Warning – colourful language and sexual imagery/references follow. Obviously.
Let’s just start off that I didn’t go on some epic perverted quest to sit down and work out which films gave me the most morally ambiguous boner. I already had about two thirds of this list kicking round my brain and appearing like that uncle at family parties every now and then so it wasn’t too much effort to push the proverbial boat out here. I mean with the list, not the uncle.
10. A History Of Violence
Right away, the title might hint that any scenes of a sexual nature could be laced with blood and aggression but I don’t think anyone was fully prepared for the stair fucking. That’s fucking on the stairs, not fucking the stairs (I probably could have reworded that to make it less ambiguous but I just wanted to make you wonder how one would go about violating stairs). After a particularly emotional scene Edie, the wife, wants to go and weep alone upstairs. Sadly her husband wants to “talk about it” and so he grabs her in order to keep her downstairs. Sound rapey? Kinda is. Yet about halfway through their tiff, there seems to be a switch flipped which makes the unhappy couple think that wooden stairs would make a great place to try out missionary position. (Spoiler alert – bruises!) It’s such an intense scene that probably makes ironically bearded media studies students ponder on what it means that sex hurts them in this way, but really it’s just messed up. I’ve heard of angry sex, I’ve heard of marital rape, I can even see how these two things might become linked and the lines blurred. But I would never slam my partner’s back down on hard wooden slats to get my rocks off.
Well researched, surprised to see Super on there – flew under most’s radar. Only thing I was looking for that wasn’t there is Jeunet’s DELICATESSEN. Great list!