Design by Chyna Sudbury

The industry’s sanitised, sexless era has finally fizzled out.

The 2010s witnessed a sharp decline in erotic mainstream filmmaking, fuelled by increased online scrutiny over whether sex scenes were “necessary” to drive the plot forward. While billion-dollar franchises didn’t hesitate to gratuitously flaunt actors’ ripped bodies — think Chris [insert any last name here, honestly] in [again, insert any superhero film] — genuine on-screen raunchiness took a noticeable hiatus.

Now, TV and film are horny again. 2023 smash hits such as Oscar-nominated dramas Poor Things and Oppenheimer, alongside Emerald Fennell’s bathtub thriller Saltburn, have all contributed to the industry’s renewed embrace of on-screen desire.

And from an LGBTQIA+ perspective, the sex is better than ever. For years, intimate scenes between queer characters were often straight-washed: cutaways, euphemism, suggestion in place of specificity. This past year, however, has seen queer sex depicted with refreshing precision — blowjobs, rimming, anal, armpit-licking, toe-sucking and, crucially, levitation. The accuracy… wow!

Here, we’re celebrating the 15 best GBQ male sex scenes of the decade (so far) in television and film.

All of Us Strangers (Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott)

Paul Mescal telling Andrew Scott that he’s been “thinking about sucking” his “cock” is the queer art that Megami was saying we need to “protect” on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Give Megami her flowers! In Andrew Haigh’s fantasy romance All of Us Strangers, Adam, a screenwriter, falls for his cheeky and mysterious neighbour Harry at the same time as he discovers his long-dead parents seemingly alive and well in his childhood home. (A rather eventful week for one person, eh?) Scott and Mescal’s chemistry is indisputable, particularly in their first intimate scene. With the two actors passionately caressing each other’s thighs before Harry performs fellatio (we’re using classy words, for now) on Adam, it’s steamy as hell, while also perfectly capturing the awkwardness and excitement of a first sexual encounter. Nude and sex scenes can often be gratuitous, but here, the sex is instrumental in depicting the blossoming romance between two rather lonely people. The Academy Awards are such a flop for snubbing this film.