I am a fan of hbo, and have been for a long time, but I do miss the adult content: sexo urbano, showgirls: glitz and angst, taxicab confessions, etc. I vote to bring that back.
It's mostly a generational gap. A lot of us grew up in an environment where it would be a national scandal and the FCC would open an investigation if someone said a bad word on TV. The main allure of the shows you mention was their taboo nature. Ask anyone under 30 today if they want the same, and they'll shrug and go "if it makes sense in the script, sure".
You’ve also explained why it won’t come back, though: the internet.
I remember taxicab confessions being compelling because it was a rare example of people talking openly about adult things. These days that’s everywhere online.
It especially sucked because none of those major rape scenes were in the books. They were added by the show runners. Drago didn't rape Daenerys; he seduced her. Ramsey Bolton never raped Sansa (and also never married her, that was a different character entirely, cut from the show). Jaime never raped Cercei.
TV shows are about human life and sexuality is as much part of life as anything. A lot more than violence. I do also wish this wasn't such a taboo.
But the US is far from the only country that's so sensitive about it. Pornography in China is forbidden, in India is very iffy. In Islamic countries it can be extremely illegal.
Even in the Netherlands where I'm from movies have become a lot more prudish since the 70s/80s.
The parent comment wants to incorporate hardcore porn into all content. People watch hardcore porn to become turned on. Having hardcore porn in all content leads to either being turned on to the detriment of the rest of the movie or becoming desensitized to the detriment of their real world sex life.
You treat "It's part of human life therefore it should be on screen" as an axiom. But it's worth stepping back and considering other viewpoints.
I don't think the parent was suggesting putting hardcore porn in general content. They were just referring to a time with less strict morals and mentioned some mainstream entertainment titles of the era.
I was just using pornography to illustrate the even stricter morals outside the western world. But like the parent comment I'd also wish we'd loosen up a bit.
Somehow the sexual revolution of the 60s/70s running out of steam, and a correction taking place. A growing influence of American culture as well as Muslim immigrants, both more conservative. And perhaps feminism changing course.
The internet stole the show and actors started pushing back against it because it was still culturally taboo. Only now are we starting to see a big reversion and normalization of nudity in the arts.
Netflix and HBO are dialing up on nudity and sex. Millennials and Gen Z like it, and they have the metrics to show for it.
There's no more dicks or even breasts in tentpole blockbusters or the increasingly-adult-embraced "kids" films than there used to be. Even your R-rated stuff tends to have less of the sort of "coincidental" not-central-to-the-plot sex scenes than you would've seen a few decades ago. But what's left blockbuster film has found a place in "prestige TV" and by being moved less front-and-center, take-the-family-to-the-theater, it's been able to be amplified since entertainment as a whole is more fractured and it's less one-size-fits-all.