The Revealing Truth About Filming Nude Scenes

First off, it’s worth noting that nude scenes are not necessarily the same as sex scenes. After all, nudity isn’t inherently sexual. There are plenty of movie moments where characters are naked for reasons that have nothing to do with sex, such as the scene with the showering soldiers in «Starship Troopers.» For that matter, there are plenty of sexually-charged scenes in movies where characters are fully clothed.

The association of nudity and sex is largely thanks to the Hays Code, a set of strict regulations that censored what could be shown in movies between 1934 and 1968. Under the Hays Code, any nudity (even non-sexual nudity) was a big no-no, so even after the Hays Code was dissolved, the public attitude towards nudity stuck.

But nudity can be used for far more than titillating audiences. Case in point: in the comedy «No Hard Feelings,» Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) goes skinny-dipping and then beats up the teenagers who try to steal her clothes. The sequence is fairly groundbreaking for a mainstream adult comedy, because it changes the way we look at nudity. Lawrence’s breasts and butt are shown, but not for sex appeal; instead, these only contribute to the slapstick comedy of the scene.

Nevertheless, the most notorious nude scenes in cinematic history (and the ones that were the most complicated or awkward or hilarious to film) involve sex in some way, so we will mostly be examining movie sex scenes.