READERS with children under 18 should take a pair of sharp scissors, cut out this column and hide it well away from prying eyes. In The Picture carries an X-certificate as it mentions matters of an explicit sexual nature and, like Mr Censor, we feel a responsibility to shield impressionable eyes from sex in the cinema.

We're not talking about averting their eyes from snogging in the back row, although I'm not sure that happens any more as cinemagoers seem more intent on stuffing their faces with popcorn and hot dogs than kissing and cuddling when the lights go down. At least the censor, and I still think of him as that despite the name of the organisation being changed to the British Board of Film Classification, is treating us more like adults these days while still protecting the children - witness his recent trimming of the violence in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider before granting a 12 certificate.

Fears a few years ago that then-home secretary Jack Straw's huffing and puffing about reforming the BBFC would result in a crackdown on sex and violence on the big screen have proved unfounded.

Very sensibly, the censors have been happy to let more adult material reach an adult audience. They had the research to back their actions. New guidelines were drawn up following public consultation showed people felt classifying films and videos should be more relaxed in the 18 category, but that the Board should be tougher on violence, drug portrayal and bad language at the lower classification levels. BBFC director Robin Duvall said what those advocating a relaxation - or abolition - of the rules had been saying for ages: "Adults want to choose what they watch without excessive intervention by the Board".

Arguments about Ralph Fiennes' buttocks, whose energetic activity earned a perfectly harmless love story The End Of The Affair an 18 certificate a couple of years ago, are hopefully a thing of the past.

Two years ago the French film Romance was passed uncut with an 18, allowing scenes of oral sex and a male erection to be seen for the first time in a non-porno movie. This was French and a so-called art house movie (ie it had sub-titles and not many people would see it), so this was fairly easily excused.

Now, comes Intimacy which shows the same things, the difference being that the participants getting up close and personal are, while not exactly mainstream stars, certainly known and respected actors whose faces you'll know even if you can't put a name to it. It is body parts other than the face that get full frontal exposure in Intimacy, which was directed in English by a Frenchman in London. The pair play strangers who have wordless sex every Wednesday afternoon. They are played by ex-Royal Shakespeare Company actor Mark Rylance and New Zealand actress Kerry Fox, who was in Shallow Grave and Fanny And Elvis. Rylance, who is artistic director of London's Shakespearean Globe Theatre, is no stranger to controversy. He directed and starred in a stage production of Macbeth in which Lady M, played by Tesco ad star Jane Horrocks, peed for real on stage every night.

Director Patrice Chereau seems to have gone out of his way to photograph Intimacy's explicit sex scenes in the most unflattering way. They look and sound like the unloading of a butcher's van of animal carcasses by an unfit chap who gets breathless and pants a lot.

He is unrepentant about the explicitness of his film. "The film is called Intimacy, and so we have to show something intimate. I don't want to reduce the film to a discussion about the sex scenes. There are 35 minutes of film about it, and then we have a whole story. Sex is not the main line of the film."

I can't believe he's silly enough to think that he could show two known actors performing oral sex and not provoke a discussion (and a lot of free publicity for the movie). "It is not shocking for me," says Chereau of that scene. "That is all I can say. I love the way the actors did it."

The distributors of Intimacy have gone for a slow build-up, releasing the film on a small number of prints - which is why the North has had to wait until now to see it, several weeks after it opened in other parts of the country.

Intimacy finally makes its debut in the North-East today at the Tyneside in Newcastle. If you go and see it just for the taboo-breaking sex scenes, you'll be disappointed. Best to nip round to your local licensed sex shop to buy an 18R movie in which you're allowed to watch people actually doing it. Intimacy's sexual encounters are shot in the most unarousing way possible. The film as a whole is full of charmless, irritating people mooching around and swearing a lot while being filmed with a jerky handheld camera. In the time-honoured tradition of a Sunday tabloid reporter, I made my excuses and left after an hour. I couldn't stand it any longer.