someone pointed out to me that a lot of aversion to sex scenes in movies we’re seeing is coming from people in their 20s living in their childhood homes with their parents in the next room (zero judgement), and it kinda blew my mind. like, yeah, that WOULD make for a very different experience with media.
and i know that different cultures have very different ideas about inter-generational living and when or even if a grown kid should move out, but in the US, it’s mostly happening because the adult kids just don’t have the resources to live on their own. life is just incredibly hard and prohibitively expensive right now. and even if they see themselves as adults, i think it can be hard for parents who’re still operating inside this nuclear family framework to make that mental shift, which is obviously gonna affect the interpersonal dynamic in the house.
i moved out when I was 18 because i had to, and i had a really rough few years. it was the hardest time in my life, and i wouldn’t wish it on anyone. but my god, the freedom. to watch porn, to do drugs, to have sex knowing my parents wouldn’t walk in.
and i didn’t always make good decisions, but it was so crucial to growing up that i had the total freedom to make them on my own and deal with the consequences as they came. and i really feel for the young people who are struggling to access that freedom. i would not be the same person if i’d had to spend my early adulthood worried about my parents in the next room and what they thought about what I was doing and watching and becoming.
