when do movies become porn and what is female nudity?

[lechat]

so my local international movies channel (read kung fu and porn) has had a month long R rated movie screening and i got to thinking. at what point exactly do movies cross the line from entertainment to porn?
i'm certainly no prude but i can't think of a single plausible reason for a movie to ever show actual penetration and i doubt it would take much away from the plot or character development to remove images of erect penises, close up vaginas or actual fellatio so i'd have to say france you should be ashamed of yourself.

so where do you draw the line?

bonus question
at what point is a woman considered nude? i've seen many a movie with a nudity rating for full frontal nudity where what you actually get to see is closer to a bear skin rug so how is a full blown afro considered nude? and on the flip side technically 99% of all bikinis show at least some outer labia and while we can prolly all agree wearing a G-string backwards at a beach is crossing the line somewhere in between there must be a grey area.

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

This is an interesting question. Is it necessary to show penetration or other sexual acts? If it is WHEN exactly is it? I've seen a movie called Intimacy where they used it to a somewhat convincing degree to show how the two people are just emotionlessly sowing in and out and at the end of the film they achieve some kind of closeness. I don't know if it was ABSOLUTELY NEEDED to show it, but it did the job right.

And women are nude when they are nude? I don't get that question about when they are considered nude. If you are asking if only breasts constitute nudity then I think so.

To answer the thread title question - it becomes porn when the sole reason for its existence is to titillate people. Intimacy wasn't in any way sexually stimulating regardless of them showing full nudity and sex scenes.

 

[Rawne1980]

what is female nudity?

If you don't know that, we can't help you.

A woman is nude when she isn't wearing anything ... nothing at all ... full birthday suit.

If she's wearing a bikini, no matter how skimpy, she is still clothed.

See the picture below for more detail.....

 

[bananafishtoday]

"I'll know it when I see it."

i've seen many a movie with a nudity rating for full frontal nudity where what you actually get to see is closer to a bear skin rug

Fun fact: it's called a merkin.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I think if the sex act is the entire point of the thing, it becomes porn.

Sex as a plot device is not porn, its a sex scene.

 

[Stasisesque]

A film becomes pornography when it includes a non-simulated sexual act. I'm hesitant to suggest that this takes anything away from the film, though. If the movie's entire plot revolves around multiple real sexual acts from various angles, it's just porn, but a single non-simulated sexual act, while pornography, doesn't necessarily mean the film is a porno. Take The Brown Bunny, for instance.

As for what constitutes female nudity, are you suggesting women with natural hair don't count as nude? I think most (if not every single woman on the face of the planet) would disagree with you on that one.

 

[Mr.Cynic88]

Porn is documented sex with no artistic merit. Basically if the point of the sex scene has no purpose other than to get the viewer off, it's porn.

 

[Rastien]

When the plot revolves around a man coming to fix some plumbing or the film title has some form of pornographic innuendo Goldiecocks and the 3 Hoes etc.

If that title i just made up actually exists i will laugh my tits off.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

When the plot revolves around a man coming to fix some plumbing or the film title has some form of pornographic innuendo Goldiecocks and the 3 Hoes etc.

If that title i just made up actually exists i will laugh my tits off.

Well there is a porno called goldielocks and the three holes. Close enough lol.

 

[Twilight_guy]

It becomes porn when the primary reason for the current scene is sexually exciting the audience. It can be difficult to differentiate between porn and romance sometimes since Sex is associated with both love and lust.

It's nudity if she/he has no cloths or her/his cloths are thin enough that you can see through them. I suppose if the actor is so hairy its hard to tell if she/he is wearing a Sasquatch costume it can get dicey (then again there is Sasquatch porn too) but I'm not sure how many people want to see naked extremely hairy people.

 

[loa]

It's one of those "I know it when I see it" deals which means no one has a clue and doesn't really want to give it much thought either.
It's pretty amazing how people turn around, claiming that thing they have no clear definition of definitely has no "artistic merit" as one very clearly defined characteristic, another thing no one actually knows what the heck it is.
It's a clusterfuck.

