real woman because
of so much tension and fears

regarding sexuality,

that arose from the AIDS
crisis in the 1980s.

- I think in the '80s, what
happens is that sex gets kinky.

That's the word
we use in English.

It gets sadistic, masochistic.

Anal people begin
to get the idea

of individuals who
enjoy being beaten.

Dorothy, in "Blue Velvet"
enjoys being beaten,

and wants this young man to
beat her when they have sex.

And he doesn't want to do
that, but he finally does it.

- [Dorothy] Beat me!

- No, no!

- Go away! Go away
from my bed! Go away!

(gentle music)

- So, he's seduced into
a lot of very adult

and scary things,
especially given the fact

that for American, sex is
dirty rather than pleasurable.

I think "Blue Velvet" is
a really important film

in America's new found
ability in the '80s to,

shall we say, witness sex.

This young man finds
himself multiple times

hiding in the closet of the
woman he is curious about,

as a voyeur, watching
her have very kinky sex

with Dennis Hopper, who is
the villain of the piece.

But in this case,

the sexual act has to
do with Dennis Hopper,

looking at the woman's genitals

and breathing through some
kind of mask that excites him.

So it's very, very kinky.

- [Narrator 2] With
the Reagan years,

comes the explosion of
blockbusters and teen movies.

But at the same time,
films are also made

where sexuality and feminine
pleasure are more accepted,

such as "Nine and a Half
Weeks", and "Flashdance",

which makes the director of
these films, Adrian Lynn,

a symbol of the '80s.

(upbeat music)

- "Flashdance", it begins
with this amazing shot

of Jennifer Beals onstage.

And really the film could
have been called splash dance

with this moment where the water

just comes barreling
down on top of her.

When you look back
at "Flashdance" now,

and just look at the
story of a welder by day,

exotic dancer by night, who
aspires to be a ballerina,

you say like, "How did
this become a hit?"

But it appealed to maybe the
fantasy side of filmmaking

that characterized the '80s.

- Before the movie,
before we shot the movie,

I just knew I wanted
to do a "wet" dance

'cause I knew that the water
would look nice on skin,

that it'd be interesting
it flew around,

like sweat or
whatever, you know?

And so, but I didn't
really know how to do it.

I just knew that I was
gonna do a wet dance.

And so I remember
the studio was very,

very sort of
pessimistic about it,

and they just didn't
believe in me really.

And so I remember I got
a dancer and a hose.

I remember I had a hose

that I sort of wound
round this poor girl,

and tried to make
the studio understand

that I was going
to do a wet dance.

And I just remember their
faces or their skepticism,

that it was going
to be a disaster.

- [Narrator 2] Far
from being a disaster,

the film was a
phenomenal success.

This sexy dance of Jennifer
Beals in her wet body suit,

is still a cult scene,
almost 30 years later.

- People said, I
remember when I...

'Cause I had just done
"Flashdance" before it,

which was a huge success,

and people said that
"If you do this film,

"Nine and a Half Weeks",

it'd be like
committing professional
suicide," they said.

And in a way it was in America

'cause the version that
they showed in America

didn't make any sense.

There was none of the
sadomasochism at all.

There was a scene for example,
where Kim plays a whore,

a prostitute, and she's
picking up dollar bills

and she doesn't want to do
it and he makes her do it.

And then they make
out afterwards.

But there's elements of
say to masochism in that.

And the Americans
were terrified of it,

and they made me take
it out of the movie.

So the movie didn't make
any sense in America,

but it did very well in
the rest of the world.

It played forever.

In Paris it played for
six years or seven years

or something.

- Pick up the money.

- I don't wanna pick up
the money. (indistinct)!

- Pick up the money!

(woman crying)

- What I think Americans and
English come to Anglo-Saxons,

I guess, are embarrassed
to sit with their wife,

and be aroused sexually,
looking at a movie.

They're embarrassed by it.
Now, French don't give a shit.

- [Narrator 2] It's the same

for Paul Verhoeven's
"Basic Instinct" in 1992,

for which the studio decided
to release two versions,

a soft one for the
American market

and an unabridged
version for Europe.

Because sex and violence
always work well together,

the film is a perfect example.

Right at the beginning,
Verhoeven films two lovers

in full sexual
congress, on a bed,

in the center of a
room full of mirrors.

The woman, whose lower
back and blonde hair

are all that can be seen,

has a white scarf to
tie her partner up with.

(gentle music)

(man groaning)
(woman moaning)

During orgasm, she
pulls an icepick

and stabs her victim
in the throat and face.

Only five minutes have elapsed.

And the audience is already
electrified by a scene

mixing sexuality,
and extreme violence.

- "Basic Instinct" is amazing
because it offended women.

