Randy Kennedy of The New York Times wrote that the film's "sex scene does seem like the antithesis of pornography. The camera and microphones are so close to the characters that the familiar sense of voyeuristic distance is impossible to maintain." Film critic Roger Ebert opined that the film's controversial sex scene "and its dialogue, and a flashback to the Daisy character at a party, work together to illuminate complex things about Bud's sexuality, his guilt, and his feelings about women...Gallo takes the materials of pornography and repurposes them into a scene about control and need, fantasy and perhaps even madness. That scene is many things, but erotic is not one of them." The Georgetown Voice also called the sex scene "Raw, gripping and slightly repulsive", comparing it to a similar scene in Requiem for a Dream, while emphasizing the un-erotic nature of both.
