They’ve been called “bizarre.” They’re “the wildest sex scenes of any movie in years,” according to Slate. And they’ve certainly generated an audience reaction, as anyone who saw the movie in theaters can attest. But are Saltburn’s bathwater-slurping and grave-fucking sequences really all that scandalous? If anything, the discourse-generating moments are a sad reminder that even a little bit of nudity now registers as provocative. When Florence Pugh showed up half-naked in Oppenheimer earlier this year, we talked about it for a whole week; if the same scene had been in a ’90s movie, I feel like we would have barely batted an eye.
To be clear, I don’t think sex scenes have to be everyone’s cup of tea. I’m glad that actresses, especially, are pushing back on demands to do nudity, and I believe that intimacy coordinators are an undeniable asset on sets. When I hear that Gen Z wants to see less sex on screen, as one UCLA study found, I don’t immediately balk: Human experience is broad, and there’s plenty of room for stories that don’t focus on boning. And yet, most people do have sex, so it seems odd that we’re now in an era when a little cinematic semen is enough to send everyone atwitter.
And not to overintellectualize the simple pleasures of T&A, but these scenes matter for queer people especially. As someone raised in a shame-based American religious tradition, I certainly didn’t learn anything about sex at home, nor do we have great sex education in our schools. Movies like But I’m a Cheerleader and Mulholland Drive were some of my first introductions to sapphic intimacy. Film is an art form, and it should be free to explore the ways we connect with each other, in all of their multiplicity. So in the interest of reminding us all of an era when a little cum could be drunk on screen, I’ve assembled a list of seven movies with incredible queer sex scenes that didn’t send us into a panic.
Tangerine (2015)
The sex scene: In Sean Baker’s modern-day indie classic, transgender sex worker Alexandra (Mya Taylor) receives oral sex from her cab driver John, Razmik (Karren Karagulian), in a car wash. You can still watch the entire scene here.
Nakedness level: Zero, and yet it’s still funnier and more provocative than many modern-day sex scenes. Let’s just say the car wash tells you everything you need to know about what’s happening outside the frame.
Shortbus (2006)
The sex scene(s): How much time do you have? John Cameron Mitchell’s cult classic is packed with “unsimulated” sex scenes — the term for when the actors are actually doing it on camera. The “Parents Guide” for this one on IMDb might as well be Anna Karenina, that’s how long it is. But perhaps the most memorable scene is a literal orgy. Sacré bleu!
Nakedness level: If you can imagine it, it’s in there.
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
The sex scene: Timothée Chalamet fucks a peach. (That’s it, that’s the tweet.) Seriously, though, this one should probably make people gasp more than the Saltburn bathtub scene. At least Barry Keoghan’s character is just having a simple cocktail of bath water and cum. Something about fruit juice on genitals feels much more visceral than that. And in case you somehow missed it, this scene inspired a classic piece of Gonzo journalism with the headline: “I Tried the Call Me by Your Name Peach Scene and It Was Amazing.”
Nakedness level: Nothing graphic in this scene. The peach is naked, though.
Rotting in the Sun (2023)
The sex scene: This movie is a reminder that Saltburn got such a reaction out of people mostly because it was available on a major streamer. Queer cinephiles who were keeping up with smaller fare like Rotting in the Sun and Passages got treated to a wide array of LGBTQ+ intimacy on screen in 2023. There’s a fair amount of unsimulated sex in this dark comedy, but Jordan Firstman’s blowjob scene is probably the highlight here. It’s um, very graphic. As Firstman himself told Variety, “I have cocks down, down, down my throat. My cock is in somebody’s throat. The guy who plays the cock I sucked has a beautiful cock.” Poetry!
Nakedness level: If you took a shot every time Sebastián Silva walked past a dick on the cruising beach in this movie, you’d have to go to the hospital.
Stranger by the Lake (2013)
The sex scene: Continuing on the cruising beach theme, this French indie horror flick has more gay sex than the human mind can comprehend — and we have vivid imaginations! Honestly, take this quote from the IMDb Parents Guide and put it on the poster: “Nearly every shot is filled with fully nude men.” Perhaps most notably, there’s a barebacking scene! Yee-haw!
Nakedness level: If you played the Rotting in the Sun drinking game I just invented with this movie, you wouldn’t just go to the hospital, you’d literally die.
Bound (1996)
The sex scene: The Matrix is pretty great but Bound is hands down my favorite film by the Wachowskis. A lesbian neo-noir starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon? They don’t make ’em like this anymore. Best of all? Bound features an all-too-rare scissoring scene between the aforementioned actresses. It’s also just a really fucking good movie.
Nakedness level: There’s an unrated version out there with boobs in it, but the theatrical cut is plenty hot anyway.
The Handmaiden (2016)
The sex scene(s): OK, so maybe this one did inspire some discourse, but certainly not Saltburn levels of dialogue. Park Chan-wook’s lesbian revenge thriller turned the sex scene into an elaborately orchestrated art form, showing us Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) and her maid Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) scissoring and fingering and doing oral sex in all sorts of configurations. The over-the-topness of the sex generated a lot of criticism, but I personally land on the side of: It’s hot and good and “male gaze” discourse has kind of reached the end of its usefulness.
Nakedness level: Extreme.
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