Those Who Forget the Past…

Whenever people push the edges how sex is portrayed, it causes an uproar. It really doesn’t matter whether the new frontier is a new technology (like the VHS porn revolution) or a sexual act (like Britney Spears and Madonna kissing). What matters is that crossing a boundary that was previously seemingly solid gets people wound up.

So it’s worth taking a look at this great article on Gawker. It’s chock full of interesting photos and movie clips that document some of the sexual milestones of Hollywood’s past. Just to whet your appetite, here’s a snippet of The Kiss, which was so incendiary that there were protests and editorials calling for police intervention.

Other significant events of sex in film that you can find at Gawker include:

• The first striptrease
• The first pornographic film
• The first “gay” kiss
• The first open mouth kiss

Of course, this is hardly a complete list of the film events that pushed sexual edges, but it’s a good place to start. And it’s really a great reminder that many of the things that we think of as just fine to watch were once considered scandalous. It makes me wonder what we currently consider out of bounds that future generations will simply accept.