Outfest: Gregg Araki and other gay directors talk about directing sex scenes...

Sat in on part of this panel discussion in the afternoon. It brought together directors Gregg Araki ("Mysterious Skin"), Donna Deitch ("Desert Hearts"), Andrew Fleming (Hamlet 2"), Don Roos (Happy Endings") who talked about what goes down on a movie set during the shooting of a sex scene.

It wasn;t as titliating at the program seemed to promise but then again, don't they say these sex scenes are always far more technical to do than enjoyable?

Roos, whose credits include "The Opposite of Sex" and "Happy Endings," admitted: "I'm the least sexual person in the world ... I would much prefer someone brush my hair.'

After showing a graphic scene from "Mysterious Skin" involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a nother actor, Araki talked about the acting and camera techniques and all of that but then admitted: "The scene still sort of startles me when I see it."

"I'm really fascinated by the way people interact with each other when they are having sex," he added.

Fleming talked about some of the difficulties of shooting the sex scenes on his movie "Threesome" which starred Lara Flynn Boyle, Josh Charles and Stephen Baldwin.

"Bascially, every scene in that movie they are either talking about sex or having sex," he said.

The biggest issue usually had to do with how much of Boyle's breast could be shown without a body double being called in. She had an iron-clad contract detailing how much breast could show. But as far as the climactic threeway between the leads, the director said: "The problem was going to be getting them to stop touching each other."

Each director was asked to name their favorite sex scene in any film and Araki chose the classic one between Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warneckein "My Beautiful Launderette" of which he said: "I remember seeing that scene and besides being turned on, I was blown away by the intensity of it."