The fully uncut version of a Japanese film featuring unsimulated sex wasn’t shown in cinemas until years after it was made, after multiple countries blocked its release.
In the Realm of the Senses debuted in 1976, but for a long time many viewers were unable to watch the film as originally intended due to how explicit it was.
Inspired by real events, the story centres on former sex worker Sada Abe, who takes work as a maid and begins a consuming affair with her married employer, Kichizō Ishida.
On paper, In the Realm of the Senses might not sound as shocking as other famously banned movies—such as the highly contentious A Serbian Film, which includes extreme violence and was labelled ‘grotesque’ by some reviewers.
The main problem, however, was the film’s clear depiction of genitalia and sex acts. Japan has long enforced strict censorship standards; Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan bans the publication and distribution of ‘obscene material’.
Although the law doesn’t precisely define what counts as ‘obscene’, in 1976 the inclusion of uncensored genitalia in film was treated as falling under that category—meaning the movie could only be released domestically if scenes were removed.
That same legal framework still exists today, though it’s widely associated more with explicit adult material than mainstream film releases.
Beyond nudity, the movie also includes unsimulated sex, according to Collider, alongside other graphic moments. In one scene, Kichi pushes an egg into Sada’s vagina and has her expel it—before he eats the egg.
Spoiler alert: Sada later accidentally kills Kichi during sex. After he dies, she cuts off his penis and keeps it with her for four days until she is arrested.
The uncut version wasn’t only restricted in Japan—bans were also imposed in the US, the UK, and West Germany.
It took close to two decades before the original cut was permitted to arrive on home video. Collider reports that, even then, the film remained largely out of reach in Japan until the late 2000s.
Over time, it also made its way back onto the big screen in some territories. In England, for instance, In the Realm of the Senses received a theatrical release in 1991, although minor edits were still made.
Since then, the complete, unedited version has become watchable in countries including the US, Germany, Australia, and France.
In The Realm of the Senses is streaming on MUBI and can be rented on Amazon’s Prime Video.
Some films simulate explicit moments, but a small number of productions have gone further by featuring unsimulated sex on camera.
Starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist follows a couple who, after retreating to a cabin for solace, spiral into sexual behaviour and sadomasochism.
Set against themes of religion, the film uses body doubles for explicit sequences, including intercourse beside a dead tree with bodies placed within exposed roots—an image designed to unsettle.
Vincent Gallo wrote, directed and starred in his 2003 film The Brown Bunny with Chloë Sevigny.
One of the film’s most discussed moments shows Sevigny’s character performing unsimulated oral sex on Gallo—something she later described as ‘very complicated’.
Speaking to Playboy in 2001, she said the scene brought up ‘a lot of emotions’, adding: “I’ll probably have to go to therapy at some point.”
Sevigny later added: “But I love Vincent. The film is tragic and beautiful, and I’m proud of it and my performance.
“I’m sad that people think one way of the movie, but what can you do? I’ve done many explicit sex scenes, but I’m not that interested in doing any more. I’m more self-aware now and wouldn’t be able to be as free, so why even do it?”
Gaspar Noé’s film tracks an intense relationship in which a couple invites a third person into their sex life—an arrangement that later collapses after she becomes pregnant.
Starring Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman and Klara Kristin, it follows the fallout as the couple break apart and one partner remains in a joyless situation with the third.
The unsimulated sex scenes are notably explicit and include a graphic ejaculation shot.
9 Songs features Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley in multiple explicit sex scenes—something Stilley has addressed publicly.
Discussing the intense criticism the film received, Stilley told LADbible: “It’s a shame that it’s been torn apart into these little pieces and bastardised online, to be honest.”
In the 2001 film Intimacy, Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox appear in an unsimulated oral sex scene.
Looking back, Rylance called it the ‘most difficult job’ of his career.
He said: “I was convinced it was a vital story about the difficulties people face finding intimacy in a big city like London.
“Hanif Kureishi’s writing couldn’t have been more intimate and revealing, but I found the making of the film and the subsequent publicity and personal attacks very, very painful. I wish I hadn’t made it.”
Fox, meanwhile, has said it was ‘not one of her regrets’.