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Topics: Film and TV, Entertainment
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Film and TV, Entertainment
When you think of racy movies, the likes of Fifty Shades Of Grey, 365 Days and Lady Chatterley's Lover may spring to mind - but despite the way it looks, no actual sex is involved.
It's a known fact that actors have to pretend to have intercourse with one another, and many stars have labelled it as an extremely 'awkward' thing to do.
Following the release of box office hit Oppenheimer, frontman Cillian Murphy opened up about the sex scenes he had with co-star Florence Pugh.
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"Listen, no one likes doing them," the Peaky Blinders favourite admitted.
"They’re the most awkward possible part of our job, but sometimes you have to get on with it," Murphy continued.
While they're awkward, Murphy - who has been happily married to wife Yvonne McGuinness for almost 20 years - didn't have to have actual relations with Pugh.
It's basically unheard of for actors to be asked to do this - but that doesn't mean it's never happened.
Real sex has in fact occurred in movies, and there's a chance you may have seen them without even realising its realness.
Here's a list of non-pornographic movies which have included real sex:
Pink Flamingos (1972)
The first movie to feature unsimulated sex was Pink Flamingos, which is said to be director John Waters' most infamous film.
Its synopsis reads: "A bizarre fat woman (Divine) and her misfit family compete with a Baltimore couple (David Lochary, Mink Stole) to be named the filthiest people alive."
While the film doesn't have full-blown intercourse, it does feature oral sex between Divine and Crackers (Danny Mills).
Making it even more controversial, the two characters were mother and son.
In The Realm of Senses (1976)
The next movie to feature real hanky-panky is In The Realm of Senses, which is about an affair between a sex worker-turned-hotel maid and her employer.
The Japanese film was met with a strong critical response at the time of its release and was subjected to censorship and bans.
The Idiots (1998)
Fast forward to 1998 and the real-life sex returned to the big screen once again, this time in Lars von Trier's, The Idiots.
The film features an orgy and, upon its terrestrial television debut in 2005 on Channel 4, the broadcaster was met with several Ofcom complaints.
The Raspberry Reich (2004)
The flick is about a woman who condemns heterosexuality and encourages her male followers to have sex with each other.
One Rotten Tomatoes critic described the film as 'a highly awkward blending of gay porn and political satire'.
The Raspberry Reich doesn't fall under the pornography category, however.
Shortbus (2006)
John Cameron Mitchell's erotic comedy also has unsimulated sex in it, according to I-D.
Mitchell has addressed the real sex scenes in the film and joked that '[people] don’t ask whether I could’ve done Hedwig [and the Angry Inch] without the songs'.
Dogtooth (2009)
Oscar nominee Dogtooth got chins wagging - but the sex scenes in the 14-year-old film were supposedly used as 'a way of showing the kind of relationships that are born out of these levels of extreme isolation'.
The synopsis for Dogtooth reads: "A controlling, manipulative father (Christos Stergioglou) locks his three adult offspring in a state of perpetual childhood by keeping them prisoner within the sprawling family compound.
"The children are bored to tears in spite of distractions like Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), an employee of their father's who makes regular visits to sexually service the son (Hristos Passalis). Increasingly curious about the outside world, the older daughter (Aggeliki Papoulia) hatches a plan to escape."
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
The most recent movie to have featured proper sex, the saucy piece of French cinema sees main man Franck fall in love with another guy he meets at a nudist beach (as you do).
Again, rather than it being unnecessarily crude, people have insisted that the film's sex scenes are 'another example of real sex and artistic power coming together'.