Design by Yosef Phelan

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

The 2010s saw eroticism all but disappear from mainstream film, as online discourse became increasingly fixated on whether sex scenes were "necessary" to the plot. Yet while billion-dollar franchises continued to gratuitously parade actors' sculpted bodies – think Chris [insert surname] in [insert superhero film] – actual on-screen sex became surprisingly scarce.

Now, TV and film are horny again! Blockbusters and prestige dramas alike have embraced desire, with 2023 hits such as Poor Things, Oppenheimer and Saltburn helping usher in a welcome return to unapologetically sexy storytelling.

From an LGBTQIA+ perspective, the renaissance has been even more gratifying. For years, intimacy between queer characters was often sanitised through coy cutaways, euphemisms and implication instead of specificity. Over the past few years, however, queer sex has finally been depicted with refreshing authenticity: blowjobs, rimming, anal, armpit-licking, toe-sucking and, crucially, levitation. The accuracy!

Here are the 15 best GBQ male sex scenes of the decade (so far) across 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.