(written by Terry MacNeil, on November 4-9, 13, 2026)

9½ Weeks, Basic Instinct, and Body Heat are three “legendary” (say many film buffs) “non-pornographic sex films” (movies with one or more HOT women that are SAID to be frequently/graphically nude). So before the days of easily accessible (hardcore) internet porn, these were the kind of movies I was eager to see when I was a teenager. I did see (and loved) Basic Instinct as a teenager (and I still love it today). But I only saw Body Heat and 9½ Weeks (both for the first time) recently. And the sight of Terry Farrell in bondage (in Hellraiser III) was way, WAY more titillating than anything in those three “legendary” non-pornographic sex films.

Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair is a book I recently wanted to read, before seeing the movie it inspired. I expected it to be a pornographic “vanilla sex” book – and was surprised it was a harrowing non-pornographic BDSM book. For a short book about a short-lived whirlwind “love affair” – “Elizabeth McNeill” (the pen name of the book’s author Ingeborg Day) almost always avoids providing descriptive details of the sexual acts she experienced. But she DOES go into painstaking detail about how bland and sterile her yuppie boyfriend’s wardrobe was, AND about his total lack of affection for his cats – here she is providing us with red flags about him (soon to be revealed as a sociopath and sexual sadist). It would be more accurate to say the book is a deliberately untitillating attempt by the author to explore the psychology not only of sexual sadists – but also sexual masochists. Ms. Day (who eventually realizes she’s a sexual masochist) is always being cruelly manipulated/conditioned by her boyfriend – so it’s impossible to tell what she ACTUALLY enjoys sexually. This includes (some of) the tortures/violence her boyfriend inflicts on her, AND the state of extreme dependence/helplessness/infantilization to which he’s reduced her. Her conscious ambition is to do EVERYTHING he ever requests – and overcome any limits she has about ANYTHING (from the most mundane, to the most extreme). Do we condemn Ms. Day for anything she does in the book? NO (with the exception of the armed robbery he commands her to perform). But do we condemn the boyfriend? YES. Unfortunately, there are men in the manosphere who will read books like this – and argue Ms. Day is representative of ALL women, and that ALL women desire dominant and cruel men. My final thought on the book? It bored me. My other final thought? Ms. Day was an editor at Ms. magazine – so I imagine Gloria Steinem eventually read (without enjoying) Ms. Day’s book. Sadly, a more appropriate title for the book would’ve been Nine and a Half Weeks: A Masochist’s Depressing Memoir of BDSM Violence and Trauma.

My thoughts on the movies? Well, the film 9½ Weeks completely cut out all the physical violence of the book (though it retained some of the mental abuses). So we are left with a movie that has barely anything that was in the book – and is so tame and watered down, they ought to have named the film something else. As for the films Another 9½ Weeks and The First 9½ Weeks? Whereas Ms. Day’s book is a work of non-fiction – those two movies are completely fictional. And I don’t have the space to properly comment on those two movies here – so I shall do that on my Bluesky account. Then again, I’d argue the movie 9½ Weeks is also fictional.

In closing, today I must say Basic Instinct, Body Heat, and 9½ Weeks are films that have lost almost all of their power to titillate – because they can’t compete with hardcore internet porn. Trying to jack off to any of those three movies would be a logistical nightmare. Oh well. Ⓐ