No Sex - PLEASE!

Could we please, PLEASE stop with the sex and nudity? I am not in the least offended by either one of them (hell, I'm an old '60s chick and an actress - between those two things, I've seen a large amount of naked flesh) - but boy, am I bored.

I went to the movies on Monday to see Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (it's GREAT), and one of the ads before the show involved a lightly clad couple fondling and dandling and one thing and another - and I think it was an ad for floor wash. Or possibly Wheaties. Really. Come on, people. (And, by the way - what the hell goes on with the damn commercials in movies? Back in 1910, when I was a little girl, movies had twenty five cartoons and a newsreel - not car ads, for God's sake.)

Sex is a totally lovely activity, and naked bodies are a lovely, natural thing. IN THEIR PROPER PLACE. But for God's sake, must we have them everywhere? And must we be informed about them at all times, incessantly? Every morning when I go to catch my bus for work, I am confronted by a large ad in the bus shelter featuring a young boy and girl half dressed, with their pants down around their crotches, both of whom look like they are stoned out of their heads and just got out of bed. Naturally, this is a Calvin Klein ad. They also look like they both need a good shower, some shampoo and a hair brush. This does not make me want to buy Calvin Klein jeans - this makes me want to track these kids down, put them in rehab, and bathe them.

And I am wildly tired of picking up the paper every morning to find pictures of the latest starlet prancing around half-dressed without her underpants. Or with one breast hanging out. Or, God help us, both. And I am not, I may add, someone who wears all my clothes up to my neck - on the proper occasions, I can, and do, show a pretty impressive set myself...but not to the point where my nipples are waving at you. (I went to a family party the weekend after Christmas in a dress like that - it's always fun to watch your in-laws turn green. The dress was a very polite black empire line thing, but it did display - gasp - cleavage.)

And I don't want to hear about everybody's sex life, either. One of the things I like about George Clooney (actually, I like everything about George Clooney) is that you never hear this sort of garbage. He is written up as dating someone. That's it. You never hear a story about him practically screwing his date in a restaurant or anything like that. Scarlett Johanssen is the same - you hear she's dating someone and nothing else - she's not dancing on tables or being carried out of bars by her handlers. These people have class.

And it trickles down, unfortunately, this mad insistence on everything hanging out. I work near Times Square, and in the summer, I find it literally nauseating to walk to the subway on my way home. Every single woman on the street seems to have adopted this fad for shorter and tighter and more revealing. And although I realize this may come as a shock to some of these people, they don't have the figures for it. I'm not even talking about our current epidemic of the morbidly obese - I'm talking about someone who carries a perfectly normal twenty pounds of extra weight (well, these days that is normal). If you stuff that in an outfit a size too small made out of Spandex, you are going to look deeply unappetizing. Particularly if your underwear is also hanging out. (I'll never understand thong underwear. I have spent my entire life hunting for the perfect pair of underpants that doesn't creep up into that area, and now they make underpants that are designed to do it? Sheesh.)

And then you go to a bar and find that the couple right next to you should really be home in bed, because they are not holding hands and smiling at each other - they are practically sweeping the drinks off the table with their mad gyrations. Why are they doing this in public at all? What on earth is this urge to show everything you've got to everybody?

And of course, all movies have to have both male and female nudity. As I say, I'm not offended, but frankly, I know what bodies look like. I don't need further lessons on the subject. And as far as being shocked by the sight of a penis - well, frankly, unless you've got a square knot or a really interesting tattoo, they all look pretty much alike. (Trust me.)

Years back I went to see a review called Oh, Coward in which the girl in the show wore what I still talk about as the world's sexiest dress. It was white, high-necked, longsleeved, narrow (but not tight) and floor-length, with a polite slit just to below the knee on either side. But when she turned around, her entire back was bare except for about six ropes of pearls. Now, that, my children, was sexy. When she first turned her back, every man in my group heaved an audible sigh.

You see? It just isn't necessary to throw everything in everyone's face. Be a trend setter! Lead the pack! Put your damn clothes back on!

Love, Wendy