Episode 069. Nice. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!

We learn an awful lot of things from the movies, so I don’t know why the birds and the bees should be any different. In my adolescent world, the options were either the dubious news gathering of the schoolyard or less than reputable cousins. You can see why I would turn to the cinema for sex education, like I would for many other things. It was no contest, really. If your choices were watching your older cousins hit on girls at the state fair or trying to retro-engineer the train scene from Risky Business (1983) into your life through rigorous study, there really isn’t a choice to be made. This episode is a rundown of the pivotal things about human sexuality, our own and in general, that we gleaned from the silver screen – what we liked, what excited us, valuable lessons learned, and new worlds introduced to us. We each chose five films that were a milestone for us in some way or another.

Ericca’s choices:

• Dirty Dancing (1987)

• Sacred Passion (1989)

• Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

• The Lover (1992)

• A Room with a View (1985)

Cole’s choices:

• The Hunger (1983)

• National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

• Prom Night (1980)

• Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

• The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976)

What you’ll find in this episode: secret stashes, the eternal debt we owe to the pause button, the golden age of the video store, the “rise” of cable television, first times, weird times, and good times.

– Cole and Ericca

Links (just assume they’re all NSFW):

An illustrated index of the history of sex in cinema.

How many ’80s sex comedies have you seen? Check your score!

The Rialto Report – an audiovsual archive of the golden age of adult film.

That Mitchell and Webb Look: Bawdy 1970s Hospital.

A brief history of the sexploitation genre from the New York Times.