When it comes to controversial directors, there have not been many better at pushing the boundaries than Paul Verhoeven. While action blockbusters like Robocop and Total Recall brought blood, guts and some quite gruesome sci-fi deaths to the screens in all their R-rated glory, it was the sexually explicit Showgirls and Basic Instinct that pushed ratings boards to their limits. Back in March, Vanity Fair published an exclusive extract of Sharon Stone's memoir, in which she talks about what is still her most famous scene; Basic Instinct's most-paused leg-uncrossing moment. While Stone recollects being "tricked" into flashing everything on screen, Verhoeven has a different recollection of filming that scene.

In her memoir, Sharon Stone wrote, "After we shot Basic Instinct, I got called in to see it. Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause, so to speak, but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project. That was how I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I'd been told, "We can't see anything-I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on." Yes, there have been many points of view on this topic, but since I'm the one with the vagina in question, let me say: The other points of view are bullshit."

While being asked about the movie in an interview with Variety, Paul Verhoeven said that he had a very different view. "My memory is radically different from Sharon's memory," the director said. "That does not stand in the way and has nothing to do with the wonderful way that she portrayed Catherine Tramell. She is absolutely phenomenal. We still have a pleasant relationship and exchange text messages. But her version is impossible. She knew exactly what we were doing. I told her it was based on a story of a woman that I knew when I was a student who did the crossing of her legs without panties regularly at parties. When my friend told her we could see her vagina, she said, "Of course, that's why I do it." Then Sharon and I decided to do a similar sequence."

Whatever the truth behind the filming of the scene, there are very few movie scenes that are still talked about and remembered quite as vividly almost 30 years after the film's release as that blink and you miss it moment in Basic Instinct. Unlike some more recent stars, such a Game of Thrones's Nathalie Emmanuel, who have found adverse effects from doing frequent gratuitous nude scenes, namely an expectation that they will do them again in other movies and series', Stone's career at the time seemed to thrive on starring in risqué roles, such as Sliver, and using her sex appeal as much as possible. She even reprised her Basic Instinct role in a so-so belated sequel.

While there are many issues raised about Hollywood through the #MeToo movement, and many attitudes have changed in some ways, if you compare the graphic scenes of sex and nudity used on movies made for streaming platforms such as Netflix, to those of Basic Instinct, you find that perhaps there is not as much changed as some would suggest. Yes, the treatment of cast members, females in particular, may have begun an adjustment, and some of the practices used have certainly been re-assessed, the kind of scenes that made Paul Verhoeven's name are still shifting movies by the millions. In short, sex and violence still sells now just like it did back in 1992.