Does the Plot Sell the Sex?
IN DEFENSE OF DEPICTING QUEER SEX IN MEDIA EVEN AND ESPECIALLY IN WAYS PEOPLE DON'T LIKE
This is the first in a multi-part series about the sex in Heated Rivalry, queer sex in American culture and media overall, and what the reception (and rejection) of it says about us
Heated Rivalry has rapidly taken the world by sensual burning storm, keeping millions of us captive in ways that everyone is still trying to breathlessly grapple with. One of the most titillating aspects of the show, or points of contention depending on who you ask, is its explicit sex.
Overall, it seems that many are receiving the sex scenes of Heated Rivalry pretty well, no pun intended. There’s an understanding that they play a role in series and add to the story, and are by on their own merit pretty fucking hot. But for others, even ones open to the existence of sex scenes, the question was if it was necessary for the sex to be so graphic and happen so often, and if this graphic and copious amounts of sex serves the plot.
It’s unsurprising as this is a common line of questioning for media like this. Detractors, critics and fans alike are even referring to the sex in the show as pornography. I saw a video by someone criticizing the sex as being unethical, calling for audiences to watch ethical pornography “instead.” Well-meaning fans defending the show of the pornography accusation ardently with “It’s not about the sex, the sex doesn’t even matter, you could remove it from the show altogether! It’s about more than the sex, it’s about romance and love!”
I won’t lie, as an experienced connoisseur of everything horny and queer, even I am surprised at how explicit and gay the sex is in the show. Not because I didn’t want it be or I thought it shouldn’t be included, that’s the opposite of how I feel, but specifically as it relates to how popular Heated Rivalry has been with mainstream audiences because (or despite?) the explicit gay sex. Regardless, the inclusion of the sex and what it looks like in the show absolutely makes sense to the story being told. It’s about two young men who meet as teenage rivals in opposing hockey teams falling in love with each other. That typically includes forbidden sex in all its many awkward forms that it will happen when you are young, gay, closeted and so fucking attracted to a slow fucking Autistic hockey player with a weak backhand (who’s actually the opposite of that) or a mean beautiful cocky Russian with totally understandable mommy and daddy (and hockey, and brother, and Russia) issues.
Not only does the sex in the show make sense, I don’t agree with calling the sex of the show pornography of any kind.
In saying this it’s not that I believe pornography, sex in media, smut, or erotica are bad, because they aren’t. They’re all varied parts of an ecosystem of erotic and sexual desire, labor, and performance. I understand all these factions as meaningfully distinct from each other in important ways even if they still have relationships to one another.
One of the key ways they differ is by their reception in society and the scrutiny they come under. We are in a worsening ultra right wing political climate where pornography, conflated with trans people , is being declared more loudly as deviant and bad for children, requiring to be moderated out of legible existence. The opportunistic and disingenuous hand-wringing is used to police under the false pretenses of safety for minors in a way that’s dangerous for all of us, but especially so for those in the adult film industry and the queer community. Porn is being itself policed and censored and being used to further police and censor other communities that were already far on the margins of society. Online censorship of this kind and increased surveillance disproportionately affects queer uses on the internet broadly. ‘
Given all this, it’s irresponsible to call the Heated Rivalry pornography, especially when so many hate and disparage pornography, sex work and the people who do it. I say none of this to put down the show as no one associated with it have made any of the prior conflations or remarks nor was it created or filmed with any of this in mind, but to name this is meaningfully different from the positive reception and attention Heated Rivalry is getting.
All of this relates to why people are reacting to the sex in the show the way they are. Pornography, smut, erotica, sex in movies and tv shows, are being lumped together because it all deals with sex. This conflation is misguided and rooted in a simplistic and puritanical approach to sex that comes from how a conservative Christian society sees all forms of sex. They flatten and reduce anything sexual or erotic as sex, and any sex outside of cisgender heterosexual marriage as degeneracy. Anything outside of their purview and definition becomes deviant and extreme. So, everything sex, explicit or otherwise, MUST be pornographic, especially if it is titillating or horny. And if the sex is pornographic, it must be bad, or it’s hot but it isn’t plot, and therefore is irrelevant to the plot.
We shouldn’t fall for this reductive approach to sex in the media. Different forms and practices of sex shouldn’t be seen as interchangeable or “the same.” We also shouldn’t ask if the sex serves the plot, or whether it distracts from it.
We should ask if the plot serves, or sells, the sex.
In media depictions of sexual eroticism, titillation or arousal, the crafting of plot so as to adeptly create the story and fantasy integral to the sex is important. The play, the set up and performance around the sex needs to be done well for the act to be compelling, relative to the sex.
