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Remember the 70's? Of course you don't. Either it's a blur or you're too young. But back in the 70's and even into the 80's if you had an R-rated film, you were obligated to have a sex scene about 60 minutes into the movie. Where have these sex scenes gone? Well, I have a theory...
Back in the 70's access to sex was limited to a sex shop in shady part of town or a xxx movie theater in that same part of town. The 60's brought the sexual revolution and the 70's made sex scenes in cinema a standard for R-rated films. Because people wanted to see sex but didn't want to access sexual material through the sleazy channels available to the market at the time.
So where has all that R-rated smut gone? To the Internet where you can get anything you want and you can access it without going out of your house (in a hat, sunglasses and a trench coat). Maybe this is obvious, but there's a little more to it.
Now that we have all that personal access, why do we need to see beloved characters in compromising scenes? When I do watch a movie that has a sex scene, I actually get uncomfortable--even if I'm alone. I don't want to see these people I "know" get sexual in front of me. I follow their daily lives, get to know them personally, want the two people to have sexual tension and then finally seal the deal--behind closed doors. I don't want to see my friends have sex. And I don't want to see characters I'm getting to know get all hot and bothered between the sheets either.
What I do like is nameless strangers on the Internet doing all kinds of weird shit without any familiarity. Otherwise, ew.
Graphic soft core sex scenes have no place in cinema today, in my humble opinion. And film makers know it. So they leave it out for the most part. Stick to kissing and killing. That's really all we want to see.