MovieChat Forums > Film General > Why do films include male nudity?

Why do films include male nudity?


Unless a film is specifically aimed at gay men I see no point or logic in including male nudity of any kind.

In fact it risks repelling a majority of the possible audience.

Straight men don’t want to see it.

Most straight women don’t (they aren’t actively seeking male nudity like men seek female nudity).

On the other hand, a majority of straight men welcome female nudity.

So do lesbians.

While straight women and gay guys generally don’t mind if female nudity is included.

So why have male nudity?

Include more female nudity instead.

And not the unattractive “body positive” females.

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If you're watching movies to see naked women why don't you watch the ones where showing naked women is the whole point of the movie?

I for one watch movies because of the genre and the storyline and I've always found it ridiculous when a movie avoids nudity at all cost just to keep the age restriction low, but wants to have spicy scenes in it anyway.
When there's a sex scene in a movie and the actors/actresses keep their underwear on and/or make sure the blanket covers everything all the time, before, during and after the act, that's just unrealistic nonsense and that's true for male as well as female characters.
Same thing when after the act one of them gets out of the bed and the camera angle is carefully chosen so it will show them only from behind even when they speak, that's just not natural behavior.
I'm always cracking up when a movie shows a woman in a bathtub where either the camera angle is kept so low that one can only see the head sticking out, or the bathtub has more foam than water in it, because I know for a fact that the actress isn't naked in there, she's wearing skin colored underwear underneath all the foam, so not even the film team gets to see her nude.

In old times the camera wouldn't follow characters into the bedroom, it just showed them entering the bedroom, closing the door and the camera remained outside, topic solved, nothing unnatural there.
Then in the 70s or so producers went for nudity all over the place, having nudity it almost every movie, even when not expected by the viewers nor required for the story, over the top exaggerated to a point where that didn't look natural anymore either.
Quite a lot of movie stars became famous after they were shown nude in a movie.

Nowadays it's the combination of age restriction, actors and actresses not willing to be shown nude on camera and producers who want to show scenes as spicy as it can get without increasing the age limit while keeping the limits the contracts with the actors/actresses have, that gives an absurd outcome of what a movie shows and doesn't show.
Specifically absurd it gets when they do show nudity during spicy scenes but carefully avoid touching any sensitive parts of each others bodies, exaggerated to a point where it becomes obvious that even the actors/actresses realize how unnatural it must look to the viewers.

To get to the question you raised here, it would be even more absurd if female characters were shown nude in a frontal view but male characters weren't, to my mind that would be even more unnatural than avoiding all nudity during spicy scenes.

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> If you're watching movies to see naked women why don't you watch the ones where showing naked women is the whole point of the movie?

So you’re using the lame “just go watch porn” response?

Because porn is boring.

Porn merely exists for people to pleasure themselves.

Nudity and sex in films and shows exists to add impact and emotion to characters and stories.

I watch films for the reasons you said but I also enjoy the female form in all its beauty.

Your response is like museum guards standing by figure paintings in museums and telling visitors to go look at porn instead.

I also agree about the other ways you listed about how they hide female nudity being ridiculous and illogical.

But I don’t agree about male nudity and you obviously misread my post.

We’re talking about what appeals to the wider audience.

Naked guys don’t.

So I’m all for hiding male nudity — even in cases where they’d be naked with women.

Focus on the women in those scenes.

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Where, when and how shall I have suggested to watch porn?
I said "... where showing naked women is the whole point of the movie" and in porn that's clearly not the case because in porn there's a load of naked men shown as well.
There are whole series of movies that have loads and loads of nude women in them but aren't any pornographic, such as the "Emmanuelle" movies, where they even produced a new one recently. There's barely any storyline in these, it's just a chain of scenes all showing naked women.
There are even movies that have all nudity exclusively showing women, i.e. "Blue is the Warmest Color".

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> There's barely any storyline in these, it's just a chain of scenes all showing naked women.

You mean softcore porn?

Just as boring.

Only difference is there’s no hardcore sex.

I prefer compelling stories and well-developed characters (not to be confused with big boobs, though I love those too) in my films and shows.

With just enough female nudity spread throughout to sweeten it.

It’s like action or horror films.

I don’t want constant fights or explosions in every single scene or people getting killed by monsters in every single scene.

Those type scenes should be spread out as part of a complex plot.

That’s why I don’t watch slashers (though they tend to include nudity to distract from the fact that there’s no plot) or torture porn horror films.

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> I prefer compelling stories and well-developed characters (not to be confused with big boobs, though I love those too) in my films and shows.

In that case "Blue is the Warmest Color" would be just what you're looking for.
The whole series of "Outlander" has plenty of it as well.
Game of Thrones and many other long series have a lot of it as well.

Not sure how much more of it you want?
There are people who like watching other things, you know? Can't be just what you want to see and nothing else.

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Thanks for the suggestions but I’ve seen all of those.

And I understand people have different tastes.

I’m sharing mine which tends to match the majority of viewers and — again — asking why include male nudity in projects, especially mainstream films/shows, if it doesn’t appeal to most viewers?

One example, the director’s cut of Batman v Superman included Affleck’s ass in the shower but no female nudity.

Why?

Who was he trying to appeal to?

And mainstream PG-13 movies will include male butts, but not female, especially comedies.

Why?

Naked guys aren’t funny or stimulating to a majority of the audience.

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I don't agree with your statement that it would be a majority of viewers wanting to see the same things you want to see.
Maybe a majority of men in your generation, but certainly not the majority of the young generation.
Have a look at social media platforms like Youtube or Dailymotion, check which videos have the most clicks and therefore generate the most profit for the producers, you'll find out it's LGBTQ+ content of all kind, love stories of gay, bi, trans and whatever else couples are getting an ever larger share of the market, so much so that producers of big companies can't overlook it anymore and there's almost no series produced these days that doesn't have queer characters in it, and given the age restricted censoring on social media there's absolutely no nudity in it.

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> Maybe a majority of men in your generation, but certainly not the majority of the young generation.

You’re saying a majority of the young generation is gay or bi?

According to which statistics?

This says the number of people who identity as gay, bi or trans is 7.1%:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx

This one is 5.5%:

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/adult-lgbt-pop-us

That’s men and woman so say men are half that.

Not a big market to support including male nudity.

But the other half will want female nudity so add that to the massive amount of straight men who want female nudity and straight women who don’t mind if it’s included but aren’t interested in male nudity.

Now do your own research.

Walk into any random non-gay bar and ask how many guys enjoy looking at naked men.

Then run because you won’t like the answer or their reaction.

>Have a look at social media platforms like Youtube or Dailymotion, check which videos have the most clicks and therefore generate the most profit for the producers, you'll find out it's LGBTQ+ content of all kind…

Again, based on which stats?

Looking at the stats above I seriously doubt that type of content gets more hits than everything else, especially from straight men.

Also, you mentioned “my generation.”

A large chunk of society in the US are older and growing.

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Ok, so much for this discussion, I didn't read past the first sentence, because that's where you disqualified yourself.
On purpose misunderstand what I said and then arguing against something I never said is called a "strawman argument" and I've seen just too many of these to still believe that someone who uses them could be talked to in a reasonable way.
Have a nice life.

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Good.

Our discussion was starting to get scrunched by MovieChat.

Another reply and it’d be one word per line. 😄

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