Doing it

Most people do it, and those who do it would rather do it, I’m sure, than watch it being done, and those who don’t but want to do it are presumably more likely put off watching others do it; and those who haven’t done it but are curious about doing it can always find others doing it on internet. I’m talking about copulating scenes on the screen, less politely called fucking, which filmmakers these days seem to like to show liberally, on the dubious rationale that doing it is a part of everyday life, and show it even gratuitously at every chance they can, as though they get more satisfaction showing their characters doing it than doing it themselves. There were days when a man and a woman couldn’t lie down on the same bed. The Hays Code, until 1968, censored a scene as suggestive if a woman sat on the bed in her bedroom in which a man was present, and banned the word pregnant uttered by anyone. Thank goodness we are more liberal today and I applaud us for that. Still, the abundance of gratuitous copulations on the screen has become rather excessive. They began to appear even on the stage of late -- simulated, to be sure. Eroticism is by and large more effective suggested than shown. But who knows. I may be out of sync with the changing times. The majority of film viewers today may rather watch the fictional characters do it than doing it themselves in the privacy of their home, a motel room, a parked car, or a park bench in the dark.