The sex in Heated Rivalry is graphic (in a good way), and it isn’t too much or useless at all. It isn’t so easily removed from the love story and intimacy of the show, or that it should be. The romance is interwoven with the sex. As such the sex is actually very necessary to the characters, and the plot does a good job of making sure they all work in concert with each other.
When Ilya and Shane have their first sexual spark in the gym, Ilya cruises Shane in an environment that is common for queer men to pick each other up for casual sex. He is inviting and flirtatious while Shane, flustered and confused, not fully understanding his own feelings, still senses his curiosity and attraction to Ilya. This continues in the gym showers later on where Ilya strokes himself in Shane’s view, raising his brows as if saying “You want?” This is a well-done sex scene that is set up and served by the plot. It’s also really fucking hot because how the titular actors, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, engaged with the writing of this explicit scene and portrayed it well through their astounding acting.
When Shane and Ilya have penetrative sex for the first time, you see a care and intimacy that is up to that point uncharacteristic of their dynamic, which was established as no-strings-attached, risky, thrill-seeking. Afterwards when they are laying in bed Shane nuzzles Ilya and lays an affectionate kiss on his head which immediately sets alarms in Ilya who is afraid of what this growing sweetness between them could lead to. This is well-depicted sex set up by the plot.
When Ilya wins MVP after months of ignoring Shane’s texts, we watch as he switches into an emotionally-removed dominant sexual stance wherein he tells Shane what to do. They once again have explicit but no-strings-attached sex with the difference being this time it bothers them both when it is done, with Ilya staring motionless from his bed, staring blankly across the room, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips denoting a lack of spark, the lit cigarette already established a metaphor for the spark he has with Shane, a connection he didn’t get with this encounter. On Shane’s part, confused while leaving, not fully getting what was bothering him at first and only realizing it when he wanted to text Ilya “We didn’t even kiss.” The sex—it’s lack of intimacy, Ilya reverting to the type of dangerous emotionless, no-strings-attach risk sex he had with Sasha as a poor attempt to push down his feelings, Shane’s upset at that—is well-depicted sex and set up by the plot.
I could go on and on and on because the entirety of the sex in the show follows this same pattern. The sex is hot and valid on its own, but the plot and the acting is telling you how to understand their sexual encounters, and how quickly they move into a shared adoration that is romantic and affectionate at its core. All of the sex is essential to the story and made so by the plot. There’s no divorcing the two.
Whether within a loving relation or cruising and fucking, when queer people do any or both, is fucking rad. People have been asking what the appeal is for so many women, and I can say definitely for myself as a queer woman it’s because gay sex is super hot and cool. There could always be way, way more gay sex in things even beyond media.
This gets into the heart of why I am bothered by those who wish to sever the relationship the plot has to the (gay) sex. Whether or not gay sex, even queer sexuality, expression and genders, should or can be portrayed, if and how they are, has been a huge part of our fight for dignity and social and artistic freedom and liberation for decades, as well as how we subvert mainstream culture. Our communities’ sexualities, stories, expression and existence has quite literally experienced repression, policing, censure and destruction, again conflated with deviant sex as defined by a white, puritanical, punitive, cis heterosexual society. We are still facing that repression and policing now.
We have made such strides to push back and be able to tell the stories of our communities and show how we have sex and make love (which I also agree that’s gross to say but work with me here), whatever. We all should refuse to cede that ground.
Could the sex of Heated Rivalry have been less explicit and still be decent because it is so well-written? Probably. Would Storrie and Williams have knocked it out of the park even if it had less sex? I have no doubt. But not only would it have been Bad from a political and historic standpoint to remove the sex, the show wouldn’t be nearly as good without it. It wouldn’t have struck the cord it has or inspired the collective obsessive and fervor in our cultural consciousness. It would have been significantly less hot, sexy, emotional, intense and deep without the sex.
Heated Rivalry has elicited this response from people specifically because of how well the sex is served by a well-written plot. They go together to tell a story we’re all enamored and collectively obsessive over. You do not have to be turned on or interested in the sex (though I’d ask you to interrogate why that is). You do have to understand its contextual and historical relevance, understand why it’s there, and what the plot is communicating through it.
The hard, pounding truth is we love the rough, horny and hungering nature of the sex Ilya and Shane first had and watching it change into a more intimate and gentle sex filled with love and affection (while still dripping with desire). Either way you slice it the sex is necessarily weaved into the story like it is in our lives. You cannot escape the fact that ultimately the plot needs to sell the sex to make both better and more compelling.