Hollywood stars’ graphic sex scenes are falling flat with younger audience, a new study has found.
Explicit content has ruled streaming content of late with Nicole Kidman’s erotic thriller Babygirl – in which she plays a CEO having an affair with an intern (Harris Dickinson) – dropping jaws due to its graphic sex scenes.
Tell Me Lies – dubbed America’s Normal People and starring Grace Van Patten and Stephen DeMarco is also filled with racy moments that left viewers hot under the collar.
While erotic psychological thriller Fair Play starring Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich shocked fans when it opened with a steamy oral sex scene while its lead character was menstruating.
However, a new study from UCLA – Los Angeles’ Center for Scholars & Storytellers. per Variety has found younger audiences are hoping for a Hollywood shift to characters in platonic relationships – with less of an emphasis on explicit sexual content.
Hollywood stars’ graphic sex scenes are falling flat with younger audience, a new study has found – pictured Nicole Kidman and Harrison Dickinson in a steamy scene from Babygirl
The Teens & Screens report surveyed around 1,500 respondents, aged 10 to 24 and found that 63.5% of adolescents said they preferred that ‘big and small screen stories focus on friendships’. While 62.4% of participants said ‘sexual content isn’t needed as a plot device’.
The previous year 51.5% of participants said they wanted more content about people in platonic relationships, and 47.5% said that they ‘didn’t seek out shows or movies where sex was a major plot point.’
Those aged between 10-13 were polled on their attitudes on sexually explicit content.
Alisha J. Hines, director of research at the center, said: ‘Our findings really seemed to solidify a trend we found emerging in our data last year: that young people are tired of seeing the same dated and unrelatable romantic tropes on screen.
‘Teens and young adults want to see stories that more authentically reflect a full spectrum of nuanced relationships.’
Now 36.2% of participants said they enjoyed content in fantasy worlds over 7.2% preferring storylines centered around the rich and famous,
Meanwhile 13.9% enjoyed real-life issues and 24.2% preferred personal issues content.
Among the teens, 39.2% said their favorite entertainment was video games, while 33.3% chose watching TV or movies and 27.5% who chose scrolling on social media platforms.
Tell Me Lies – dubbed America’s Normal People and starring Grace Van Patten and Stephen DeMarco is also filled with racy moments that left viewers hot under the collar
While erotic psychological thriller Fair Play starring Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich shocked fans when it opened with a steamy oral sex scene while its lead character was menstruating
This comes after Dickinson revealed what it was like shooting steamy sex scenes for Babygirl.
The 28-year-old Iron Claw actor stars opposite the Big Little Lies star, 57, in the erotic film — directed by Halina Reijn — which sees them engaging in an affair.
Harris shared he and Nicole worked with an intimacy coordinator, and admitted one of his unrehearsed sexy scenes was ’embarrassing’ to film, in a new interview with Variety.
‘We’d have a discussion with the intimacy coordinator and then Nicole and I kind of did our own thing with it once we set the parameters of what we were both comfortable with,’ he said.
‘The intimacy coordinator is saying, “What are you comfortable with, what do you want as a director, what are you comfortable doing from that vision?” They’re facilitating that and doing it very delicately without interrupting the actual scene.”
Harris noted that one scene where he was practically naked and dancing in a hotel room to a George Michael song without any prior rehearsal turned out to be ’embarrassing’ to film.
‘That was just me moving. Halina put the song and said, “Just dance.” So I just had a little groove. Maybe I had a little whiskey before. But it was embarrassing.’
Nicole said that performing the scenes with Harrison and Antonio Banderas, as her husband, Jacob, was often too much to cope with
Kidman has admitted she was so ‘turned on’ by her Babygirl role that at one point she had to pause filming
He also praised Nicole as being ‘like the most comforting, warm performer to work across from.’
‘She sets the tone on set, and she makes it so easy to be vulnerable and to be funny, because she is so daring. She’s so brave, and she does stuff, and you’re like, “What the f**k is that?” You can’t even think of it.’
It comes after Nicole admitted she was so turned on when shooting the film that at one point she had to pause filming.
The film sees Nicole play a high-powered married company boss who falls for a kinky young intern.
And according to The Sun, in a revealing new interview Nicole said that performing the scenes with Harrison and Antonio Banderas, 64, as her husband, Jacob, was often too much to cope with.
Nicole started by saying: ‘There was an enormous amount of sharing and trust and then frustration. It’s like, “Don’t touch me.”‘
‘There were times when we were shooting where I was like, “I don’t want to orgasm any more”.
‘Don’t come near me. I hate doing this. I don’t care if I am never touched again in my life! I’m over it. It was so present all the time for me that it was almost like a burnout.’
