ABSTRACT
Sex dominated the work of not only the Production Code Administration (PCA), but also religious organisations, producers, and studios. This chapter considers how sex was a dominant theme in a number of unmade projects in PCA records, with representations of sex ranging from adultery and sex ‘suggestiveness’ (House of Mist, Coquette, Love by Force), prostitution (Love Child), abortion and illegitimate child birth (The Weather in the Streets), teenage pregnancy (High School Wives), to venereal disease (The Vicious Circle), nymphomania (There’s One in Every Town), illicit sex (Burning Secret, Lysistrata), miscegenation (Congai), and even bestiality (White Gorilla). But analysis reveals how wider patriarchal forces were in operation that prevented sex, particularly when it involved women, from being successfully produced for the screen. Producers, screenwriters, directors, and studio chiefs were all complicit in this structural barrier, one that perpetuated a discourse of sex and women as a danger to society and ensured that Hollywood output furthered the patriarchal hegemony. Particular attention is paid to reconstructing House of Mist and The Weather in the Streets.
