Crymaxing and Other Awkward Depictions of the Sex Act in Films

A pre-plastic surgery mishap Tara Reid shows the tender side of teenage lust in American Pie. 

Her arc begins with offering tit-for-tat baby steps toward coitus, leaving a bad taste in the mouth for anyone who picks up a spare beer by the bedside.  Her "tell me whens," though, are put aside on prom night, proving, yes, that nice guys don't always come last when a genuine romance is in the works.

Laura Linney literally looks down at young Topher (fumbling without) Grace, halting the forward momentum of passion as he unrolls a condom.

The scene is icky enough as it is, what with theme of him being a reincarnation of her long-dead high school lover, then swiftly shifts from awkward to shocking as Linney mounts Grace for a raging, very realistic-looking climax.

Talk about going to the mattresses!

There's no omerta when rival mafia killers Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner lay down their pieces for una sveltina in John Huston's mob comedy Prizzi's Honor. 

Something happens in this scene that happens in real life that you never see in the movies.  Rolling around on the bed until gravity takes over and, bada bing, you're on the floor.

I want to focus less on the confluence of conflicting emotions that erupt when a secret past spills itself all over a tranquil family life, and more at the raging, beastial, but totally consensual and within wedlock sexual activity that takes place on the . . .stairwell?

If it sounds like it might hurt your back, well, just watch this scene from A History of Violence.