Sexual addiction is defined by one recovery-program website as "any compulsive or impulsive sexual activity that falls into one of three categories: shameful, secretive or abusive." Well, that's a bit of a party-killer, isn't it? Beyond the fact that this defines as illness so much common sexual activity (affairs, hookups, kinks, masturbation), can they really expect sex without shame? Isn't that what we have religion for? (As director John Waters memorably put it: "I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty.")
Into the fray steps director Steve McQueen with "Shame," which takes a cool, unsparing look at textbook sex addiction. The title hangs over the film like a question: Is the addict ashamed of his behavior, or does some deeper past shame give rise to his urges?
Michael Fassbender, McQueen's star from his previous film, "Hunger" — in which he played IRA martyr Bobby Sands, who died on a hunger strike in prison — moves from self-abnegation to self-negation with this role. Again, it's quite physically demanding for the actor: While "Hunger" required a shocking degree of weight loss, "Shame" has Fassbender in the nude and in compromising positions for much of the film. (In one celebrated scene he is seen shagging a hooker against the full-length glass windows of Manhattan's Standard Hotel, which apparently attracted a crowd of onlookers during the shoot.)