I’ve spent more than enough time watching Netflix during the pandemic, and the steamy scenes have been building over the past couple of years. As a sociologist who studies sexual trends in society, I was delighted to speak to Rosamund Urwin at the Sunday Times in London about this Netflix phenomenon. (And, humble brag here, this was apparently the most popular article the Sunday it was posted this month!)

The article is unfortunately behind a paywall, but I’ve included snippets from the beginning of the article and what I was quoted saying, below.

Rosamund Urwin wrote: In the new Netflix series The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, there’s a sex scene so graphic and lengthy that Kristen Bell, the actress involved, ended up apologising to a viewer.

The coitus uninterruptus begins at the end of the fifth episode. Bell’s character, a lonely alcoholic called Anna, kisses the mysterious “bad boy” Rex on her doorstep. This leads to a sexual smorgasbord — in the shower, on the stairs, in the window seat, on the kitchen table — prompting a fan to tweet: “Just watched Kristen Bell get absolutely RAILED with my girlfriend and my mom in the room.” Bell, 41, replied: “Hahahahaha sorry dude.”

This seems to be a growing danger on Netflix. The comedy-drama Sex Education, a fourth series of which is in the works, began with a ceiling-shaking bang and an explicit sex scene just 30 seconds in. Since then the teenagers of Moordale Secondary School have come together for faked orgasms, full frontal nudity and a masturbatory montage.

…

Has Netflix become Sexflix? “It was always quite sexy but it does feel like there is a lot more sex now — just look at the names of shows,” says Jennifer Gunsaullus, a sociologist and the author of From Madness to Mindfulness: Reinventing Sex for Women. “Netflix is blunt with using sex as a way of getting people’s attention ... We were already building in this direction of more sexual content in our regular viewing — all generations have become more used to porn, especially the young. Watching sex on a screen has become more normalised, especially in the past ten years.”.

…

Gunsaullus believes that lockdown accelerated the trend for people to want vicarious pleasure on screen. In June 2020 365 Days, a Polish erotic drama criticised for glamorising sex trafficking and rape, was a surprise hit for Netflix.

“Even just kissing somebody became dangerous,” Gunsaullus says. “So it’s a combination of factors: the Covid lockdown, porn and our busy lives. There’s also an issue with vulnerability: when it comes to showing up in front of another person, with all of your emotional messiness and bodily insecurities, that is a very vulnerable thing to do and I think as a society we are becoming less skilled at that, especially the younger generations who have this example of porn, and these curated presentations of self through social media.”

She notes that sex-filled Netflix shows roughly split into two categories: those portraying the awkwardness of relationships and intercourse, such as Sex Education, and those offering a dark fantasy, such as 365 Days. “It’s different from the Hollywood version of sex, which is so spontaneous and easily orgasmic, and more romanticised — a frankly unrealistic version of it,” she says. “Instead we are seeing more complexity and awkwardness. But these shows are still reifying this perfect body image, and a lot of them have an old-school bad boy stereotype, which is weird when there’s so much emphasis on consent currently.”

Here’s the article link if you’d like to check it out: Netflix is Now Sexflix - And We’re Gagging for It.

I’d love to know if folks feel like streaming shows have become sexier, and do you like it?

~Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus — San Diego Sexologist, Intimacy Speaker, & Sociologist