Interesting piece in The Guardian today about British Cinema’s sexual repression tendencies. – Johnny Foreigner

Repressed, stiff-upper-lipped Englishness is en vogue again. But should we be encouraging it?

“They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.” Ian McEwan’s 2007 novel On Chesil Beach sets out a familiar stall in its opening lines. The story revolves around a fateful night of non-consummation between newlyweds, played in the new movie adaptation by Billy Howle and Saoirse Ronan. We have seen their condition many times before: it’s called Englishness. It begins with a stiffness of the upper lip but soon extends to the entire host organism [ . . . ]

Continue at THE GUARDIAN: No sex please we’re British: exploring On Chesil Beach’s chaste state of mind | Film | The Guardian