THE UNWATCHABLE UNDOABLE:

Stars and strips: Getting naked and faking it for the camera - it's a scenario even the professionals find embarrassing. But screen sex can prove just as toe-curling for viewers. (Michael Holden, March 15, 2003, The Guardian)

Concern that the arts - and by association the world at large - are being overrun with graphic sexuality is as old as communication itself. Now, at last, it's finally happened. Sex is everywhere. Everyone's at it. The bad news is it looks awful and it's as erotic as old roadkill in the rain (if you're lucky). Suddenly art is making pornography look good. Television, as is customary, must take the brunt of the blame. Nine in the evening is now less of a watershed than a last-chance saloon in which one may swill down a final glass of decency before the nightly carousel of reality-styled lust begins again. Even prior to that, no one's safety can be guaranteed. Lest we forget, Mark Fowler's naked and post-coital torso - like some ghastly celestial event - was clearly visible much earlier in the evening at one point last year. But more of Mark later (so to speak).

The grim sex trend has permeated the visual arts to a greater degree than ever before - if you think TV sex is bad then you should keep well clear of the cinema - and now even those on the front line are struggling to keep pace. The Actors Centre in London is running a course this month called Getting Intimate, devoted to "helping young actors negotiate the tricky subject of sex scenes and 'gratuitous exposure'". Stranger still, the course is co-hosted by Helen Baxendale.

Quite why an actress that one associates with acerbic condescension more than overt sexuality should be involved in such a venture merits some investigation. A call to the Actors Centre established that she is an old theatre colleague of the new director, Matthew Lloyd, which kind of explains things. Mr Lloyd wasn't available but they were kind enough to say "we try and keep up with new trends" and described the course in the following terms: "The explicit sex scene is now a staple of film, TV drama and contemporary theatre but, if it goes wrong, the scope for awkwardness and embarrassment is huge and the results can be weak drama and truthless acting. Keeping most of our clothes on, we will look at a range of practical examples that raise questions about nudity, naturalism, dramatic justification and gratuitous exposure."

All very handy for the thesps, but what about those of us who must bear witness? The idea that bad sex is better than no sex at all is as bogus in art as it is in life: as a viewer, it can be even worse.

Like the illustrations in the Kama Sutra--no one's ever actually read it--screen sex requires such unlikely contortions as to cause laughter rather than stimulation. One wishes they'd put more effort into the script and less into the scrump. Keep the actors clothed and let us use our imaginations, eh? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 15, 2003 6:57 AM