‘Pose’s Frank Conversation About Sex Is a Must Watch

Sex on television typically falls into one of two categories: It can either be a steamy and emotional raunch-fest; or a finger-wagging after school special. But in the second episode of Season 2 Pose managed to deftly blend those two extremes. Pose’s sexy, yet frank explanation of the dangers of sex is something more shows should try to emulate, and a scene everyone needs to watch. Spoilers ahead for Pose Season 2 Episode 2. 

Written by Janet Mock and directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton, “Worth It” starts with one of the sexiest hookups a Ryan Murphy-produced series has ever seen. After spending months away from his boyfriend, Ricky (Dyllón Burnside) finally returns from his time touring with singer Al B. Sure! His reunion with the sweet Damon (Ryan Jamaal Swain) is everything you could want in a sex scene. It’s passionate, perfectly lit, and emotional to the point of heart-breaking. The scene is so tender, the identity politics around Ricky and Damon being two black, gay men disappear. In that moment they’re just two people who deeply love each other.

However, what follows makes “Worth It” revolutionary. While Damon and Ricky have been basking in the joys of young love, their house mother Blanca (MJ Rodriguez) has been living in a very different reality. “Acting Up” saw Blanca and Pray Tell (Billy Porter) attending funeral after funeral for fallen members of their community. Almost all of these tragic deaths and these hasty funerals are the result of the AIDs epidemic. As Blanca and Pray Tell mourn over body after body, they can’t shake the sense of impending doom lurking over them. They both know they’re living with the same disease that’s murdering their friends, and only time will tell if either of them will be next.

As they’re surrounded by more death, Blanca and Pray Tell start to see an HIV positive status as preventable. So when Blanca learns that Damon and Ricky have been having unprotected sex, she loses her cool and immediately busts out the cucumber and the condom.

Blanca’s demonstration and her casual lube recommendations are immediately met with peels of laughter from her children. The whole scene — which clearly shows Blanca rolling a condom onto the vegetable — is played for uncomfortable laughs, much like how any teenager would act if their mother was to give them the sex talk. It’s only Indya Moore’s Angel who snaps the House of Evangelista and Pose as a whole back to the gravity this subject requires.

“Shut your mouths,” Angel demands. “You think you’re so special, this thing is just going to skip on over you but you’re not. … Tell them.”

That’s when Blanca launches into telling her children arguably the hardest confession of her life. She’s HIV positive, and during a time when their community is plagued by needless death, she could be next. “You boys are young, black, gay, and poor,” Blanca says. “This world despises you. You get this disease, you die. They feel relieved that you’re getting what you deserved and living in a world like that can make you feel desperate for love.”

There’s so much in Blanca’s confession to her children, which is played gorgeously by Rodriguez. Just reframing her past one-night stands as attempts to feel love instead of sources of shame is powerful. Throughout her admission Blanca is never judgmental about sex or cruel to her past self. She simply acknowledges that she was using sex in a way that wasn’t personally healthy and that she was using it to validate her own self-worth. The way Blanca explains it sex isn’t inherently bad. Being HIV positive isn’t bad. But having sex in an unhealthy manner is bad.

“Look, I don’t want none of y’all to not love y’allselves. That was my problem, my mistake. And sometimes it still is. But no more. No more,” Blanca concludes.

This is how every conversation about sex should be: insightful, personal, frank about the risks involved, helpful in how to prevent those risks, and wholly accepting. So often that is never the case. The way sex is presented to younger people in America is confusing in the most generous of terms. While so many shows, movies, and ads make it out to be a blissful wonderland, discussing the contraceptives that ensure safe sex are often ignored at best or actively discouraged at worst.

And yet Pose just combined its steamiest episode with one of the most wholesome, heartfelt, and necessary safe sex explanations ever scripted. There are a million reasons why Pose is one of the greatest shows currently on television. But with its safe sex conversation, it’s become even more of a must-watch.

New episodes of Pose premiere on FX Tuesdays at 10/9c.

Where to stream Pose