performing fellatio on him, O'Brien became the only actor who has been shown ejaculating in a mainstream, UK-produced feature. To avoid a possible pregnancy, O'Brien wore a condom on his erect penis during the vaginal sex but not while receiving oral sex. Margo Stilley initially asked Winterbottom to refer to her simply by her character's name in interviews about the film. The release sparked a debate over whether the scenes of explicit sex artistically contributed to the film's meaning or crossed the border into pornography. In the United Kingdom, the film received an 18 certificate from the British Board of Film Classification and became the most explicit mainstream film to be so rated in the country. MP Ann Widdecombe complained about the film in the UK House of Commons and calling on the Home Secretary to reverse the decision to release it uncut. In Australia, the Office of Film and Literature Classification gave the film an X rating, which would have prevented the film from being shown theatrically and restricted sale of the film to the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. The OFLC Review Board later passed the film with an R rating, although the South Australian Classification Council raised the rating back to X in South Australia. In New Zealand, while the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards lobbied for the film to be kept out of cinemas, it was passed uncut at R18 by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. The film was broadcast on New Zealand pay TV Rialto Channel in July 2007. In June 2008, the film was broadcast on Dutch national television by the public broadcasting station VPRO. See also Unsimulated sex References Further reading Frey, Mattias. (2016) Extreme Cinema: The Transgressive Rhetoric of Today’s Art Film Culture. London: Rutgers University Press. Johnson, Beth. (2016) ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll: Analysing Aesthetics, Performance and Pleasure in 9 Songs’, in L. Coleman (ed.) Sex and Storytelling in Modern Cinema: Explicit Sex, Performance and Cinematic Technique. London ; New York, NY: I.B.Tauris, pp. 137–158. Kenny, Oliver. (2022) ‘Breaking Conventions? Political Ideology of Films With Explicit Sex’, Open Screens, 5(1), pp. 1–21. https://doi.org/10.16995/OS.8008 Krzywinska, Tanya. (2006) Sex and the Cinema. London: Wallflower. Williams, Linda. (2007) ‘Hard-Core Art Film: The Contemporary Realm of the Senses’, Quaderns portàtils, (13), pp. 1–20. Williams, Linda. (2008) Screening Sex. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Williams, Melanie. (2006) ‘9 Songs’,