DarrenBarefoot.com

Despite certain American powers-that-be, movies are getting raunchier. There’s the so-called ratings creep, where-in today’s PG-13 movies are approaching 1992-era R-rated movies’ levels of sex and violence. Then there’s the recent phenomenon of successful unrated independent films such as Y tu mamá también. Finally, there’s mainstream films with actual, explicit sex such as Brown Bunny and (apparently–I haven’t seen it) Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Now the director of Hedwig is seeking funding (registration required, decaying link) for a new project called Shortbus:

…from the name of a salon where the characters meet to give readings and performances, and sometimes to have public sex. It is modeled on real-life salons in Downtown Manhattan. The movie takes place after 9/11, in a city haunted by terrorism and too expensive for artists anymore. “Escorting is the new temp job,” Mr. Mitchell said. The story features a dominatrix who lives in a ministorage unit because she can’t afford an apartment, a sex therapist who can’t have an orgasm and a gay man who feels trapped in his relationship. They attend the salon “to find redemption,” he said.

Apparently the only cast members who have done the dirty in rehearsal are the men. As Mitchell puts it, “these gay men will have sex at the drop of a hat.” For Canadian MuchMusic fans, the cast includes Sook-Yin Lee, former VJ and current CBC reporter. The Times claims that she works for something called the ‘Canadian Broadcasting System’.

People have been talking about the convergence of pornography and mainstream movies for a while now. We’re not going to see Michael Douglas and Sigourney Weaver shagging onscreen any time soon (thank Heavens for small blessings), but it’s becoming increasingly normal to do more than just, er, simulate.