My wife is very an accomplished actress who graduated from Drama College with honours. She has never been afraid to undertake demanding roles. Indeed she excels when given a challenging role. She is very broad minded and has never flinched when asked to perform scenes involving partial or full nudity. She has a very attractive figure and I can understand why she is approached to play such parts. Recently a director friend who has hired my wife on numerous occasions asked if she would undertake a screen test for a screen adaptation of a play that would feature scenes that involved several 'love scenes'. She has done such scenes in the past and agreed to read the script. The play was written by a playwright who had a repetition of pushing the boundaries of modern theatre but nevertheless was highly acclaimed. My wife read the script but was taken aback by a couple of scenes which took her by surprise.
The script was great. There was just one problem: the sex. Although the vast majority of sexual situations depicted in mainstream theatre are simulated, on rare occasions produces have written scripts in which actors were instructed to engage in some level of genuine sexual activity. The script had lots of sex and worse still it required my wife to push her acting abilities to the limit -- if she accepted the part she would be required to engage in real sex. There were several scenes of unsimulated sex acts. In the side notes of the screenplay the writer had written freehand notes like "Mary caresses Derek's penis and takes it in her mouth" and "Derek and Mary engage in rough sex culminating in full penetration". Nudity was required but this went beyond anything she has done in the past. It wasn't pornography as the script was too well written with a strong story line exploring the sexual relationship of a modern couple in today's society.
I can see the press getting hold of this by writing sensational headlines like "So did she, or didn't she?" The answer would be pretty easy to establish, so, in a desperate effort to avoid discussing the actual play, the interviewer will ask her whether her co-star "really" had an orgasm when he had sex with her.
Well, who can blame the journalists? Why should they resist this line of inquiry when readers would clearly wish the journalist to pursue it? No one is going to see the film now because they're interested in the story. To a man and woman, they'll be queuing for a look at leading man's penis penetrating my wife. Respectable people they may be, but at this moment they are no different from the flickering-eyed consumer of pornography who fast-forwards through the scene-setting to get to the money shot.
The writer's claim, that audiences cannot be convinced that sexual relations are taking place unless they actually see it, is an interesting thought but it's not his wife who is getting fucked on film in name of art.
