Here Comes the Love Disinterest

US sports like 'football' come with time-outs for flash ads and other TV programmes are nearly as accommodating by closing and reopening scenes every 5 minutes so that commercials can niftily be slipped into the flow of the viewer's entertainment experience. The speed of the switch from the last punchline in the sitcom at hand or the thundering crash on the field to burgers, life insurance or headache tablets is so pared down in the States that there is bound to be a response overspill from what came before, and the product gains sexiness by emotional association with the enveloping drama or farce.
Fortuitously, the home viewer can utilise the slots for these important messages as tea-making or toilet breaks. While they may be overabundant in their regularity, at least they offer the choice of a motorway pearl-strung with rest stops: if you miss one, there's always another one along in a minute.
Sadly, in the average Hollywood film, we rarely get more than one such opportunity. This is the sex scene between the hero and primary love interest, deemed essential for our engagement with the main characters. Doubtless some directors actually fondly believe that showing a minute or so of soft focus close-ups of moist necks, lower backs, stroked legs and tugged hair will satisfy pervs and romantics alike. However, most of these scenes come in such a generic format that the makers might as well resort to stock footage like the much-loved 'fighter crashing into the sea' endlessly popping up in old war films, and that nary a money shot nor any gesture with psychologically revealing content will ever be seen. So what are they for? In many instances, they act as a signifier, informing us that we are witnessing romance, much as a shoot-up or car chase is an idiot board prompt for urgency and excitement.
But we're probably stuck with the obligatory coupling in the standard fodder. I therefore propose two alternatives to the director of the run-of-the-mill Tinseltown plot when dealing with the love scene: jump straight to the after, or make sure that the scene is long enough and revisited at regular intervals so that the viewer has plenty of opportunities for toilet or feeding breaks. Everyone's a winner.