In the relentless churn of content creation, especially within the indie sphere, filmmakers often find themselves navigating a treacherous cultural current. We aim to tell stories that pulse with life, that reflect the full spectrum of human experience, including the potent currents of sensuality and attraction that are an integral part of human relationships. Yet, the moment such themes dare to surface, particularly when depicted visually, they risk being instantly miscategorized, shamed, and dismissed. This is what I’ve come to think of as the “2025 problem,” a profound societal inability to distinguish between genuine artistic expression of the sensual and outright porn.
This challenge hit home recently when I shared a test animation for Tara, the lead character in my upcoming animated sci-fi epic, “Escape From Planet Omega-12.” Tara, a character born from deep personal inspiration, modeled after my wife, with her striking long black hair, blue eyes, and statuesque form, is visually compelling. By circumstance of her harrowing escape, she is left marooned on a primal alien world in white panties and a loose-fitting cropped tank top. This “escape-pod chic” as I call it is a direct homage to cinematic touchstones like Ripley’s unforgettable undressing scene in Alien, and draws from the rich vein of pulp sci-fi and fantasy, where heroic women from A Princess of Mars to the starkly beautiful figures of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, as depicted by masters like Frank Frazetta, Val Mayerik, and William Stout, often faced peril in their most elemental forms. These were powerful archetypes, aimed at a pre-Internet generation of readers who could lose themselves in escapist fantasies without the immediate, crushing weight of public judgment from a comment section or finger-wagging YouTube personalities.
My intent with Tara is clear: she is designed to be visually sexy, embodying an ideal, a physical shorthand for the profound emotional experience of falling in love. Yet, one swift and sharp social media comment I received, “I hate AI porn”cut through the artistic intention. It crystallized the prevailing confusion: where explicit depictions of sexual acts for the sole purpose of stimulation (my definition of pornography) are conflated with an artist’s exploration of beauty, vulnerability, and inherent human allure.
The Erosion of Nuance: From Maypoles to Monetized Screens
This cultural shift is alarming. The internet, for all its connective power, has paradoxically fostered a binary landscape where complex human expressions are flattened into reductive categories. The nuanced spectrum of human sensuality has been replaced by an immediate, often moralistic judgment. We see young men and women trapped between poles of condemnation: on one side, a left-leaning interpretation that might label any visual sexiness as inherently exploitative or masochistic; on the other, a right-leaning view that might shame it as “worshiping w****s” or “thots.” Both extremes deny individuals a healthy space to understand and express their own sexuality, leading to shame and psychological inhibition.
Consider the stark contrast: the communal, joyous, and visually expressive dances around a maypole, a traditional festival where young women might have celebrated vitality and attraction, versus the monetization of sexuality on platforms like OnlyFans. The latter, tragically, represents a degradation and true exploitation, where the individual’s sexuality is transactional, severed from genuine connection and emotional context, hindering a society’s ability to foster healthy courtship. If any act of self-expression or visual appeal by women can be instantly construed as “online prostitution,” what hope is there for authentic interaction, and how are men to engage with natural attraction without the shadow of shame?
Omega-12: A Savage Garden of Metaphor
This is precisely where stories, particularly those that are “sexy in nature” yet deeply rooted in romance and character, become not just entertainment but vital cultural mechanisms. As Carl Jung illuminated, archetypes are universal patterns that provide shorthand for profound human experiences, guiding us through the complexities of desire and partnership.
In “Escape From Planet Omega-12,” this depth is paramount. While Tara, the beautiful sole survivor, navigates a “savage garden” of an alien world, a primal, untamed landscape reminiscent of an Old Testament Genesis, her struggle is simultaneously a visceral metaphor for the trials of early marriage. Her husband, Captain Brio Burroughs, dies a heroic death, his final act of love ensuring her survival. But his consciousness is then absorbed by a bizarre gelatinous entity, “Blob,” that assumes his persona. This seemingly grotesque transformation is a powerful symbol: the “death” of the old self required in marriage, and the jarring reality that often clashes with initial romance. Tara’s initial rejection of Blob, seeing him as an imitation, not the “real” Brio, mirrors the struggle to accept the ways a spouse changes and adapts in marriage, sometimes becoming “monstrous” in their protective archetypal roles, even for the other’s benefit. Her journey, alongside Blob and their loyal robot BLIP, and later a charming furry alien “Shooble,” is a perilous exploration of this alien planet, but also a journey of rediscovering her husband and learning to love a transformed version of him. It’s a “Ship of Theseus” question for the heart: Is Blob a mere copy, like an AI personality, or is he Brio, evolved, proving that love truly transcends even death? This kind of nuanced exploration, infused with marital and sexual tension that shows love defying even the most bizarre circumstances, is what stories like The Crow have so powerfully demonstrated.
