And most studios built that fine into their budgets because they knew the ensuing PR would bring ’em running to the box office.
But what your article fails to mention is that most pre-Code films involving women and sexuality werent doing it for the “social exploration”: it was objectification, pure and simple. These werent “liberated women”; they were just another male fantasy version of “bad girls”, designed to appeal to a particular demographic. If you seriously think that Columbia et al was producing these flicks to enlighten the masses, you really need to re-think that. The pre-Code films were just cashing in, and they *loved* it when the Catholics got upset about it.
Yes, then the Code was enforced, and things went to Hades, giving us such mind-boggling things as gay men being called “Bulgarian” so as not to offend the code — I mean, seriously, why Bulgaria? But it just meant the pre-Code films went to smaller, independent studios who ramped up the cheesiness along with the cheesecake. And thus was born the legions of biker babe movies for every drive in from California to New York.
These were never art, nor were they intended to be. They were low-rent sleaze, the cinematic equivalent of a burlesque stage.