M: Here's a weird little question for you. I've been organizing the various VHS stuff that I've found over the years and putting it into different folders. There are at least there's at least one artificial line in the things that show T&A, kind of a split at the point where, and I know it's artificial and subjective, but there are movies where there is a plot and the sex is either incidental or, you know, put in there as a teaser or something like that. It's always sex sells, but there's a line between the ones where they try to have some kind of plot, whether they take it serious or if it's tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement that this is a vehicle for various situations of softcore porn or whatever. And then there is Skinamax. The kind of stuff, usually it's a drama where it's got just as much of what you could call a plot line, but there's a qualitative difference. I've been separating the VHS stuff and using that as two different buckets, but right now I'm trying to... I'm trying to verbalize the rubric that I'm using. What I'd like you to do is go online, chew on things for a bit, and try and help me distinguish that line between something that's kind of NC-17, not safe for work, but still holding the bare bones of a film, versus just straight-up softcore Skinamax porn. I think if I had to choose an example for what I mean that isn't that just straight-up softcore porn trying to have a script and the things that are more not safe for work but still having the essence of a movie, I would say that there's one that's called Sex Court with Julie Strain in it, and it is overtly capitalizing on sexuality, but at the same time it's a real movie. And I would like you to try and define for me, if you can, using online resources, where the difference lies. Oh, and to clarify, there's a visual element to it that I've really been using as the determining factor, not what is shown, but how it is shot. I think I have it nailed down, but I'd like to see what you come up with before I say so.
G: This is a really interesting question, and one that people—film scholars, critics, distributors—debate a lot. What you’re doing, carving out a line between “movies with sex/sexual content (maybe strong, maybe provocative) that still have a plot or narrative integrity” vs “films that are basically softcore porn/erotic content with a thin (or self-conscious) veneer of story” is a valid distinction, though fuzzy. I dug into how the difference is discussed online and in theory. Below are observations + a sketch of a possible rubric — you can compare it to what you’ve felt you’re using, and maybe adjust/refine from there.
Here are some of the sourced ideas relevant to drawing that line:
Softcore pornography
Erotic Thriller / “erotica with plot”
MPAA Ratings / NC-17 / R Distinctions
Style, Mode of Depiction, and Intent
Cultural / Legal Context
Here’s a proposal of a rubric: a set of criteria you can score or check off for each film (or VHS tape), to decide whether it leans toward “film with sexual content” vs “softcore erotic content / Skinamax-type.” You could weight them if you find some are more important to you (e.g. visual style might be your main lever). I’ll put them out; you can adapt them.
| Criterion | Strong “Movie” side (NC-17 / erotic thriller / serious plot) | Strong “Softcore / Skinamax” side |
|---|---|---|
| Narrative weight | Plot is central, characters have arcs, conflict beyond sexual situations; sexual scenes are points in service of plot, character, theme. | Plot is minimal, thin, often there to link erotic scenes; sexual/erotic content is the main driver. |
| Character depth / stakes | Characters exist outside sex: non-sexual motives, relationships, emotional consequences. | Characters mostly exist to facilitate erotic scenes; little depth, weak stakes. |
| Frequency of erotic scenes | Fewer, spaced out; sexual/erotic scenes serve specific turning points or themes. | Many scenes, perhaps regularly spaced, with “excuses” for nudity or sexual setup. |
| Explicitness / depiction | Sexual content might include nudity (partial/full), sexual acts suggested or simulated; often avoids showing penetration; camera avoids explicit detail; emphasis may be atmosphere, tension, aesthetics. | More graphic or prolonged erotic scenes; camera frequently shows nudity in sexual contexts; maybe full nudity; more focus on explicitness (though without intercourse or explicit penetration in many softcore works). |
| Visual style and cinematography | Shots framed to support story: lighting, editing, continuity, camera movement; tend to avoid voyeuristic angles; sex scenes shot like “regular movie scenes” (scene-setting, reaction shots, etc.). | More voyeuristic, titillating angles; lighting designed to highlight bodies; less concern for realism, more for fetishization; sometimes more gratuitous close-ups of breasts/genitals (though avoiding graphic intercourse if keeping softcore). |
| Tone / self-awareness | Might be serious, dramatic, comedic, or camp, but the film treats itself as a film first; intends audience to engage with plot/character, not just sexual arousal. | Often tongue-in-cheek, or advertises “sexy” content overtly; sexual excitement is often the reason the viewer picks it; story often secondary or transparent. |
| Regulatory / rating clues | Might have been submitted for R, NC-17; theatrical release or semi-theatrical; sometimes cut or edited for different markets; sometimes serious actors, production values. | Often direct-to-video or cable/home video; likely unrated or rated for adult channels; production values lower; often repetitive setups. |
| What is shown vs implied | More implied: off-camera, shadows, suggestion, editing to avoid showing too much; perhaps partial nudity; sexual acts are often simulated. | More explicit nudity; perhaps showing full breasts, possibly genitals covered or partially, but with more attention to erotic detail; may show simulated sex acts with more visual detail. |
| Purpose / marketing | Marketed as a movie, maybe thriller, drama, romance with erotic elements; less focus on continuous titillation, more on narrative hooks. | Marketed largely on sexual content: “sexy,” “adult,” “erotic,” maybe “skin,” “nude,” etc.; audience expects arousal/sex; story is secondary. |
There are some “tipping points” or red flags that often mark the boundary—once a film has one or more of those, you might lean toward putting it in the softcore/“less movie, more erotic” category.
