Shortbus might well be the most sexually graphic feature film ever made outside the porn industry, but director John Cameron Mitchell says the lubricious action has a point: to portray sex on film as life-affirming and just plain fun. Three-in-a-bed love romps are looking very old-fashioned indeed, writes Michael Dwyer

LET'S talk about sex. The subject is unavoidable in conversation with John Cameron Mitchell about Shortbus, his second movie as writer-director after the touching, funny and imaginative musical, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, in which he also starred. It comes as a surprise that the director of these flamboyant, in-your-face movies proves to be so quiet-spoken in person.

Shortbus is set among the habitués of a New York salon that is a hive of multi-sexual activity for participants and voyeurs. The key characters are a young gay couple, James and Jamie (Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy, who are also a couple off-screen), considering bringing a third man into their relationship, and their sex therapist, Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), who has failed to have an orgasm in all her years of marriage.

There's a lesbian who introduces herself as "Hi, I'm Bitch", an elderly man who claims he once was mayor of New York, a dominatrix named Jennifer Aniston, and Justin Bond, the salon host at his loft in the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area of Brooklyn.

Made on a low budget, Shortbus is frequently very funny, bubbles with enthusiasm and confidence, and culminates with the full cast singing We All Get It in the End. The movie received a sustained standing ovation on its world premiere at Cannes this year, and Mitchell seems surprised that it hasn't provoked any outrage since it opened in the US last month.

"That is a bit strange," he says, "but we haven't had any public controversy at all about the film, and it's still playing in the more civilised towns. I think the Republicans have been busy with midterm elections."

Shortbus was not submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which is softer on violence than sex on the screen and doubtless would have demanded many cuts. The film was released unrated in the US.

"Only the major studios have to submit their films to the MPAA," Mitchell says. But aren't there problems with newspapers refusing to take advertisements for unrated films? "It's ridiculous, but there are actually fewer restrictions on unrated films than on films that get an NC-17 rating from the MPAA."

What's remarkable about the exuberant, no-sexual-hold-barred Shortbus is that its approach to sex is so relaxed, candid and cheerful from the outset that we cease to be surprised by what it shows, and we hardly realise how graphic it is until thinking about it afterwards.

"That's what I wanted to do," Mitchell says. "It's not as if the characters don't have their problems. But I believe that if you get through the first 10 minutes, it's easy." He's presumably referring to one early scene, in particular, when the young gay man played by Dawson is alone in his apartment while his lover is out, and he athletically performs auto-fellatio.

"We had to do three takes on that scene," Mitchell sighs. "The cameraman was getting tired and he kept missing the money shot."

I mention the coincidence of a new movie that opens next year. In The Tourist, Hugh Jackman plays a lawyer who introduces an accountant (Ewan McGregor) to the secret sex salons of Manhattan.

"Really? I haven't heard about that. But we don't regard the Shortbus club as a sex salon. It's an environment we know and it's based on real places we've been to, but there's more to them than sex. The art and sex and the food and drink and the society are kind of equal. All the important things in life are in the one place - in a buffet style.

"It's not like sex has ever gone away as something interesting. It's just that cinema is the last bastion of taboos. Maybe it's because it's less abstract than photography and literature, and people are more afraid of the full cinemagoing experience. It's just odd that something as essential in life as sex has been flattened out in mainstream cinema - and in art cinema. Even in art movies, sex always seems to be treated negatively. Why does it always end in disaster?"

At one point in Shortbus, the salon host declares, "It's just like the '60s, but with less hope". Mitchell, who was born in 1963, missed out on what was happening in the world during that decade of radical change.

"But I believe there's as much desire for change now as there was in the '60s," he says. "And there's just as much dissatisfaction with the status quo, but people feel more powerless. I was a child of the '70s, and it was a different time, you know. There were many problems then, too, but there was the sense of possibility and a respect for possible diversity, or at least that was what I was taught."

Mitchell grew up in a conservative Catholic family and, around the world as his father, who rose to the rank of general in the US Army, was stationed in various parts of the Americas as well as Scotland and Germany, where he was military commander of the US sector before the Berlin Wall came down

"When we were in Scotland, where my mother is from, I was in a Benedictine boarding school for boys," Mitchell recalls. "I was 10 and it was quite formative for me in that it was rough. We weren't allowed to have radios or records. It was 1973 and glam rock had hit. I remember sneaking Sweet singles into school and listening to them on headphones in the library. It was so exciting, this whole androgynous thing that was going on.

"Both my parents are very pro-Bush, whereas I think Bush has been a disaster. I think a lot of people in the US, as anywhere, circle the wagons whenever there's trouble, and maybe they only read the papers that tell them what they want to hear. There are so many sources for information now, but facts aren't given respect anymore.

"But criticism of authority is built into our constitution, as is the pursuit of happiness. We think of our film as very patriotic in an old-fashioned way. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol that's not invoked much now, but we use it. If you take the idea of America as a sanctuary, New York is a sanctuary for people who don't fit in."

When he was casting Shortbus, Mitchell set up a website inviting videotapes "of no longer than 10 minutes of you, the actor, talking about a real-life sexual experience that was very important to you." It stated that anyone unwilling to have sex on camera need not apply. The site registered over half a million hits and attracted 500 applicants, from which 40 were shortlisted. To break the ice, Mitchell organised a mass game of Spin the Bottle.

With so many non-professionals in the film, was it easy to get them to trust Mitchell and each other, given the intimacy of so many scenes in the movie?

"I think it was easier to work with non-professionals," he says. "So-called professionals are more nervous, more worried about their image. For the same reasons, so many movie stars will not reveal their true sexuality, or even give away their real age. In our case, we had people who were true artistic partners. We cast them first and then created the story with them in improvisation. They created their characters, and that was the best way I could think of creating a safe working environment where they felt comfortable.

"Certainly there were still plenty of nerves about shooting the sex scenes and some of the emotional scenes. A crying scene is just as hard to do as a sex scene, and makes people just as vulnerable. Having a crew standing there watching you do anything intimate is not particularly comfortable, so we had plenty of time to discuss boundaries and working environments, and who was in the room and who wasn't."

Mitchell has already felt "some small personal repercussions" from the participants.

"People have said that it's helped them look at sex and connection in different ways and to be less afraid of it. We all came from very conservative backgrounds where sex was considered bad and a necessary evil for procreation. It's helped us to be less afraid of it and that's why we made it, to share that experience of an ethos of forgiveness and an awareness that it's impossible to be alone in this world. So many of the characters are trying to decide whether they want to be alone or not.

"I think of it as a very healthy way for young people to learn about sex because it's connected to emotion and ideas. Most kids now learn about sex from porn, which is so easily available online. If you're only learning about it from that, body image becomes a big deal, and it's all so formulaic. Most porn is really bad. Does anyone believe a woman is really having an orgasm in a porn movie?"

Mitchell's next movie is likely to be something completely different, at least in terms of content. Night is a children's film.

"It's about a little boy who's never been told a bedtime story. I want to have heart in all my films. There are so many heartless people around that you might as well put something into a film that gives people some hope. Some directors do anomie and despair extremely well, and they do it with intelligence and skill, but ultimately I already know that things are rough. I want to know what we can do to deal with those things.

"In the very act of creating a film there is hope and, to me, it implies optimism."

Shortbus opens next Friday