Those late night porn segments on Cinemax show naked bodies in various positions, ostensibly having sex. Neither male genitalia, oral-genital contact, actual penetration, or “money shots” are ever shown, unlike much other hard core stuff. Although the action is convincing in many cases, I suppose that it would be easy enough just to go through the motions.
So, are these people actually having sex or just faking it?
Given the long delays and endless repetition from multiple camera angles typical of film production with at least a minimal effort at technical quality, I’d say faking for a scene is less fatiguing and more practical than trying to make it real (and just exaggerating the reactions).
I remember seeing a while back, on the Playboy channel, that occasionally there will be two shots made of a sex scene, if it is intended to be shown on PB or your cable channels.
It may very well be real sex, with clever shooting to obscure the “Hard Core”.
However…
On more than one occasion, I have scene a poorly shot movie that showed the occasional glimpse of flaccid weiner in the middle of the “sex” scene.
For the sex to be real, the guy has to pretty much be able to get it up on command and keep it up during filming. Guys like that are rare, especially guys who have extra large penises. That’s why hardcore XXX actors are sometimes so … mediocre as far as their facial beauty and figures go. Think Ron Jeremy.
So, no, its not the real thing in most cases, that way you can use actors who can speak lines and stuff. Just about any actor can grind against an actress and make it look convincing. No erection needed. Also, less problem with STDs and such. So, all sorts of reasons not to do the real thing, very few reasons to.
That said, a couple of former hardcore actors and several former hardcore actresses are doing softcore nowadays. For example, “Bikini Chaingang” now airing on Skinamax, and “Genie on A G-String” on Skinamax not too long ago, feature hardcore actor Evan Stone and hardcore actress Nicole Sheridan. I still don’t think theyr’e doing it for real … just taking advantage of a chance to do a softcore gig or two.
I don’t have any DEFINITIVE knowledge on this topic, but I’ve never heard anyone complain that softcore actors do hardcore deeds for softcore films, and the logic seems sound. Then again, Chloe Sevigny gave a real blowjob in “Brown Bunny” so … might be some exceptions.
Lemme put it this way, sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.
You will often see a softcore version of a hardcore movie aired on Skinemax. As noted above, this is usually just a true hardcore movie with a secondary set of camera angles that take care, along with some editing and cropping, to avoid showing too much in the way of genitals and penetration. In this case, yes the sex is as real as can be expected from a hardcore porn.
Other movies are made with actors who never have and never would participate in hardcore porn. These movies, often starring ex-Playmates and B-list actors, are made for the sole purpose of video rental stores and cable broadcast. As a result the sex is entirely artificial. Unfortunately they take this so far as to simulate sex with underwear still on sometimes. 
A new breed of Skinemax movies starring almost exclusively former and current hardcore porn stars. These movies don’t have a hardcore version and as a result most of the sex is simulated, but I suppose in many cases it might become “real” for certain shots or angles in order to improve the appearance. Considering they are dealing with actual porn stars, it’s fair to guess that if you need to hide a cock for a shot they wouldn’t oppose doing it in the most obvious way…
Remember that in a real movie, as opposed to porn, a single sexy scene can take a day or more to shoot. Retakes, relighting, different camera angles, close-ups, medium shots, distant shots, flubbed lines, technical glitches, lights ruining makeup, repositioning the camera so that genitals are never seen. Moviemaking might take an hour for every minute on film. And that’s a really fast, low-budget production. Big budget features can go lower than 10 seconds/hour.
So the chances that the sex scenes are real are somewhere below zero.
Or 9 Songs where all the sex was real, explicit and even had a cum shot.
Just because a film averages out to less then 10 s/h doesn’t mean that all moments in the film are like that. I wouldn’t use that to rule the possibility out. Rather I’d have to say that I imagine nearly all, even low level, actors and actresses would view that as demeaning. Although that didn’t stop Kieran O’Brien.
You can’t compare the odd arthouse film with a slick made-for-cable sexploitation film. Cinemax films are all about the surface appearance of simulating sex, the play of naked bodies on one another. That calls for an entirely different mode of filmmaking than a one-take, low-fi blowjob.
And you also can’t compare a film in which the entire point is to shock the audience by including real sex with a film that will never show the sex at all, or even show the genitals at all.
To get the glossy look of sex in a skimamax film takes time. You can’t film it in real time and you wouldn’t want to. And I bet any hint that real sex took place on a non-porno shoot for one of those films would have huge consequences for all involved. Cable isn’t arthouse and cable isn’t porn.
This discussion has been going on for decades. (Did they really? I bet they did!) There’s never been an authenticated case of real sex during a fake shoot. They’re two different worlds.
I’ve got some related questions that might fit with this thread:
In some of the same shows referenced above, some of the females have breasts the size of Cadillacs. Are those real or fake?
On lots of other movies on Cimemax characters get killed in some way. Is that real or simulated?
What about when, say, aliens or robots or dragons or whatever are moving around on the screen… Did they cook that up with special effects somehow, or are those actually real?
And when the movie ends and those words scroll up the screen, is the actual surface of the television moving upwards? What happens when it gets to the end of a roll? Is that what the whole “Please be kind, rewind” phrase I’ve heard here and there refers to?
Not quire sure what the snarkiness there is for.
Although, just in case you really were wondering…
They might be, but probably not.
Simulated.
Special Effects, usually.
No, nothing, not at all.
:smack:
Because it’s The Straight Dope boards, and the Straight Dope column certainly encourages lighthearted teasing and snarkiness as appropriate responses to silly questions.
I think the “reality” of that scene is still open to question. IIRC there was a lot of discussion that an elaborately crafted fake penis was used.
Here is a purported list of mainstream films with unstimulated sex
The Wiki article on the Brown Bunny cited a quote from the Guardian in which Sevigny clearly implies it was the real thing. Unless you have something more substantive, I think we gotta go with that.
I didn’t think it was all that silly. Some Skinamax films have very convincing sex scenes, others, not so much. Well, many others, not so much. Still, if you just happened to sample half a dozen of the “right” films, you might think that the sex could be real.
Jeff Foxworthy’s next smash album, You Might Be an Idiot if…
If you think the sex scenes in a Cinemax movie are real, you might be an idiot!
It’s good for the filmmakers and those who show the movie if this perception is left in some unsophisticated minds. That doesn’t go even an inch toward making it true.
FWIW, none of the movies on that Wiki page are of the Skinamax variety that are being discussed here.
I only saw a list of movies with unsimulated sex in that link. I suspect scenes of unstimulated sex involve the woman counting the tiles on the ceiling. I think some early Woody Allen movies qualify. 
sigh
As has been mentioned, often the T&A movies on late night pay cable (such as Cinemax) are softcore edits of porn movies of which there is another, more explicit version. In those cases the sex IS real. Doesn’t make anyone an idiot.
Barbara Hershey and David Carradine both claim that the sex scene in Boxcar Bertha was unsimulated. Not Scorsese’s finest hour, and not worth the time, much less the rental fee, to watch it, though.
Stranger
Could you name some examples?
I couldn’t find anything on the Cinemax schedule that wasn’t softcore from the beginning. I’ve seen r-rated versions of x-rated films and you can’t confuse them with what’s listed on Cinemax.
I can’t, no, and I don’t typically watch that kind of stuff nor do I currently get any pay channels. I do remember once a long time ago laughing uproariously late at night at a movie on one of the pay channels that was so haphazardly edited that we could only assume it was originally a much more hardcore film that had been cut down considerably. (Couple makes out for a while, moves it to the next level, then there are a couple of disjointed shots of someone’s back and it cuts to another scene completely–that kind of thing)