Did Matt Hagen Have Sex With Himself in ‘Clayface’?

Warner Bros. and DC’s Clayface is now in theaters, and while I found the overall film disappointing, there are quite a few standout sequences that show just how far this adaptation was willing to go. One in particular left me with a question I wasn’t expecting to ask about a Batman movie.

Spoilers for Clayface follow.

For an R-rated body horror film likened to The Fly and pushed so hard as a hardcore horror experience, it’s strange that at least two kills happen completely offscreen. We do get smashed heads, gnarly scenes of flesh being cut, and some genuinely nasty, creepy imagery. But the highlight for me was something considerably weirder than another bloody death.

Scientist Caitlyn Corr, played by Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice), conducts a sleep study on Matt Hagen, played by Tom Rhys Harries (The Sweet East). This is the scientist who apparently runs an entire experimental laboratory by herself. No assistants. Nobody else around to help. Just her, an oddly empty lab, and a man whose body can turn into other people. One of my problems with the movie, but I digress.

As Caitlyn watches Matt sleep, he transforms multiple times. My read is that he’s having a horny dream about the scientist he’s slowly falling for, and his body starts acting it out. He becomes Caitlyn, and the sequence escalates into what certainly looks like masturbation. Even the BBFC’s official content advice notes “brief visual allusions to masturbation,” although it doesn’t specify the scene.

But did it go further than that? Watching his hand wrap around her body, I read the image as Matt portraying two people simultaneously. He’s himself, he’s her, and he appears to be bringing those two forms together while having a wet dream.

So I pose the question: Is it sex if you’re having sex with yourself?