Recently, I fell down a TikTok rabbit hole of interviews promoting one of Hollywood’s most popular new shows: “Heated Rivalry.” For those who are unfamiliar, “Heated Rivalry” is a queer romance centered on fictional hockey players Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander. The story follows both of their NHL careers as well as their love affair, unfolding over the span of a decade. As audiences tune in, many viewers have labeled “Heated Rivalry” as a hyper-sexual show, because it is — in the words of the two main stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, “sex sells.” However, after watching Williams (who plays Shane Hollander) in an interview with Andy Cohen, I began to re-evaluate whether it is truly more sexual than other shows dominating the cultural zeitgeist.
The SiriusXM exclusive tackled a variety of topics, but the most interesting to me was one Cohen posited. Cohen noted that many audience members have criticized the “overtly graphic” nature of the show, but he also pointed out a clear double standard when compared to another renowned series, “Bridgerton,” which is also filled with explicit scenes between its two main love interests. Williams responded by explaining that this reaction was something their producer had expected, sharing his frustration with the impulse to view the show as more graphic simply because it features a queer love story. This brings up a good point — why is queer media seen as more graphic or sexual than its heterosexual counterparts, especially when both exist in the same context?
To begin answering this question, we have to travel back to 1934, when the Hays Code was introduced. The code restricted the media from portraying topics like promiscuity or homosexuality in a positive light. As a result, films from the Hays era integrated these themes in roundabout ways, oftentimes fusing the ideas of sex and sexuality together. Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope,” for example, depicts two queer-coded main characters who murder their former classmate by strangling her to death. Banterflix describes the staging of the murder as equivalent to a sex scene, complete with a final shot that mirrors a classic Hollywood image following intimacy: the main character lighting a cigarette.
Even after the Hays Code ended, the stereotypes surrounding queer characters didn’t disappear. Hollywood continued to view promiscuity and queerness as taboo, frequently intertwining them. This pattern appears across film and television from the 1970s onward, with one of the more recent examples including gay and lesbian relationships in CW’s hit series “Riverdale.” In the show, one of the few prominent queer characters is Kevin Keller. Kevin’s storyline and personality are defined by his sexual relationships, with one episode even revolving around his late-night hookups in the middle of the woods, reinforcing the fact that Hollywood frames both his gayness and his lust as something shameful. But that’s not all; “Riverdale” also incorporates multiple same-sex kisses purely for shock value. These moments, often between Betty and Veronica, are intended to be shockingly erotic, leveraging lesbian kisses as a way to boost ratings.
Looking at our broader cultural progression, queer relationships were largely unaccepted for much of modern history. In the U.S., same-sex marriage was only legalized nationwide in 2015, and even to this day, these rights continue to be challenged. Tragically, many of the few “accepted” forms of explicit queer media have been used to serve heterosexual audiences, a poignant example being the popularity of lesbian pornography among straight men. This reflects a continuation of the longstanding pattern in which queerness is conflated with eroticism. Conversely, sex in film has become increasingly normalized, with popular media like “Fifty Shades of Grey” helping to push discussions around sex further into the mainstream. As a result, on-screen intimacy, especially within heterosexual relationships, has grown to be more widely acceptable and less culturally taboo.
To recap: Historically, sex and sexuality were viewed as risqué topics. During the Hays Code period, these two themes were often intertwined, a legacy that continues to shape how both current media and audiences approach intimacy on screen. While portrayals of heterosexual sex are becoming more normalized in mainstream media, queer relationships and identities are not — at least not at the same rate. All together, these factors result in a cultural landscape that views straight intercourse on TV as commonplace, while queer intimacy is often considered to be too graphic, despite consisting of largely the same content.
At this point, you might be asking why this long detour into censorship within our social climate matters. To answer the central question of this article, we must understand how we got here. Even as heterosexual intimacy in mainstream media becomes increasingly normalized, the stereotype equating queerness to promiscuity lingers, shaping how audiences perceive queer stories today. This culminates in exactly what both Cohen and Williams were so frustrated by — that “Heated Rivalry” is perceived to be more scandalous than comparable shows revolving around straight couples, such as “Bridgerton.”
Now, the question remains: Is “Heated Rivalry” really that sexual? I’d say the answer is yes.
In a separate interview with Them, Williams emphasized that the show’s sexual content is not only important, but tied to the progression of the plot. “… In Episode 1, I think it’s like 29% intimate scenes. So some people could be like, ‘Oh, so that means there’s 71% story.’ But that’s not true. Most of the story is in that 29%.”
“Heated Rivalry” is undeniably a sexually charged show, with its central relationship at the forefront of the intimacy. However, I believe the show is not as explicit as many critics claim. My mind goes back to that original SiriusXM interview, where Williams pointed out an important detail: There’s no visible genitalia in the show, and if the same scenes starred a straight couple, the backlash wouldn’t exist in the first place. This observation alone suggests that we need to shift our mindsets and acknowledge that media featuring straight couples is often just as, if not more, graphic, yet rarely receives the same level of scrutiny.