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It’s the most wonderful time of the year. And if you’re watching “Heated Rivalry” on HBO Max, it’s also the sexiest.
The Canadian ice hockey drama (new episodes streaming Fridays through Dec. 26) has been heating up TV screens over the last several weeks, focusing on the steamy, secret romance between rising star professional hockey players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie). The pair play a cat-and-mouse game of sexual tension, sneaking off to hotel rooms whenever they’re in each other’s orbit as years of hockey seasons go by. There’s nudity and no shortage of sex scenes.
Most TV series cut away from sex, particularly gay sex. If series shows too much sex, it risks accusations of only existing to titillate viewers, or that the show is exploiting actors’ bodies. If it doesn’t focus enough on sex, some will argue it’s treating sex like it’s something to be ashamed of. It’s a fine line.
But the fact a very graphic series featuring gay characters is getting a ton of interest (from a largely female audience, according to the series’ director) suggests maybe we aren’t as sex-averse as some corners of the internet would have us believe. It’s now No. 3 on the HBO Max top 10 charts, as of Dec. 10, up from No. 6 just a week ago. Series of this nature have catapulted into the zeitgeist before – “Queer as Folk,” “True Blood” and more recently “Fellow Travelers” – but not with such meme-worthy content flooding social media feeds fueling its popularity, and not in an era coinciding with the rise of trad wives and more demure young people.
Overall, Americans’ moral views on topics like sex between unmarried men and women and divorce have stabilized or slightly declined over the last few years, according to Gallup. And while 68% of Americans still support same-sex marriage, that’s down from a high of 71% just a few years ago.
Is “Heated Rivalry” hinting at a new era where it’s OK to show and talk about sex, especially gay sex, and buck some of these trends? It’s too soon to say, but experts say the only way to combat concerns about gay sex in particular is to learn about it.
Where does the stigma about gay sex come from?
Anal sex has long been demonized, dating back to religious texts. But “it has been represented in art going back thousands of years, including from Asia, South America and Europe,” Debra Lynne Herbenick, professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health and author of “Yes Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today’s Teens and Sex,” previously told USA TODAY.
The moral stigma has persisted anyway. “Religious discourses that demonize homosexuality and nonreproductive forms of sexual intimacy, in particular, also shape how the public views anal sex,” Cornel Grey, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at Western University in Canada, previously told USA TODAY. “When we talk about the stigmatization of anal sex, we also have to confront homophobic stigma as well.”
What our ‘Heated Rivalry’ obsession says about us
“Heated Rivalry” exposes contradicting conversations about sex in society today. The data doesn’t lie: One in four Gen Z adults haven’t had partnered sex, according to a 2022 Kinsey Institute Survey.
But anecdotally, social media users can’t get enough of “Heated Rivalry.”
“Was hoping I would not fall down the gay smut pipeline but my eyes are not deceiving me,” one X user wrote. “The characters are multi-dimensional, the plot is intense, and the smut? Yeah, I need more.” Another added: “They need to slow it down with this Heated Rivalry content I fear I can’t handle this all at once.”
Audience acceptance of explicit sex and romance scenes between two men is an indication of something, says Michael Bronski, a Harvard University professor and author of “A Queer History of the United States for Young People, but it’s not “as simple as a cultural rebuke to growing conservative elements and ideas in out social and political cultures.”
“That may well be an aspect of it,” he says, but “it is probably a mistake to ascribe a single reason or effect in any aspect of popular culture as the very nature of popular/media culture draws on a wide range of emotions, impulses, ideas and ideologies.” It’s also an outlet for desire and curiosity, and for some, what they can’t, won’t or aren’t allowed to enjoy.
Whatever you think about it, “it is undeniable that ‘Heated Rivalry’ opens diverse, rich conversations about queerness, sexuality and the queerphobia faced by queer professional sports players,” says Melvin Williams, associate professor of communication and media studies at Pace University. Plus, these online reactions to the sex scenes affirm that many are embracing queer sex despite a rise of a more prude culture.
And people aren’t in on it just for the sex. “People love to talk about the spicy scenes with ‘Heated Rivalry,’ but what really gets to me is the genuine tenderness of Ilya & Shane’s relationship,” one X user wrote.
In addition to it being the sexiest time of the year, perhaps it’s also the most thought-provoking.
