I'd have been more shocked if the movie hadn't been so invested in protecting the male actors against the rampant objectification of the female bodies (and no, I don't buy the "the film does that because that's the culture it's depicting," you can still do things that curb some of that). I'm with Mr.Midwest in that I think Scorsese thinks we are more shocked than we are; then again, I do think most of America is shocked by this sort of thing.
I didn't mind that the character of Jordan doesn't change, I think that's how a lot of people are, they don't grow or learn from their actions, they see how much they can get away with over and over again. I thought Scorsese did a pretty good job representing that. And yet, there was a sort of ickiness I felt throughout the whole thing in terms of how much I felt Scorsese found these guys sort of cool and awesome as he was criticizing them. Maybe that's the point, I guess, but there wasn't much in way of a critique that I thought audiences would understand. Now, is it Scorsese's job to make an audience understand what he is trying to do? Not necessarily.
I liked the movie (certainly liked it much more than the glorified Lifetime movie-of-the-week DALLAS BUYERS CLUB with its martyrized drag queen and Matthew McConaughey practically begging the audience for an Oscar--sorry, Mr.Midwest, you know I love you). I still think Scorsese needs to be told "no" once in a while, he's just so full of himself as a director. There is no reason the movie, as it stands, needed to be 3 hours long, especially with how much he leaves unexplored. The rumor is that the 5 hour version of the movie was a masterpiece with Thelma Schoonmaker actually saying she thought that version was more complex and precise about its take on what was going on, would actually love to see that version.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"