• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Controversial movie where the actors went all the way in unsimulated sex scenes

Home> Entertainment> Film

Published 18:54 6 Sep 2024 GMT+1

Controversial movie where the actors went all the way in unsimulated sex scenes

The film premiered at Cannes in 2006

Stefania Sarrubba

Stefania Sarrubba

Featured Image Credit: THINKfilm

Topics: Film, Cannes Film Festival

Stefania Sarrubba
Stefania Sarrubba

Advert

Advert

Advert

As joyous, silly sex scenes seem to be largely absent from the big screen nowadays, a subversive 2006 movie has gained a loyal following for its unsimulated intimate sequences and its ability to capture a moment in time.

The film, written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, is an independent explicit comedy using sex as a life-affirming way to connect in post 9/11 New York City.

Premiering at Cannes 18 years ago in 2006, it became known for featuring ‘real unsimulated sex’, with scenes including penetrative intercourse and male ejaculation.

Yep, this one certainly leaves little to the imagination.

Advert

The film premiered at Cannes back in 2006 (THINKfilm)
The film premiered at Cannes back in 2006 (THINKfilm)

The film, titled Shortbus, revolves around a Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon inspired by various underground gatherings taking place across the city at the time.

The casting process saw Mitchell and his team watching about 500 tapes that were sent to production following an open casting call.

The filmmaker then invited 40 people for a rather crowded chemistry reading, and ultimately cast nine stars before any dialogue was written.

Shortbus takes its name from the fictional sexual salon the protagonist, sex therapist Sofia Lin (Sook-Yin Lee), attends hoping to achieve her very first orgasm.

Advert

Shortbus revolves around a Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon inspired by various underground gatherings taking place across New York City (THINKfilm)
Shortbus revolves around a Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon inspired by various underground gatherings taking place across New York City (THINKfilm)

In a lacklustre marriage to Rob (Raphael A Barker), Sofia is encouraged by two of her patients, couple James (Paul Dawson) and Jamie (PJ DeBoy), to go down this route of self-discovery, striking a friendship with dominatrix Severin (Lindsay Beamish) and having Rob attend Shortbus with her.

The film currently sits at a 69 percent critics’ score on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with reviews ranging from raving about its inherent heartwarming quality to being less than impressed with its mostly improvised acting.

Re-released in 2022, Shortbus has reached cult status to the point that journalist Mark Harris, who hung out on set with Mitchell and a bunch of hopefuls in 2003, questioned if it'd even get made today.

Harris muses that it’s not Shortbus' explicit content that would raise eyebrows in the noughties, but the fact that its sexual scenes are not framed within an escapist, late-capitalist context.

Advert

"You've got to get on to get off" (THINKfilm)
"You've got to get on to get off" (THINKfilm)

To the writer, Shortbus' post 9/11 optimism is what wouldn't resonate with modern sensibilities and, tragically, what made the movie an indie hit.

"It's a movie full of joy and delight — not just in sexual discovery and self-discovery, but in the awkward, itchy, uncomfortable, embarrassing stuff, in the fact that sex is messy because people and their feelings are messy," Harris wrote for Vulture.

"In a way, the movie's conviction that the mess is part of the fun seems like its most transgressive aspect.

"Today, contemporary sensibilities might demand that the sex in Shortbus be framed as a refuge or escape within a late-capitalist dystopia, instead of an invitation to get naked and jump in, in a city that glows with various secret pleasures just waiting to be unlocked."

Choose your content:

an hour ago
4 hours ago
6 hours ago
8 hours ago
  • an hour ago

    Oasis issue critical warning to everyone attending Manchester concerts

    The Gallagher brothers play their first homecoming gig at Heaton Park on Friday night

    Entertainment
  • 4 hours ago

    Every Scrubs actor who has died as reboot confirmed after 15 years

    The show is returning after 15 years, however some actors involved in the show have tragically died

    Entertainment
  • 6 hours ago

    Superman fans make iconic discovery after former actor brands new film 'woke'

    The most woke thing of all: Arguably the most famously American character of all time

    Entertainment
  • 8 hours ago

    Netflix viewers are being left constantly guessing by mystery mini-series you can watch in one sitting

    The Netflix series is a great binge with a bonkers plot twist

    Entertainment
  • Ten mainstream movies where actors have actual unsimulated sex in them
  • Letterboxd has list of bizarre movies where actors have actual unsimulated sex in them
  • Horror movie with real-life sex scene was handed an 'anti-award' due to controversy around it
  • All the celebrities you never realised actually had sex on screen included in eye-opening list of movies