It offended gay rights groups,

and offended maybe everything,

but audiences who
turned out in droves.

"Basic Instinct"
involves a bisexual woman

who likes to live dangerously

when it comes to both sex
and her relationships.

Michael Douglas engages
in this cat and mouse

kind of interaction
with Sharon Stone,

involving this famous
interrogation scene

where she is torturing him

by crossing her legs back
and forth, back and forth.

(gentle music)

- It's nice.

(gentle music)

- And this is a throwback

to the film, "Fatale"
of the 1940s,

the dangerous female who if
you dare to have sex with her,

you may die in the process.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator 2] Yes, sex
is dangerous in America,

and the country is going

to experience its
biggest sexual scandal,

one that even Hollywood
doesn't dare dream of,

with the affair of Bill
Clinton and Monica Lewinsky,

which will push American
puritanism to its limit.

No democracy had
ever gone so far,

forcing a president in office
to submit to a DNA test,

and testify before
the grand jury

live on television in
front of the whole world,

to justify a sexual
relationship out of wedlock.

- I did have a relationship
with Miss Lewinsky

that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong.

It constituted a critical
lapse in judgment,

and a personal
failure on my part,

for which I am solely and
completely responsible.

- [Narrator 2] Bill Clinton was
asked an essential question.

"Did you touch Ms.
Lewinsky's breasts?"

The act of having
touched her breasts

constituted for America,
a sexual relationship.

This case is not trivial.

It shows the obsession
with transparency and truth

at all costs, and
especially, the fear of sex.

It is also this fear
that pushes America

to encode its love
relationships, in sports terms.

When it comes to dating,

the American guy advances in
the art of seduction by bases,

like in a baseball game.

- If you go on a first
date, you might kiss,

and that might be first base.

The baseball is the illusion.

So, you progress around
the bases in baseball.

So you might get to second
base on another date

where you might
feel her breasts.

Third base, you're
getting closer.

And of course the whole
model is genital penetration.

Home run, score, would
be to go all the way.

- We've always talked about
sex in maybe baseball language

or sports language, all
these strange metaphors.

And it's maybe a way

of kind of getting
around our discomfort

in terms of the
sexuality in the body.

We're comfortable
talking about sports.

We're comfortable
talking about baseball,

but maybe not, still not so
comfortable talking about sex,

even when it comes to things
involving our own president.

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator 2] With the
new millennium, 911,

the war in Iraq and the
new economic crisis,

America has changed.

Since the Bush years,
America has regressed

to its strictest
form of puritanism.

For example, in 2000, 13 states
were hostile to abortion.

In 2014, 43 have adopted
restrictions against it.

Today in the Trump era,
the Governor of Arkansas

wants to remove from
women who are raped,

the right to an abortion,

without the consent of
the man who raped her.

(upbeat music)

And the movie industry
follows this conservative,

senseless movement.

Because it is
primarily an industry,

it must be acceptable to the
four corners of the world,

and be visible by a 13 year
old teenager in Russia,

as well as by a 50 year
old woman in India.

The film adaptation of
the scandalous novel,

"Fifty Shades of Gray",
is the perfect example.

We are far from the torrid
scenes of the novel,

because the film
can not be X-rated.

- Somewhat symptomatically,
the American film version

of that novel was
incredibly tame, and boring.

I would say that we see
more sex at the movies,

but we see it in categories

where you can't be surprised
because first of all,

there's the ratings that
will tell you in advance

what you're likely to see,

so you don't have
the unpredictability

of sex suddenly erupting.

And that's one of the
interesting things about sex

is that it can just erupt.

- [Narrator 2]
Ironically, television

has never been so
daring in terms of sex.

TV series such as "Masters
of Sex", "Game of Thrones",

"Mad Men",
"Californication", "Girls",

or most recently the
"Handmaid's Tale",

are mainly based
on sexual dynamics,

and even sexual violence.

(gentle music)

We no longer count the number
of rapes, incest and orgies

on HBO, Showtime, or Netflix.

Mainstream cinema
and television,

thus reveal a very specific
American approach to sex.

- Americans have always
been more comfortable

with violence than sex.

Perhaps it goes back
to our frontier roots.

We're comfortable with cowboys.

We're comfortable with
settling the wild west.

But when it comes
to bringing women

onto that pioneering stage,
we get a little bit nervous.

America's puritan forefathers
had very strong ideas

about what is
appropriate and when.

And those puritan roots, I think
are reflected in our films.

And I think those Biblical
roots of kind of blaming women,

as the source of sin, as
the root of temptation,

I think carry over into film.

So women are often
punished on screen

for sexual feelings
or sexual activities.

And I think that's rooted in
the American puritan ideals

that are still
very much with us.

(gentle uplifting music)