Nel labirinto del sesso (1969, Italy)
This is a cheap film purporting to be a scientific study of sexual deviations, but ytansparentlky a simple exploitation film. There is a laboured scholarly narrative explaining everything to us, while showing pictures of naughty things happening. Towards the end of the film, there is a pompously narrated sequence explaining how science has now analysed the sexual act itself in detail -- we see a man and a woman getting prepared for this study, with a music soundtrack like something out of Robbie the Robot.
But long before we get to that stage, we have homosexuality explained carefully to us; it is obviopus that the film-makers equate transvestism and homosexuality as the same thing, with some library footage of a drag ball ...
... followed by some staged shots of a transvestite smoking a pipe ...
... and shaving.
There is a more serious section later, following female to male gender reassignment surgery. Again the narration is laboured and pompous, but it sounds as if there was some understanding of the intersex condition, where ambiguous genitalia at birth lead to a mistaken identification.
It's an awful film, and following the tradition of awful films, it has several alternative titles:
English speakers are most likely to come across it as The Labyrinth of Sex; it has also been released as
Sesso;
Sesso -- Sexual Inadequacies; and
Sexual Inadequacies.
HF May 2009
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Nel labirinto del sesso
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