Recently the actress Victoria Justice made waves by saying that her experience filming a sex scene was uncomfortable. This was catnip to a particularly voluble slice of the People Who Yell Online, those who think that movies should simply not have sex scenes. This cohort has gone from a goofy meme to an inescapable part of online political life, fast. They’re inherently coercive!, they shout. Sex scenes are unnecessary!, they insist. You can just fade to black and convey the exact same information!, they demand. These and all of the points typically used by this excitable crew of terminally-online people are wrong, but they speak with the zeal of those who think the point of politics is to make the world a more comfortable and safe place for them, specifically, always them. And with Justice’s comments giving people ample leeway to ground this discussion in the broad realm of sexual misconduct, they were able to pull in their pet issue under the mantle of opposition to sexual assault or harassment, in so doing raising the rhetorical stakes in a very 21st-century-way. These days victory goes to those who make others say “I’m not getting involved in that.”
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