BY: Amanda Jane Stern

Have you ever been watching a movie and thought this is really missing some sex? Either the sexual tension between the characters is so off the charts they need to have sex just to cut some of it. Or it could also be that as written, character motivations don’t make sense, but sex would add the depth that the film is lacking. Look, we’re not saying every movie ever made needs to have at least one sex scene, but we are saying that these eight films really would have benefitted from being sexed up a little more.

Breakfast With Scot

This comedy about a gay couple, former Hockey player Eric (Tom Cavanagh) and Lawyer Sam (Ben Shenkman), who have to take in the child of Sam’s dead-beat brother’s dead ex-girlfriend is a gem. But it is crucially missing a few things. Like many gay movies that want to appeal to a broader audience, it sanitizes its leads to such an extent that, at times, they feel more like roommates than a couple. Yes, Eric is still very much closeted in public. But at home, where he and Sam have lived together for years, we need to see Eric open up and that includes understanding the sexual side of their personal life.

In & Out

Yes, another gay-themed movie that is too sterile for its own good. No, we promise not all of the movies on this list are queer-oriented, though there are a few. Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline) is a midwestern teacher, and a virgin, who begins to question his sexuality when a former student (Matt Dillon) of his outs him as gay during an Oscars-acceptance speech. And then he meets Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck) who makes him feel things he’s never felt before. Clearly, Howard has been a virgin all these years because he’s been repressing his homosexuality, so why not let loose a little with Peter? Homophobes are going to hate a movie like this whether or not there is a sex scene, but we shouldn’t be pandering to them.

Leap Year

It is the 21st century, can we please agree to stop writing leading women roles in romantic comedies who are sexless shrews? Amy Adams is a delightful actress and her chemistry with Matthew Goode in this movie is off-the-charts, but her character is not charming. Sadly Adams is saddled with the thankless role of a woman who buys into patriarchal garbage and hasn’t had sex in a long time. Sex is what she needs. When she and Goode kiss for the first time in this movie, there is no reason for them not to tumble straight into bed. And no, if we’re using this movie’s logic, then her boring dolt of a boyfriend played by Adam Scott, is no reason to stop her from getting Goode’s goods!

Letters to Juliet

It’s the story of another female lead without a sex life. This one stars Amanda Seyfried as Sophie, an aspiring writer who travels to Italy with her chef boyfriend, Victor (Gael García Bernal), but ends up falling in love with Charlie (Christopher Egan). If we are being nitpicky, Victor is much more charming than Charlie, but for some reason, Sophie wants who she wants. And yet, despite trekking throughout Italy with Charlie to reconnect his grandmother Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) with her long-lost love, these two remain chaste. For a movie so enamored of Romeo and Juliet, they seem to forget Romeo and Juliet got it on.

Love, Simon

Again we have an LGBT+ themed movie with a lead who is annoyingly chaste. Yes, teen Simon (Nick Robinson) is still grappling with his sexuality, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the raging hormones typical of someone his age. Publicly out or not, many queer teens still find ways to fool around with each other just like their straight counterparts. The movie spends so much time trying to make Simon a blank canvas so straight people can relate to him, it ends up stripping him of a personality. Simon deserved to get the same treatment as straight teen movie characters. And part of that is getting to explore sexually, and to figure those things out.

Point Break

This movie is different from the others on this list in that the two characters who need to have sex, Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) and Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), are never a romantic couple. But, they should have been. Johnny is an FBI agent tracking down a group of surfing bank-robbers when he realizes his new friend Bodhi is the leader of the gang. The sense of betrayal each man feels when they determine they’re on opposing sides makes no sense in the film as written. The only way it would be is if the characters gave in to the homoeroticism already present and got it on. Then, that sense of betrayal would make sense.

The Proposal

Here’s another entry in the sexless woman category. This time Sandra Bullock stars as the pushy and rude, but very successful, Margaret Tate, who, at the risk of being deported to Canada, promises her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) a promotion if he agrees to marry her. Hijinks ensue and they end up falling in love. Putting aside that the plotline would no longer fly today, where is the sex? Once Margaret and Andrew are at his family’s Alaskan home, sharing a bedroom and the chemistry is flowing, why don’t they get it on? Allowing Margaret to let loose and have sex with Andrew would make her character more relatable. Whoever came up with this idea that women can’t be both career-oriented and sexual has never met a real woman before.

Vita & Virginia

It’s interesting to note that this is the only lesbian movie on this list, while the other LGBTQ+ themed films were about men. Lesbian films often fall into the category of being made solely for straight men and having entirely too much sex. Not this one. For a movie about the real-life affair between writers Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton) and Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki), this movie is too chaste. This biopic fails at showing, not telling. When we should see the erotic and romantic passion between the women, we hear how passionate they are for one another. It took an erotic and raunchy love affair that inspired one of Virginia Woolf’s most significant literary works and turned it into a cold and sterile tale.