[1][2] At one time in the United States, such scenes were restricted by law and self-imposed industry standards such as the Motion Picture Production Code.
From the end of the 1970s until the late 1990s it was rare to see hardcore scenes in mainstream cinema, but this changed with the success of Lars von Trier's The Idiots (1998), which heralded a wave of art-house films with explicit content,[7][8] such as Romance (1999), Baise-moi (2000), Intimacy (2001), Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny (2003), and Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs (2004).
The visibility of penetration/fellatio/cunnilingus on the screen is more important to the experience of watching the film, and often to the concerns of censors and critics, than exactly what took place on set.
For instance, while an actor's penis may enter an actress's vagina on a porn set, this does not mean that each of their actions, emotions, noises, and so on, are not performed quite differently than they would be in the privacy of their own home: "it is both real—something that actually happens between people—and a fake, staged for the camera and sound equipment.
"[11] In an interview after the release of his film Love (2015), when asked why audiences want to see realistic portrayals of sex, Gaspar Noé suggested it is about power structures: "In most societies, whether they're Western or not, people want to control the sexual behaviour or to organise it in a precise context.
If other voices or other kinds of discussions or storylines or narratives from different perspectives are introduced, it will only make us richer as a people.
In an interview with BlackBook, Gaspar Noé acknowledges that it is difficult for several reasons: an actor may not be able to get or maintain an erection in the presence of even a small crew, or on camera; either of the participants may have a current partner.