By Dimitrios Otis

In the 1975 Italian film Private Lessons, starring former Hollywood teen temptress Carroll Baker (Baby Doll 1956) (Picture: ), there is a scene in which the lovely Ms. Baker stands totally naked while some young Italian dude with a dubbed voice lights matches and holds them in front of her erogenous zones (Picture: 1). When he lights the third one and holds it directly in front of Baker's bush -- not so close as to cause a burning biblical metaphor -- he says to those watching; "it will show you only what you've imagined the essence of everything you have desired." Baker's illuminated bush then fills the entire screen. Wow, you think -- real live furburger.

Friends, there is a BIG LIE that us men have had to live by over the past four decades of movie history, which we have done quietly and even drooled along with obediently. This lie, which has kept curious male film-goers literally in the dark for decades now, revolves around the common film nomenclature known as "full frontal nudity".

The concept of full frontal nudity (FFN) is thoroughly entrenched in our culture not only as a cinematic term, but also as a key trigger of male excitation at the movies. Female full frontal nudity (FFFN), that is. And FFFN is considered to be the be-all and end-all of the woman's body on film, with millions of men having gone ga-ga over the supposedly daring and shocking presentation of ladies simply standing there as nature intended. So now as a service to the good members of Mr. Skin, the blinders are finally being removed on this euphemistic 'frontal' depiction of feminalia.

Yes, we men have been suckers for a myth that has deprived us of the real female deal onscreen for a generation and a half now. Why? Because in 99-44/100% of all cases of FFFN the ogling viewer is actually merely witnessing the woman's pubic hair.

Is that not correct? Is it not the case that FFFN is fur?! So what is the big deal about that? Why get so excited? And why would it be such an issue?

Yet our entire film world of ratings, censorship, and of course feminist analysis hinges on this belief that in the movies female frontal nudity is an unfair exposure of the fairer sex. Gloria Steinem famously decried, in a 1980 essay in Ms. magazine, the power imbalance of what she termed "very unequal nudity".

Bizarrely enough, it is believed that cinematic female pubic hair is equivalent to female genitalia! In Censored, a 1994 book on the history of British film censorship by Tom Dewe Mathews, there is a photo still from a Swedish film called Hugs and Kisses, in which a naked woman is standing in front of a mirror looking at herself. She has, of course, a big bush -- and that's all we can see. But the caption to the still reads, "1968 - the first female full frontal [in Britain]...this view of Agneta Ekmanner's genitals started a pubic war." Nuff said? Agneta's Swedish genitals were actually nowhere in sight. Pubic hair and genitalia are two different things!

Because of this glaring oversight, the entire history of nudity in cinema has been a big kafuffle over muff, in which men have been continually demonized for sexually exploiting women, and chastized for not showing their own genitals. In the continuation of Ms. Steinem's quote above, she complained about "one person exposed and vulnerable while the other is closed." She was obviously indicating exposed women and closed men -- but isn't the opposite true in frontal nude scenes? The man is fully exposed and vulnerable, while the woman is closed.

Just look at some of the historic movies that broached the whole "full-frontal nudity" era. I Am Curious (Yellow) (1968) was one of the big ones. You certainly get lots of chubby flesh from star Lena Nyman (Picture: ), but no cubbyhole (Picture: - - ). Yet her boyfriend's Swedish meatballs are bobbing around all over the place.

Medium Cool of the same year was the first American movie with "full frontal" (Picture: 1 - 2). Sure, there are flashes of Marianna Hill's (Picture: ) patch (along with those great boobs) as she and Robert Forster run naked about an apartment, but it is only his genital package that is visible.

How about The Last Picture Show (1971)? Somehow the lovely Cybill Shepherd squirms out of her bathing suit under full light without revealing bush -- nor bum, for that matter (Picture: 1 - 2). But the pool party dude's wet willie is flopping around like a fish out of water.

As far as A Clockwork Orange (1970) goes, I can't remember if Malcolm McDowell's dowel is revealed, but he's pretty darn "exposed and vulnerable" as he is interrogated in the buff.

These are specific examples, but you get the point. It has not been a one-sided frontal adventure.

Even in a later film like Blue Lagoon (1980), people were in an uproar over Brooke Shields' (Picture: ) partial exposures (any actual nudity was body-doubled) (Picture: 1), yet nobody bellyached about Christopher Atkins' un-leafed figs. But imagine if it was the other way around, and they had Brooke's bush un-shielded.

There would have been riots in the streets.