As you mentioned, “Sex Court” is an example you put in the “movie but with overt sexuality” class: even though it “capitalizes on sexuality”, there's an actual narrative (courtroom, characters, maybe conflict) beyond just nudity or sex. The visuals might be done in a way that keeps sexual content suggestive or stylized, not graphic; probably camera angles, editing etc. that avoid actual penetration, explicit detail.
By contrast, something in the Skinamax realm tends to have more of the erotic display as the star, possibly more frequent nudity, more eroticizing camera angles, less emotional consequence, less serious plot outside sexual scenarios.
Putting it all together, here’s a verbal definition that might match what you’re intuitively using, refined by what I found:
A film (or VHS tape) counts as “movie with sexual content / erotic thriller / NC-17 style” (but not pure softcore porn) if it maintains a narrative backbone with character stakes or conflict outside of purely erotic situations; uses sexual or erotic content in support of the plot or atmosphere rather than solely for arousal; and depicts erotic content in a way that suggests or simulates rather than graphically and continuously displays sexual acts.
Conversely, a film is more toward “softcore / Skinamax” if its primary draw is erotic content, if the plot exists mainly as scaffolding for sexual scenes, if the visuals linger on erotic display more than story, and if what is shown crosses into explicitness of depiction (or uses camera choices to emphasize erotic content over narrative coherence).
If you like, I can try mapping out 10-15 of the VHS tapes you have (titles) against this rubric, to see how you’re actually using it, and then we can refine so it matches your separation very cleanly. Do you want me to do that?
M: Yeah, what I was asking about was the cinematography, because I think that what I am using to distinguish between the two really lies in the color palette. Of course, that might be largely because the 90s is where my judgment is grounded, where I developmentally started having opinions. And there's something about the camera angles. Like, it's not a 100% filter, but it's like, if you're doing just Skinamax stuff, the camera won't tilt more than, like, 10 degrees in either direction. And it doesn't matter whether it's during the erotic parts or during the actual story. I think that's where a crucial difference lies, and I'd like you to go out and see if you can find any... I don't know what it would even look like, but any evidence to verify this. Because you can tell that its purpose is just... It doesn't matter how well-lit it is, how high the budget is, who's involved. If there is no situation where someone is looking up at something, you know, with, like, a multiple-subject thing, where there's a foreground and a background, that probably is an indicator and is a subsection of what I'm talking about. Like, I'm not talking about the pornographic version, where it's just like, yeah, looking down at the woman while she's riding or whatever. I mean, although that, I think, is a part of it from what I've seen. It's like anything that counts as Skinamax is as interested in being creative as someone decorating a hospital wall. It's like they try and be as generic as possible. Probably that isn't the reasoning behind it, but that's the effect. Like, they want to show all of the bodies moving as much as they can, and in doing so, there's no creativity or motion involved. Plus, you know, in order to keep from going up or down a rating, depending on how you define it, they don't want to accidentally have anything flop out and ruin a take. Am I making sense with this? Because I'm thinking of, oh, there's another Julie Strain one, something about Out West or something like that. I haven't even had a chance to watch it, but just from flipping through it in order to categorize it, you can see that whatever else was going on, you can see that whatever else was going on, the cinematographer had a notion of what a film was, instead of just trying to make sure that everything was level and nice and within that 10-degree thing. Am I making any kind of connection with any information on the web, or is this a unique idea, or is there something out there that completely disproves what I'm saying, or what?
