At Inside Out 2012, Toronto’s Lgbt Film Festival, I struck up a conversation with a woman – about lesbian scenes, no less. As tantalizing as the premise sounds, she eventually digressed into a rather scholarly discussion about how most of these scenes are sensationalized, how they objectify women, how unrealistic they are, and, of course, their gratuitousness.

Although I tacitly agreed for the most part, the emboldened passion of her convictions left me reticent to be an equal part player in our tête-à-tête, or to disagree with her on the occasional minor discrepancy. I figured that the path of least resistance was to simply let her pontificate in taciturn silence, and pretend that I was listening.

But more seriously, I was content with my utter unimportance in the ‘conversation’ until she brought up a certain example – my beloved Black Swan. The much googled scene between Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman was the subject of her ire,...