Sex is to French movies what _______ is to American

As an instructor of French I had to lead one-on-one conversations several times a week.
A gruesome task when you have to listen to a 101 student trying to make the distinction between the different nasal sounds "on"/"an"/"in" three hours in a row. Thank God for the "r" diversion in the middle.
It REALLY numbs your brains out, trust me.

But with more advanced students it was of course different (though scarily enough, not that much sometimes. But that's beside the point). We usually talk about French movies they saw the week before as part of their 'exposition to the target culture'. It's a strong belief of language acquisition pedagogy that students learn a lot that way; I guess they can thus see that we belong to the 21st century as well. You wouldn't believe the questions I was asked in 9 years of teaching in the US.....

Anyway - whether it triggers excessive enthusiasm, curious recording or outraged embarrassment - and, frankly, between the two extremes I am not quite sure which one makes me the more uncomfortable as an instructor -the one single element everybody is pointing out is sex. More specifically, nudity.
Yep, you see boobs, butts and sometimes even more.
Ron-ron-ron, oh la la!!! Mon Dieu!

See - when a man and a woman actually have sex (you know...it happens...especially in movies where things are incredibly accelerated and revolve around drama) the woman doesn't keep her bra on; that would pretty stupid of her actually given the fact that it's a major erogenous part of her body, and she supposedly put herself in that situation to get pleasure out of it. And seriously, who gets out of bed wrapped up around sheets? WHO?!?!? Did they all join the "Never nudes" along with Tobias Fünke in Hollywood or what?

But wait, I have even more shocking: actors walk butt-naked not only in mainstream movies but also in TV shows and  - supreme horror - commercials. On TV and on billboards. Believe it or not - women take their clothes off in the shower and you do see their nipples while they are rubbing Dove, Nivea and what not in their skin.
Crazy, I know.
These Frenchies....
I am the first to admit though that sometimes it is a tad too much; having a naked lady on her kitchen floor caressing a bottle of olive oil is not totally necessary (unless you want to use the oil in question for purposes that are not strictly culinary, and that is another question; cf. Last Tango in Paris for similar misappropriate usages of alimentary products).

To sum it all and put it quite simply: the Janet Jackson 'incident' would have generated a big laugh, some sarcastic comments and that's about it.
I would say it's rather healthy. But I am obviously biased.

The traditional opposition between slow-paced, dialog heavy and psychology oriented French movies and their more action based American counterparts is this one: sex vs. violence.
I do not agree.
To be fair let's keep it very 'concrete'.
To me the US equivalent of (gratuitous) body exposure is vomiting.
Throwing up.
Puking.
And I find it quite disturbing, to be honest with you.

It's one of my Russian colleagues that brought up the subject for the first time in 2001. And since then I have been watching closely and she was totally right. For some reason TV and film producers think it's appropriate (funny? instructive? telling?) to show people getting sick. When people are drunk (OK), scared (maybe), exhausted (really?), even happy (yes, sometimes - I promise) or for no reason at allthey throw up. Not only that but they do it in close-up shots -you could almost tell what they had for lunch if you really wanted to - and with the corresponding soundtrack.
It grosses me out so much.
I mean - why?!?
I am not sure about what it says on a culture shocked by its own nudity but fascinated by its perpetual upset stomach....if you have any answer for me, please share them with me.

I feel like I am missing something here.
Excuse my French and my blunt honesty but personally, I'd take fucking over puking any day.