Pulse Opinion: What Nollywood movies get wrong about sex

What are some of the clichés and unrealistic things that happen during sex in Nollywood films?

Sex scenes in Nollywood movies can stretch from totally inessential to horribly done, and then to tastefully done. 

Agreed, the industry have made some steamy and satisfactory sex scenes, but on a larger scale, it is hard to ignore the laughable sex scenes that we have come across. 

In 2015, Niyi Akinmolayan, listed well made sex and kissing scenes among things he would love to see in Nollywood in 2016, and we did say Amen to that.

 

Usually, Nollywood sex scenes have certain things in common: they can be quite unrealistic, dispassionate, and laced with cliches such as: a woman dropping her towel to initiate the sex/seduce a man. You also never see them take off the clothes, you only find them heaped by the bed post.

For some, an invitation to sex is a “heated” stare between the couple, and just like that, the sex begins — nobody ever talks about condoms.

Also read: Adesua Etomi share 8 tips for kissing on screen

These sex scenes, which producers try to explicitly portray, always happen beneath the blanket. You get to hear annoying moans and after two minutes, the act is over. 

They separate from each other gasping for air with the lady’s makeup still in tact and no drop of sweat — hello? Most people get a little sweaty during sex.

 

There are also the ones that have sex with all of their clothes on. Apparently, a fully clothed man can easily penetrate a woman.

We also have those, who once the sex is over, roll out of bed with their boxers on : They probably dressed up beneath the sheet. 

Almost all sex scenes in Nollywood films get to end with a shot of the couple collapsing on the bed in concurrent satisfaction.

It makes practical sense that most filmmakers avoid nudity while portraying sex — nobody wants a battle with the The National Film Video and Censors Board.

In 2014, Thandie Newton’s breasts were censored in the cinema version of “Half of a Yellow Sun.” In 2015, the NFVCB  banned the popular “50 Shades of Grey” movie because of its sexual content.

In 2017, Moses Inwang tweaked some of the sex scenes in “Alter Ego” because of the NFVCB and of course, the Nigerian culture, which isn’t liberal enough to publicly accept certain scenes.

“Also having in mind the society we are in; so how could we push the envelope and do what we needed to do without looking funny, and still not come out to be unnecessarily vulgar?

“It was a very difficult line to thread on, but I think we did the best we possibly could,” Omotola Jalade Ekeinde said to Pulse Nigeria. 

The scenes in “Alter Ego,” save for the sex between Omotola and Bobby Obodo, turned out good enough.

"A movie must have cultural, educational and entertainment value. A movie must not undermine national security," a top NFVCB official said to Pulse Nigeria. 

He further explained that the sequence of a sex scene are put into consideration before censorship: "At worse, in order to encourage the movie producer, we advice them to remove some scenes," he added.

 

It is however important to note that when some Nigerians clamor for realistic sex scenes, they aren’t asking actors to bare it all on screen. An actor doesn't need to go nude to deliver a believable sex scene that can get pulses racing.

“It’s the society that we live in. I don’t think Nigerians are very ready for stuffs like that,” Omoni Oboli said to Pulse Nigeria on why filmmakers shy away from sexual content. 

“My last film “Okafor’s Law” had a bit of sexual content, but it was beautifully shot. You thought you were seeing things that you really weren’t seeing.

“If you remember the scene on the couch when Terminator was having sex with his ex girlfriend, you couldn’t see anything. All you could see was the couch moving until he stood up and you saw a bit of his bum crack.

“When you shoot it beautifully like that, the audience they get what is going on: they get that two people are having wild sex. But they are not really seeing anything.”

Over the years, we have had some directors and movies do a good job at accurately depicting what sex is. 

However, there are still a lot of filmmakers, who are yet to realize that it is more about the chemistry than dropping towels, getting under the cover and trying so hard to fake an orgasm.