Six Fairly Mainstream American Films Featuring Gay Sex

SCREEN > THE SIX PACK

By Matt Prigge

Add Comment | Comments: 2 | Posted Jul. 14, 2009

Pulp Fiction (1994): The notion of the sexless Will & Grace -style gay character is happily fading, though it’ll be a long time before audiences are cool with watching two men or women getting it on regularly. As it stands, dude-on-dude boning isn’t always portrayed positively. Pulp Fiction —after introducing most of the country to ball gags and gimps—used nonconsensual butt sex as a shock reveal. 

Velvet Goldmine (1998): Miramax heavily backed Todd Haynes’ fantasia on glam rock. Fittingly, it’s the gayest movie to almost break out of the art-house ghetto, featuring not just close-up make-out sessions between Jonathan Rhys- Meyers and Ewan McGregor, but a long shot of McGregor pounding away at Christian Bale. That’s right: This is the movie where Obi-Wan Kenobi porks Batman. (Meanwhile, Wonder Boys has Iron Man nailing Spider-Man.) 

Wet Hot American Summer (2001): In a film of sudden extremes, it’s only natural to actually show secretly gay counselor Michael Ian Black plugging his boy pal. 

Where the Truth Lies (2005): Bound featured some vigorous girl-on-girl fingering, but this Atom Egoyan potboiler had a woman go down on Alison Lohman. For which the film was slapped with an NC-17 (though released unrated).  

Brokeback Mountain (2005): Some chided this movie for being “tasteful” in its man-on-man shtupping scene. But a) at least it played multiplexes across the country, and b) it features Heath Ledger spitting into his hand before battle. 

Brüno (2009): Until the third Jackass entry—whose only logical next step would find its stars in a heaping man pile—the country will have to subsist on a montage in which Brüno and his pygmy bf cavort with bungie cords, gym machines and champagne bottles. ■