 

[TaboriHK]

The best line I've heard to describe porn is "I don't know how to exactly to describe it but I know it when I see it."

 

[Olas]

I think it's porn if it's intended to be masturbated to... I'll admit I'm not too well versed in the subject.

I think a woman is nude when she's completely naked, no clothes, not even socks or a hat, or a wig since that counts as a hat, or even makeup or lipstick, completely bare, not even contact lenses or braces, or earings, nothing.

 

[manic_depressive13]

So people with body hair don't qualify as naked? I know this is going to come as a shock but that's what a natural body looks like. You don't have to be fully waxed just to be nude.

Also, 99% of bikinis show outer labia? Ew gross what. There might be a few wardrobe malfunctions on an average beach but it's certainly not normal for someone's labia to be showing when they wear a bikini. Just, bleagh, wow I don't even.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

It's pretty amazing how people turn around, claiming that thing they have no clear definition of definitely has no "artistic merit" as one very clearly defined characteristic, another thing no one actually knows what the heck it is.

I've read that sentence several times and I still have no idea what the hell it's trying to say.

OT:

It's a matter of focus. Pornography is pornography because its focus is to titillate the viewer - there's no service to anything larger or overarching, be it a narrative, a theme, or even a simple visual pattern/motif.

With a sex scene in a movie, what defines it as a sex scene is because its purpose is i) not titillating and sexually stimulating the viewer, and ii) contributing to the movie as a whole.

Can people take sex scenes and interpret them as porn? Of course. People can interpret anything as porn - that's why intent is the only clear and true indicator of whether something is porn or a sex scene.

and on the flip side technically 99% of all bikinis show at least some outer labia

The fuck kind of bikinis do girls wear where you live?

 

[Kinitawowi]

When the plot revolves around a man coming to fix some plumbing

And now I'm just reminded of that great bit from Top Gear when Clarkson says that if May directed a porno, he'd actually fix the boiler.

Um. Yeah. "I know it when I see it" is actually enshrined in US law for these sorts of things [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it].

 

[lechat]

kinda disappointed in the cop outs in this thread but maybe some of you are desensitized or haven't seen a decent R rated movie.

so assuming a movie contains 60-70 minuets of hardcore sex (and trust me i've seen movies like that), and a thin plot line of "young girl discovers her sexuality" which is the plot line for every second french and Spanish movie ever made according to my world movies channel does it still get a pass as entertainment not porn?

on the subject of female nudity. obviously the second you take of your underwear you are technically naked but if your crotch region looks like this

when you take off your pants how could that be defined as any less covered than wearing a merkin or is pubic hair really that much more offensive than regular hair?

 

[Vault101]

context id everything

I saw Shortbus which had plenty of graphic and unsimulated sex in it....but it didnt feel unesscary

and to be perfectly honest if somthing is titilating is that such a bad thing?

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I would say it's porn when there's no story line to it. As in, that's simply not the point of the movie at all. Girl fantasizes about pool boy, invites him in and they play hide the salami for half an hour, well that's porn. This can be argued as to how much of the story there is, and the director's message and the viewers interpretation (many people call art what others call trash and so on).

Uh, short answer: so for me it's simply if there's two people getting it on, and there is no medical/artistic point to it, and it's only to get the viewer aroused.

Question about nudity, well, a female is nude when she is not wearing anything. Forget the pubic hair nonsense, she's not wearing any clothes, she's nude. As for when they say a film "contains nudity" as a warning, well I would say that probably means that there are breasts visible. And that's about it.

 

[Biodeamon]

I would say a movie porn becomes when the plot cannot support itself without on-screen sex.

This is personally one of the reasons why i prefer hentai. They at least have some story to them instead of "i hired a plumber and OOPS NOW WE'RE FUCKING ALL OF THE SUDDEN".