SEX & HORROR: 2 Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

Sex has a relationship with horror, because when you are making love you are usually more vulnerable as a person. Both physically and emotionally.

In addition, there's a certain viscerality (is that even a word? well, it is now) involved in both horror--whether it be "body" or any other type-- and sex.

Dino is actually Giada's grandfather. and she's not really that hot, just nice and busty in that compensatory kind of way. but back on topic...

First, let me say I think I created another monster who's doing a nice job with my schtick.

As for the topic itself, I never really noticed a sex/horror connection when I 1st got into the genre, beyond the teen sex stuff in the slasher films, and the erotic overtones of the vampire stuff, which I (at the time) figured was in there just for a cheap thrill for the main aidience, teenagers (mainly guys).

Then I started to read more sophisticated horror, like Barker, who played very heavily on this theme. That kind of opened my eyes to the pervasiveness of the sex/horror dichotomy in other places. At times it seemed to almost surround us. I instinctively was with Barker and some of the others on this, but to this day can't really articulate why. The things said above about the vulnerability of sex and being naked have a ring of truth to them. Perhaps more to the point, for me, was the emotional intensity attached to both things. Few things motivate us more, or get us more excited emotionally than lust or primal fear of death.

There also seems to be a tendency in many "normal" people to incorporate a little aggressiveness (one might say, mild violence) into sex; be it spanking, light bondage, aggressive role playing, or just an aggressive roughness to the act. I never used to think I'd ever get a charge out of doing any of the above, but when the emotions are running at fever pitch and you're out of your mind with lust. . . well, let's just say new things suddenly seem possible and desirable. And leave it at that. ;-) Maybe this is an instinctive, evolutionary throwback to a time when we had to fight for (and maybe sometimes with) our prospective mates, much like lower primates do. thus was the connection forged.

The odd thing, though, is that there doesn't seem to be much of a tendency to to do it "the other way around" and mix a little sex with your violence or death. It may not even be possible in ways anyone would consider "normal"; only things I can think of that are more violence than sex while still containing elements of both are rape and necrophilia. These acts are hardly arousing to most of us, and rightly so. They skeeve us. And perhaps this is what the filmmakers and writers are going for. They want that fear or repulsion that the violence or death instills in us to be our primary reaction, enhanced by the addition of an element of sex, perhaps because of the vulnerability noted above. Or perhaps because, despite our repulsion, some small part of our brain fired an arousal synapse off before we could stop it, and our disgust at what we're seeing or reading about is enhanced by the addition of some level of disgust or repulsion at our own unconscious reaction.

In the end, though, I don't think this QUITE covers it. There's more to it that I can't explain. I FEEL it when I read it, but I can't articulate just what it is.

But I still think that even though the above reasons play into the T&A in slasher and some (read: Hammer) vampire films, it's there more for a cheap thrill for the target audience than anything else (look at how many only-half-joking posts we all put up about how nice the tits in a film were, even if we've got nothing else nice to say about it). Anything wrong w/ that? Not from where I sit as a moviegoer, but I do see how this will always keep horror as a bastard genre in some peoples' eyes, and it will never get as much respect as it should. Maybe we could do witha little less of the gratuitous stuff.

And the morality of victims in horror films "deserving it" by getting "punished" w/ the killer's wrath after "sinning" w/ promiscuous sex which is so ingrained in the genre (although, thank God, I think we're starting to see it slip a little) surely helps keep sex in the slasher film thru inertia if nothing else.

And as for the injection of horror into porn. . . I have to confess, being a recent arrival to the boards, I was curious about all the Fabfunk hate and was tired of not getting the in-jokes, so I followed a link Alex sent me to the thread Fab started about that zombie porn flick. I then viewed the pix in the link in Fab's thread with ever increasing horror, and not the good kind either. I love zombie movies. I love porn. But these are 2 things that were never, EVER meant to mix. I don't get this at all. But I did recently see this film in the "top sellers" shelf at a local establishment, and couldn't help wonder if that was accurate. And if it was, who the FUCK is buying this?

I beg to differ. Giada IS hot, IMO. She can stir my sauce anytime.

Also, 1 in 5 people are more turned on after seeing something anxiety-ridden (e.g. a horror movie) than they are without the pre-sexual anxiety. (Yes, there is a scientific study and yes they compared people's reaction to porn before and after watching horror movies.)

I recall hearing about that study. Isn't the theory that the body's physical response to "arousal", either sexual or fear/aggression-based, is essentially the same in many respects (pupil dilation, adrenaline, etc.)?

Most of Sex and Horror relationship ideas have been stated already, with the primary link being pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. As far as Iggy's comment though on Sex adding some Violence is Ok, but the reverse situation of violence adding sex doesn't work, I've got a possible example that did. Jeff Gelb's "Hot Blood" horror anthology series that I've been shilling for years is based on the premise of writers submitting stories combing horror and sex. I'd assume from a writers perspective that would begin with working from a horrorifc/violent angle, and then incorporating sexual elements into it. The end results seemed to be that approaching the writing in that direction, stories with violent elements escalated beyond your normal short format horror boundaries. It's as if knowing that you are going to incorporate pornographic/borderline pornographic material, the writers decided to go ahead and escalate the horror/violent elements as well. Even writers not normally associated with the splatter-punk sub-genre seemed to go for broke when working out submissions for this series and started emulating Edward Lee.

From examples, it's seems sort of evident that the combination seems to feed off each other and gain strength. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that Psychologically, both sexual drive and aggression stem from the same area of the brain, making that sort of link up not really all that surprising.

I meant it wasn't OK or acceptable to tip the mix farther to the violence end than the sex end as far as societal conventions goes. Doing so certainly works in horror fiction, which by definition ALWAYS defies those conventions in some manner. Therein lieth the horror. I had never thought much about the Hot Blood series, but this last comment intrigues me. I may have to hunt down a few. Any recommendations as t a particularly good volume or two?

That would depend if you're a hot chick or not for us to deign to answer.
n00dz?