When, about an hour into the 2026 rom-com The Love Hypothesis, Adam Carlsen whispers, “You’re edible, Olive,” and puts his face between her legs, I impulsively screamed. I was expecting a sex scene at some point—it is an R rated rom-com in the year 2026, of course there would be one—but I was not expecting that.
For me, watching The Love Hypothesis was a blind date. I have never read the book (I stay away from books with cartoon covers for my own sanity) and had zero idea what it was about except for two scientists fake dating. I tuned in solely because of my near decade long obsession with Lili Reinhart as I am a firm believer that anything she touches turns to gold. She could star in a Chevy commercial, and I would never fast forward.
As suspected, Reinhart was brilliant: hilarious, beautiful, emotionally raw. And I could spend hours and pages writing about how I admire her microexpressions and envy her beauty, but instead I am going to talk about how edible her character, Olive Smith, apparently is.
More specifically, I want to talk about how this scene made me think of the argument that is always floating around the internet: some variation of “a sex scene is never necessary.” I have always tended to be fairly in favor of this argument. I do not usually find myself watching films with sex scenes, and the ones that I have watched were ones that I went into knowing “this is a bad film with bad sex scenes” (After and Fifty Shades of Grey, for example). It’s also important to note that, because they are romantic “will they or won’t they”’ films, sex is a large selling point to audiences. They are here for the dramatic relationship, they are here for the sex. In my humble opinion, a film that markets itself with both “Will these two characters get together?” (yes, obviously) and sex almost always has bad, unnecessary sex scenes. After’s Tessa and Harden have sex at Tessa’s workplace simply for shock value. Anastasia and Christian from Fifty Shades of Grey have loud sex on a table while their friends sleep upstairs. They also smear Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on each other during this for product placement, but that’s another story.
I use both of these films as an example because of the nature surrounding the leading couples: both relationships center around violence, abuse, and emotional turmoil. This makes scenes where they are the most vulnerable one can be with each other feel icky, inappropriate and, the word of the day, unnecessary. Of course, that is not the case for sex scenes in every film, even ones in these types of “will they/won’t they” movies, but I believe that it is the popularity of films like the After and Fifty Shades series that have built a stigma around the sex scene. The sex adds nothing to these films, the main characters still hate each other by the end, and it all winds up feeling exploitative, especially when we tend to see all of the woman’s body and none of the man’s. Yet they are the mainstream. People’s minds go to films like these, and they are put off of sex scenes entirely.
That is why I was perplexed when, after the sex scene in The Love Hypothesis, I was not left feeling disgusted or annoyed. Shocked, definitely (I was not expecting him to call her edible), but I almost found the scene…necessary? We saw that these characters, who up until this point were fake dating and ready to end it, actually had feelings for each other. We saw that the emotionless, standoffish man was actually gentle, caring, and—to keep it somewhat PG—a giver. We saw the reserved Olive, terrified of vulnerability and rejection, initiate and take control. What’s more is that we saw none of Olive, but we saw Adam’s butt! A surprising yet welcome win.
I suppose there is no such thing as a “necessary scene” as the grounds for what is needed are all opinions based. I do not think that the opening scene of the monkeys from 2001: A Space Odyssey was necessary, but it remains iconic to this day. I do not think the violence of seeing Sarah’s head be completely bashed in was a necessary scene in Obsession but, like sex, violence sells. And maybe I know nothing about movies! Maybe these scenes were absolutely crucial to the final cuts and they make the plots what they are. But when done right, sex scenes can be crucial too. The problem is that they are often done wrong, because wrong can be hot. Audiences find it far more attractive for Christian Grey to tie Anastasia up, touch her once, and then have sex with her than if they were to end up in bed together in a more natural way. Film requires the suspension of disbelief, even when regarding something so real and vulnerable. And that is where the label of unnecessary comes in: people are tired of it.
I can admit, I’m tired too. The female body is being exploited, sex is being tied to abuse, and unhealthy and dangerous acts are being shown to viewers as normal: in the previously mentioned Ben and Jerry’s scene, Christian eats ice cream before going down on Anastasia. Not edible! In fact, very unhygienic. But that is overshadowed because audiences are being told to use their suspension of disbelief to find this attractive. I do not.
Also unattractive, though, is the conservative energy that the anti-sex scene argument evokes. In today’s age where the trad-wife aesthetic is regaining popularity and a sense of purity culture seems to be on the rise, I think it is more important than ever for movies to portray accurate sex scenes and for audiences to embrace them. When done right, they can be educational, character building and, sue me, entertaining. The Love Hypothesis, in my opinion, succeeded at this, and I hope that films will only continue to get better in this regard.
And now that I got that off my chest, I am going to go send a strongly worded email to Ben and Jerry’s.