The Julian Sands Page:
A Note on Nudity

A number of the images I have found of Julian on the Internet (indeed, a large number of the references in general that I found to Julian through the Internet search engines) were video captures of his nude scenes from various films, by and large intended for a gay male audience (not an uncommon characteristic for Julian's admirers). While some of these images were on sites protected by a variety of methods from being accessed by minors, others were not. If you are interested in such things (and do not have or wish to purchase or rent the films the images were taken from), you may certainly search out these sites on your own. (SEE ADDENDUM BELOW)
I have, however, decided not display those images on this site (nor will any video capture sessions that I do myself include such images), as they seem purely of prurient interest, and not of real concern in respect to Julian's work or private life. Indeed, out of respect for Julian himself, I choose not to display them.
Which is not to say I regard those nude scenes as obscene or pornographic in any way. Rather, I consider them a vital and entirely natural part of the roles and films in which they occurred, and the fact that Julian was so willing to do them is entirely a credit to his devotion to his calling. How many actors would have refused to be seen naked in any context, let alone in so many contexts and in so many films? I'm sure it doesn't hurt to have a body more closely resembling Greek statuary than any other mortal man, but nonetheless, it is a brave choice, and one I celebrate. I strongly feel that if we as a modern society were more at home with seeing nudity, the taboos of sex would be lessened, and we would thereby end up with a healthier attitude towards these matters. And that is something which would keep people from being tempted into irresponsible behavior purely for the purpose of breaking a taboo.
On an interesting side note, my exhaustive search for everything available concerning Julian on the Internet turned up the following graduate paper title: "The Secret Figleaf: The Nude Julian Sands in A Room with a View, Gothic and Warlock II: The Armageddon ," Cinema and the Postmodern, Kent SU, October 1994. Now, that would be interesting reading!

ADDENDUM (August 31, 1998): Today's perusal of the search engines was the last straw for me on this issue. I had previously decided to tolerate without much complaint the abuse of Julian's name and image by nude image/pornographic sites which advertise their sites (usually requiring payment for admission) through search engines with descriptions indicating that they have nude and/or pornographic images of Julian. It's unscrupulous at best and thievery at worst, as they are profiting from images which they do not own. However, while I am myself offended, it is the prerogative of Julian and his representatives to pursue these matters.
But these new offenders are by far the worst of the bunch, listing descriptions indicating that their images were obtained by hidden cameras in Julian's bedroom or bathroom, some of which (they claim) revealed homosexual sexual activity on his part, and thereby guaranteeing that they will draw in the audience they need for their sites to be profitable. (I have yet to see such an image of Julian which was not a video captured still image from a film.) Add to this the fact that the pages these descriptions reference are, in fact, nothing but blank pages except for a single advertising banner for the website in question, and it's clear that these people are even lower than the unscrupulous profiteers that I had previously classified them as.
I have therefore decided to issue a call to arms among all of Julian's on-line fans. As Julian's representatives have apparently not chosen to take these people to task, either for their profiting from his image (which again, they do not own) or for damaging his reputation with their descriptions of the images (more on this later), it is, for now, up to us to do what we can to make it clear to them that we will not fall for their ruse, and moreover, that we will do our best to insure that their fraudulent listings in search engines will not continue.
To accomplish this end requires a simple step: when you discover a site listing which indicates that it has Julian Sands content, but which actually does not when you visit it, send a brief e-mail to the search engine's administrator with the site's URL, the description it lists, and a summary of what was actually on the page when you visited. It may also be helpful to use the "View Source" option in your browser to see if the page is using META-tags to fool the search engine, and let the administrator know if that is the case. This goes for non-nude/pornographic sites as well. (I have found a few music/video sites which send you to their main page with no reference to Julian at all -- unless the PAGE you're being sent to mentions Julian, they are misusing the search engine.) You may also want to let the administrator of the server on which the page resides know about the problem as well. The administrators' e-mail addresses can usually be found in a Help area on the search engine or service-provider's main page. Please remember to be polite to these people -- they are helping us to rid the Internet of this scourge.
If you question whether these sorts of sites have a real negative affect upon Julian's reputation, I will relate to you a request for information on Julian which I also happened to receive today. The person who wrote to me wanted me to settle for her an argument between herself and a co-worker over whether or not Julian had appeared in any "adult" (read pornographic) films or still photographs. The co-worker insisted that he had. As the line I draw between "adult films" and films with sexually explicit scenes at the point where sexual acts are no longer simulated, but performed for real, my answer to her was a categorical "no".
Faced with all of the advertisements for these websites a mere few hours later, I suddenly realized that any person searching for Julian's image on the Internet would certainly be confronted with these advertisements, and did they not already know better, they could easily perceive them to be a clear, undisputed indication that Julian was a regular performer in "adult films" or had routinely posed for nude photographs. This does him no credit as an actor, let alone as an actor of the calibre at which he should be regarded. It frightens me to think that this woman's co-worker might be forever convince that the male lead of an Oscar-nominated film like A Room With a View was, in reality, a porn star.
I don't know why people feel compelled to turn his nude scenes in mainstream films into tawdry, pornographic romps (perhaps it sells more site memberships?), but for the record, among the projects which Julian has appeared in, the closest thing to an "adult film" is his appearance in the HBO late-night series "Strangers", which routinely included graphic sex scenes, but which by no means falls into the category of pornography. The research I did on the series when it was first mentioned to me that Julian had appeared in it indicates that the sex scene in Boxing Helena is far more graphic than anything he would have done for "Strangers". So, again, why turn him into a porn star? The only thing I can come up with is that it draws more people into a paying site if they think they're going to see Julian have real sex, whether it is with a man or a woman.
This is doubly offensive to me as these people are turning profit not only by illegally using Julian's name and image, but in that they are turning what are often non-sexual nude scenes, romantic sexual scenes or even explicit sex scenes that are completely within the context of their respective films into tawdry, dirty displays of flesh and sex. And they do this merely by the descriptions they use for their sites and by putting the images in the backdrop of the rest of the images they display. They not only glorify the degradation of a beautiful, pleasurable act and a beautiful body, they intentionally profit by it. At Julian's expense. At society's expense. (I'm tempted to start a "Make Sex Holy" campaign, but I doubt I'd get anywhere...)
Well, I'll get off my soapbox now. I just want to encourage anyone who's at all bothered by the abuse of search engines and their users, or by the abuse of Julian's image and name for profit, to take whatever steps they can to put and end to it.