The Evolution of TV Sex Scenes, and Why Buffy’s “Smashed” Is Still the Gold Standard
Photo Courtesy of 20th Television
If the Family Guy theme song is to be believed, sex on TV is as pervasive as it is explicit—and maybe, at some point over the show’s tenure, that was true. But while HBO and other cable networks started a tidal wave of titillating television in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the modern state of sex on television is in an entirely different place. All it takes is a casual visit to Twitter to see that TV fans are more at odds than ever over whether or not sex scenes have a place on TV at all. While some argue ardently that it’s a cheap and exploitative shortcut to viewership, there’s also a healthy contingent of audiences eager for their favorite characters to get R-rated.
But while there doesn’t seem to be a quantitative decrease in the volume of sex scenes being produced, it’s undeniable that the quality of these sequences doesn’t quite make optimal use of what a good sex scene in a TV show can and should do for the narrative and tone, not just to make a must-watch moment. Yes, Euphoria, The Idol, and Game of Thrones all featured a number of prominent (and often questionable) sex scenes, but when it comes to mastering the sex scene as a crucial element for both entertainment and narrative purposes, you’ll have to wind the clock back a few decades to find the best of the best—and no TV show did sex scenes quite like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Admittedly, Buffy probably isn’t the knee-jerk name that comes to mind when you think of shows with great sex scenes—after all, at least for the first few seasons, the majority of the characters were in high school, and not quite at the gratuitous-nude-scenes age (the show airing on broadcast network The WB for a majority of its tenure also did not make for wall-to-wall nudity). But even once Buffy and co. were off to college, the show didn’t lean on nudity as a crutch to make sex scenes impactful once they did come around. Instead, Buffy treated sex scenes as the major character beats that they are, using the show’s signature dialogue and flair for massive emotional shifts to give intimate moments the proper punch.
Over her seven-season journey, Buffy had plenty of romantic partners—and with each new man in her life, the show catered the tone and pacing of those sex scenes to further emphasize Buffy’s relationship to that particular character. After flirting with danger in Season 1 with Angel, her first time with him ends in heartbreak— she wakes up alone and devastated, having realized that because he found true happiness with her, Angel lost his soul just moments after they had sex.
Of course, there was a pit stop with the lunkish Riley and his repressed vanilla tastes, but even his questionable love scenes with Buffy were in service of what ended up being one of the show’s most memorable moments ever—Buffy and Spike’s first time. Even the Spike and Buffy slow-burn romance is one that’s hard to picture happening in the modern TV landscape. With shows getting axed in their second or third seasons, it’s impossible to deliver the kind of emotional catharsis of a five or six-season romance we’ve been waiting on—but Buffy knew how powerful the tension bubbling between Buffy and Spike had been, and used those years of “will they/won’t they” as the fuel behind the building-destroying sex scene in Season 6’s “Smashed.”
Buffy’s sixth season is notorious for its big narrative swings and shocking moments, but even an already-wary audience couldn’t have predicted the sudden (but also somehow inevitable) encounter between Buffy and Spike that ended with a building coming down around them. The episode kicks off with Spike (who’s been neutered thus far by a chip in his brain which prevents him from preying on humans) suddenly able to attack Buffy again; he spends the episode taunting her and savoring his newfound ability to once again get his licks in on The Slayer.
At this point in the series, we have known for at least a season that Spike is harboring some not-so-subtle feelings for Buffy, but the idea of her reciprocating (even in just a physical sense) always seemed like a low Buffy would never stoop to—after all, he’s a vile, immoral creature of the night who she’s dedicated her life to destroying. But as Season 6 creeps on and on and Buffy grapples with dying and coming back to life, her previously-established boundaries begin to crumble around her, allowing for Spike to worm his way under her skin.