Is There Too Much Sex on TV? We Asked A Sexologist

It’s an age-old question that has worried TV critics and parents alike: how much sex is too much sex? We’re all fans of seeing hot actors getting down and dirty, and shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld have been happy to deliver. Even network shows like How to Get Away with Murder haven’t been shy about showing their own surprisingly heated moments, and  streaming services, like Netflix’s Easy, have actually made sexually explicit content even more common. In short, modern television hasn’t held back when it comes to sexiness. But what impact does seeing all of these steamy scenes have on us? And is there such a thing as watching too much sex?

“If there really is no good plot line that’s engaging folks then, yeah, it’s just going to be like porn,” sociologist and sexologist Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus told Decider. “If we want to get off, we go to porn or erotica. But we watch our TV shows because we really want to be engaged and care about the characters and the story line.”

Gunsaullus isn’t necessarily drawing a line and saying porn is bad. Far from it. Depending on the couple, she sometimes recommends her clients watch porn and erotica together. But where porn can be pure sex, fiction needs to be held to a higher standard. Highlighting the 2011 comedy Bridesmaids, Gunsaullus noted a depressingly relatable sex scene between Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm. In the scene, Hamm is clearly “into it,” while Wiig is not. “It’s not unusual for women to take a while for their bodies to really warm up, especially before you move to intercourse,” Gunsaullus says.

Though Gunsaullus knows that shows and movies can’t logistically show 10-minute sex scenes, there needs to be a middle ground between reality and erotica. “Certainly our media and our movies present kind of the porn, easy version of sex, and that’s really not what it is,” Gunsaullus adds. “That’s partly connected to our high divorce rate because people don’t have the skills to talk about [mismatched desire levels] and they’re embarrassed and they’re uncomfortable and they feel guilty and they feel rejected. It’s just so complicated, and our media is absolutely a piece of that.”

And then of course there’s the issue of sexual violence on television. Game of Thrones has always received a deserved amount of criticism for the way it depicts sexual violence and sex scenes through a male gaze. But outrage over a scene that featured the villainous character Ramsay Bolton raping his new wife, Sansa Stark, sent fans over the edge. That criticism led director Jeremy Poeswa to reveal that the creators, “were responsive to the discussion and there were a couple of things that changed as a result.”

Conversely Westworld has always taken care to present its sexual violence and the questionable sex acts between its robotic hosts and human visitors in a way that’s more horrific that exploitative. And in Season 2, the series plans to make the nudity between its male and female characters equal.

There has been a rise of sex scenes on mainstream television told through the lens of female characters. The best example of this is undoubtedly STARZ’s smash hit historical romance, Outlander. The show’s very first episode opens with Caitriona Balfe‘s Claire telling her partner exactly what she wants him to do. “We’re so used to seeing women being objectified, as objects of desire of men, but it’s rare when you see a woman owning her sexuality, directing it, orchestrating the sequence of events,” Balfe told Vulture.

American Gods was also widely praised for its vast array of intimate and nuanced sex scenes. But the winner of the best female-first sex scenes may go to Showtime. From The Affair to SMILF, the premium cable channel has been aggressively active when it comes to showing sex from a woman’s perspective. In a panel that included stars from Shameless, The Affair, and Masters of Sex, Shameless star Emmy Rossum praised the use of sex on these shows. “It’s about power, insecurity or maybe to feel good. These women don’t show it in a gratuitous way,” she said.

Even shows that are already good at portraying sex are working to become better. Insecure, a show that has always presented its many empowering and steamy scenes with its female leads front and center, recently came under fire for its lack of condoms in a sex scene. Instead of defending the scene as an artistic choice, show creator and star Issa Rae tweeted, “We tend to place condoms in the backgrounds of scenes or imply them. But we hear you guys and will do better next season.”

There’s an unexpected benefit to having so much sex in mainstream pop culture. It lets people discover and own up to their kinks. After the rise of the 50 Shades franchise, Gunsaullus noticed an increase in clients who were more willing to talk about BDSM. On a broader cultural level, a single HBO show — Girls — was almost single-handedly responsible for questioning and reconstructing what authentic sex could look like. Sex on TV matters, but according to Gunsaullus, it’s unlikely that you’ve seen too much of it.

“There definitely is a difference in being in our own sexual encounter,” Gunsaullus says. “[It is] a completely different experience than anything you’re going to watch on television. Like anything, we can become over-saturated with [sex], and it becomes less interesting. But … you just take six months off from it, and you’re probably going to be back to your starting point.”

Turns out, that long break between seasons of Game of Thrones might be a good thing.