No sex please, we can get that on tv

THAT over-used cliché — ‘sex sells’ — looks to have passed its sell-by date, at least as far as the movies are concerned.

With consumer research indicating that audiences are increasingly turned off by steamy sex scenes, many of the major Hollywood film studios are calling time on celluloid permissiveness.

Industry observers point out that 1997’s Titanic was the last occasion when major stars the calibre of Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio steamed up the windows of a Model T Ford, further proof that the modern cinemagoer no longer wants a 10-minute interlude of hanky-panky as part of a night’s entertainment.