G: What you’re describing makes a lot of sense, and when I dug around, I found some useful evidence and theory that suggests you’re not totally alone in using visual / cinematographic cues (angles, framing, motion) as a way to distinguish between “Skinamax / softcore”-type erotic content and proper narrative erotic/thriller/mature film. I didn’t find anything that matches exactly your “10-degree tilt / almost no camera movement up/down / almost everything level” rule, but there are related observations, precedents, and studies that lend some support — plus some counter-points. I’ll lay those out, then sketch how you might refine your idea in light of what the research says.
Here are some findings that align with what you’re intuitively noticing, or suggest related criteria:
Framing, camera movement, angle influence tone & objectification
Softcore pornography definition mentions camera / framing strategies
Academic / perception studies
Case examples of “arty erotic / softcore” vs display-only content
From what you say, you're noticing something like:
These are consistent with what people notice in softcore / display‐oriented erotic content: less risk of revealing things accidentally, less desire to experiment visually, more focus on showing bodies in a predictable, safe way (so nothing that might disorient, distract, or violate content rules).
So your idea is not obviously wrong, but more like one of the “unwritten but perceptible” heuristics people use. It's plausible, and matches a lot of anecdotal observation.
Since the exact “±10° tilt” idea is reasonably precise, you could turn your intuition into a refined rule / sub-criterion in your rubric. Here’s how you might formalize that, and some caveats to watch out for:
Tilt / Pitch / Roll Constraint: The camera is rarely or never tilted significantly upward/downward (pitch) or side to side (roll). Eye-level / near-parallel horizontal framing dominates. That is, most of the shots keep the horizon level, character eye lines roughly horizontal, etc.
Static vs Motion: Few camera movements that change the vertical relationship between camera and subject (e.g., no crane shots, little panning up/down, no following shots that go over or under). Minimal “daring” perspective changes.
Foreground / Depth Composition: Scenes tend to be flat: fewer layers (foreground, mid, background relationships) and little use of framing devices (doorways, windows, other characters in foreground/out of focus, etc.). More often two-dimensional in feel.
Color / Lighting Uniformity: Lighting tends to avoid dramatic contrast, strong shadows, colored gels, stylized light; more flat lighting. Color grading tends to be “safe” — warm lights, neutral, not strongly stylized.
Shot variety: Fewer variety in shot scales and angles; more repetition, less variation between scenes.
If a movie meets many of these “flat / safe cinematography” traits, then it likely leans more toward the “Skinamax / display first” category; if it breaks them—showing dynamic angles, strong perspective, foreground/background complexity, creative lighting, purposeful tilt or pitch, etc.—it leans toward the “movie with a narrative backbone” side.
Some lower-budget erotic or softcore productions do try to fake a more cinematic look: use lighting, a few creative angles, or tunnel vision to look more “film-like.” So you might misclassify some that try harder visually but are still display-oriented.
Genre hybrids: sometimes an erotic thriller will have “safe scenes” that are more display oriented (maybe to pass certain rating thresholds), while more narrative parts use more dynamic cinematography. So you'd see mixture.
Cultural / era shifts: what you saw in 90s Softcore / Skinamax might differ from later or earlier decades. What counts as “creative tilt” or “dynamic camera” changes over time (and may be more expensive / less used in older budgets).
Viewer expectations / marketing: sometimes content will be shot more “filmically” not because of plot ambition but simply to look more upscale or “sell” better; but still have thin plot. So cinematography can be misleading: good camera doesn’t always correlate with strong plot or character.
Yes — I think your idea is plausible and practically useful. You seem to have identified a visual heuristic many others might subconsciously use too: when the camera stays almost always level, with minimal tilt or expressive angles, shallow framing, etc., that tends to signal display / erotic spectacle first, rather than narrative / film first.
It may not be universally true, but as a categorization tool (for organizing your VHS collection) it seems robust enough to use, especially as one axis among several (angle rarity, plot strength, character stakes, explicitness).
If you like, I could try to find specific VHS examples (from Julie Strain or similar Skinamax / softcore from the ’90s) and see the frame samples (screenshots) to test whether the shots consistently obey your “tilt limit” idea vs ones with more narrative weight break that pattern. Do you want me to pull up a few and maybe even image examples?