To bring this multifaceted narrative to life, I am employing a hybrid animation style, blending AI animation with classic practical effects, miniatures, and puppets. And here we hit the contemporary snag: the very use of AI in animation, despite its incredible potential for artistic expression and efficiency, is often tainted by its association with explicit content. The comment “I hate AI porn” wasn’t just about my test, but a broader, misguided dismissal of an entire medium. It’s crucial to understand that while AI can be misused, like any tool, its capacity for creating stunning, nuanced, and profound art is immense. Discarding AI animation wholesale because of its potential for abuse is akin to condemning all photography because some pictures are pornographic. Our commitment is to a visually rich, symbolic experience where every artistic choice, including the integration of AI, directly supports the emotional and metaphorical weight of the narrative, not to cheapen it. It seems to be people who are intent on cheapening artistic intent these days. We can’t place that on anything else.
The Future of Entertainment: A Call for Complexity
As we look to the future of entertainment, especially with the accelerating capabilities of AI in creative fields, the stakes are higher than ever. If we as a society, fueled by immediate online judgment, cannot distinguish between genuinely artistic explorations of sensuality and explicit pornography, we risk psychologically stunting ourselves. We strip away a vital avenue for exploring romance, attraction, and the profound complexities of human relationships. And let’s be clear: sex isn’t solely for procreation. For monogamous adults, it’s a vital form of “play”, an exercise in vulnerability, intimacy, and profound connection that strengthens bonds and deepens understanding. How are young men and women, surrounded by an often-toxic digital landscape, meant to understand healthy courtship, attraction, and commitment if the narratives that could guide them are either sanitized into oblivion or condemned as illicit?
Stories that embrace sexy themes, not for pure exploitation, but as part of a larger, profound human drama, can provide crucial context for adults of all ages and in all stages of their relationships. They allow us to engage with our deepest desires in a safe, imaginative space, fostering understanding and empathy. For me “Escape From Planet Omega-12” is more than just an animated film; it’s a testament to the power of storytelling to bridge the gap between primal human desires and complex societal realities, unchanged by “current year” over-moralizing, demonstrating that true artistry, when it wants to flirt or even when it blushes, serves to enlighten, not degrade. It’s a necessary dialogue we should be free to have with each other for the future of both art and society.
Christopher Moonlight is an animator, special effects artist, and the director of the ‘Award This’ winning movie, The Quantum Terror. His upcoming animated sci-fi adventure, Escape From Planet Omega-12, combines traditional film-making special effects with AI to create something never seen before in independent film. You can follow the behind-the-scenes, including tutorials, tips, and tricks, on his YouTube Channel and Substack.
"…This cultural shift is alarming. The internet, for all its connective power, has paradoxically fostered a binary landscape where complex human expressions are flattened into reductive categories."
Christopher, your article was on-point! Your film concept sounds super intriguing. I agree there is a healthy way to show off sensuality in film without dealing with scolding eyes. As we are still living in the age of woke culture, I would compare this to how the film industry had a Production Code to self-censor illicit behavior. People forget that there has always been filmmakers toeing the line with sexiness whether it is Ernst Lubitsch’s subtle implications in dialogue or Busby Berkeley’s playful kaleidoscopic formations. I recently read book about exploitation films by Eric Schaefer. To paraphrase, he noted that once topics become taboo, audiences will seek out those subjects. Sensuality can be done intelligently and playfully, just as long as the audience does not feel insulted.
Thank you for that, Ethan. I’m glad you enjoyed the article, and I’m pleased to see you mention Eric Schaefer’s book. I’ll have to seek that out. I think that as adults with a finite amount of time to our lives, we should be able to have a flirtation with each other through artistic expression. That is a true “safe space” because whatever we explore isn’t real. We can push the limits of our wildest ideas and still get to walk away without the repercussions that might follow in real life, having possibly learned something useful about ourselves in the process.
Our society seems to be going thru a phase where some folks are a little too uptight and everybody has an opinion.
Sex sells. It always has. It always will. It’s part of our DNA as humans.
It sells in music. It sells in movies. It sells on TV.
And there are always vocal groups of people who decry it, for whatever particular reason puts them off.
It’s an essential part of entertainment whether for serious artistic reasons (as laid out in the article) or merely for fun (like an old-school PORKY’S-style romp or a BASIC INSTINCT-type thriller).
And the more certain groups of moralistic scolds will try to stamp it out, the more the audience at large will crave it. This same cycle has played out decade after decade for almost a century — perhaps longer.
Personally, I don’t think art’s purpose is to be inoffensive. It’s purpose is to entertain… Or enlighten… Or be emotional-moving… Etc.
If the work is good, an audience will find it.
Jay, thanks so much for your very thoughtful comment. Yes, I agree with you about movies like Porky’s. I didn’t want to go too long into the article, so I didn’t get to address everything, but I did hint at it when I said that these stories flirt. They do that by being cheeky, humorous, or deliberately seductive. “Personally, I don’t think art’s purpose is to be inoffensive.” I couldn’t agree more.
It’s completely legitimate for anyone (scolds included) to have their own reasons for why they don’t like a particular work or subject matter, etc., and therefore choose not to watch it, turn it off, whatever. I have absolutely no issue with that. Everybody has their own tastes.
But whenever those scolds try to stop others from enjoying it, or attempt to shame the creators in some way, the response to them should always be, “STFU”.