I suggest that the Empress is, so to speak, wearing clothes. The much-vaunted female full-frontal is a nothing, really (though men believe it is an invitation to something!). The myth is basically bunk that no-one dares to challenge because of a powerful taboo, and the root of this lies in the very depth and dampness of the unexposed vagina itself (if you want to get all Freudian about things).

The mystery of the female organism is really a messy conglomeration of fleshy parts that are hard to identify precisely, much less figure out what to do with! And that's true not just for men but women too. The result is that our mainstream culture doesn't want to deal with vulvas and clitori and whatever else is in there. So we have hidden them away and pretended that the protective covering they come in is the actual product. We love the muff -- but it's just not all she wrote.

In other words, while accpetable discourse has concluded that men are controlling and oppressing women by denuding and displaying them onscreen, in fact men have been docile delusionists, accepting a female fur-simile for the real thing.

Those who celebrate naked booty on film (and TV) and want to view more of it - both in quantity and in the actual details of a given babe - have had to live under the guilty yoke of this strange but pervasive myth. It is not to say that the female form is not entirely pleasant to look at in all her shapely aspects. Breasts, buns, bush -- it's all good. But let's call a spade a spade. FFFN is actually Full Frontal Fur (FFF). And the time has come to ask, "Where's the beef?"

The consequences of not calling this bogus myth are twofold. First, we will continue to get the hair without the pie. And secondly, we will not be able to stem the tide of sausage that is more and more creeping onto our movie screens. Not only has the guilty male had to keep officially mouse-like about wanting more female exposure, but we have even felt compelled to support the dangling of more male members to compensate for the supposed imbalance (as if anyone really wants to see more of those.)

Yes, there is an insidious movement to redress the perceived wrong. Gus Van Sant (Psycho, 1998) is one director who has decided to depict more 'female gaze' upon male frontality. The fact that Van Sant is homosexual should have put this practice in question to begin with, but anyway the trend continues.

In Bernardo Bertollucci's new film The Dreamers (2003), there is a close-up shot of full frontal male nudity, in which some fair Parisian maid forcibly pulls down a smitten lad's underwear.

If you recall the same director's hot and controversial 1972 film Last Tango in Paris (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4), you know that Marlon Brando's sexual disclosure was limited to a butt shot. The reason for that is because the distributors wouldn't allow it, fearing they would not be able to get the movie shown.

So it appears that in the ensuing 32 years things have changed for male nudity. But I wonder if there is any increased female nudity in Bertollucci's new "In Paris" film? In terms of labial revelation, that is. Because in the first one all we saw of Maria Schneider (Picture: ), below those bountiful breasts, was bush, bush - and more bush!

Philip Kaufman, director of Henry and June (1990), the first movie released with an "adults only" NC-17 rating, is one director who has a sense of the situation.

Kaufman also directed Quills (2000), in which Geoffrey Rush's own quill was hung out to dry (while on the female side of the fence, we just got a nice view of Kate Winslet's (Picture: ) soft, plump pillows. (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3))

And in his new film Twisted (2004), Kaufman has even more nude, though non-frontal, males. He stated in a recent Associated Press interview that "maybe, just because of the nature of our society and so forth, more male nudity is about to come." (I'm sure the pun was not intended.)

It is true that the general situation in mainstream cinema with regards to nudity has been that there are a lot more women shown less than fully clothed. Thus there is a myriad of breasts, a whole lot of buns - and a lesser amount of "frontal", that is, the uncovered front of the woman's pelvis shown.

But - it must be emphasized - no matter how many girls undress for the camera, there is very, very little female genitalia appearing on the big screen. Especially by the name actresses. It is uncommon enough that female stars will show bush, but extremely rare that you will get a look at pink. And even in those few cases it is invariably such a fleeting glimpse that you have to ask yourself if that was the real sugar-bowl or just some teasing shadow. Now as for men in film, we are shown plenty of pectorals, a fair amount of buns -- AND a significant amount of full monty, even by name actors.

Thus, while the overwhelming message we are led to believe about nudity in the movies is that it is totally slanted towards bare-naked ladies, the general situation of male butts and pecs and female TA is pretty much a par situation. In the interview mentioned above, director Kaufman himself questioned whether, not counting topless shots, women are really exposed more often than men. And this is not counting any of the swinging salami, which is unanswered by flapping female beef curtains. Let's not even talk about HBO's Oz!

As the scene in Private Lessons continues, the dubbed Italian dude intones about "the magic bush that draws you to its entrance..." Sounds wonderful, the only problem is that for all the close-up-ness of the "magic bush" shot you can't make out one detail of Carroll Baker's mystical burger. Yes, we have imagined, but we still haven't tasted the real thing.

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