Shortbus follows the sexual and emotional lives of several frustrated New Yorkers, including Sophia (Sook-Yin Lee), a sex therapist who's never had an orgasm, James (Paul Dawson), a suicidal gay man in a relationship with a former child actor, and Severna (Lindsay Beamish), an emotionally barren dominatrix who offers to help Sophia through her pre-orgasmic crisis. The main stage on which the characters play out their anxieties and fantasies is Shortbus, a small club in New York where anything and everything goes - and usually much, much, more - with the acting in this film easily distinguishing this from the genre of pornography, which many of its misinformed detractors claim it to be.

Unfortunately though, this movie is not for the squeamish, and the two people I originally asked were probably right in staying away. The sex scenes are extremely graphic. The opening sequence shows a couple trying to go through all the moves of the Kama Sutra in one session, while another man gives himself a blowjob after urinating in a bath, so if you're homophobic, or like to take the moral high ground, you'd be better off seeing something else. For those of you, who don't mind a bit of rumpy-pumpy thrown in with a few laughs and a thick dollop of drama, make sure you see Shortbus - you'll love it.

7/10