TV

6 TV Shows That Got Lesbian Sex Right

Lesbian sex. It’s a phrase so fraught with tawdry confusion that Google won’t even autocomplete it. (Instead, they’ll give you a choice between “lesbian seagull” and “lesbian senator.”) And corporate firewalls block websites that talk about it because they assume you’re trying to watch porn at work. It’s both bewildering and infuriating. We live in a culture so saturated with sex that the best way to sell a burrito is to simulate a hot chick giving it a blow job in an animated advertising GIF. But “lesbian sex” makes the internet go haywire.

And even though we’ve come a long way in terms of gay lady visibility on TV, lesbian sex also seems to bamboozle writers and directors. Most TV shows with lesbian characters subscribe to the idea that lesbians either get off by fully-clothed cuddling, or that whatever it is they do to get off is so brazen that middle America would burst into flames if they saw a hint of it on television.

Thankfully, there have been a handful of programs that have done lesbian sex right. Here are six of them. Grey’s Anatomy The Grey’s Anatomy formula of success is: Medical Terror + Sex + (Talking About Feelings x 100) = Millions of Viewers. Callie and Arizona are a shining example of that math. Take this season, for example. After surviving a plane crash, Arizona lost her leg. (Medical Terror) But that hasn’t stopped Callie from loving her and needing and wanting her. Wanting-wanting her. (Sex) But Arizona has struggled mightily to meet Callie’s needs and to reconnect with her wife sexually. And so they have processed the hell out of their feelings. (x 100) It’s actually been rather wonderful to see the show explore the very natural, very real sexual desires in a lesbian relationship, and the complications that arise from insecurity, resentment, depression, and occasional loss of limb. It’s also wildly rewarding to see them overcome those challenges together. It’s exactly how Grey’s would have treated Meredith and Derek if one of them had had to chop off the other’s arm. Lost Girl When the lead character of your sci-fi show is a bisexual succubus who feeds off of sexual energy, there are a gazillion ways you could take it to an exploitative place really quickly. One of the oldest queer TV tropes says: Bisexual women will do anything, because bisexual women will do anything. It’s demeaning also it’s inaccurate. But in three seasons, Bo Dennis hasn’t fallen into that tired cliche at all. Yes, she needs sex to survive, but to the show’s great credit, they have never once indicated that “real” sex is penis-vagina sex. (I’m scowling at you, Torchwood.) Instead, they’ve shown that Bo is able to be equally sexually satiated by any gender. And rather than pursuing a typical heterosexual love triangle, or giving Bo and male love interest with some female side-sex for ratings, Lost Girl has given Bo a dudely love interest and a lady love interest, and treated them both equally. Bo falls fully, deeply in love with Lauren. She tries very hard to commit herself to her girlfriend. And within that committed relationship, they have all kind of deliciously-lit sexual encounters. Sometimes athletic ones. Sometimes gentle ones. Sometimes run-of-the-mill ones. You know, like real lesbian life. Well, real lesbian life with a supernatural Fae war happening just outside the door.

Sugar Rush In the pilot episode of Sugar Rush, Kim Daniels wonders: “Why is everyone so fucked up about sex?” The show opens with her questioning whether or not it’s normal to masturbate with an electric toothbrush while thinking about her straight best friend, and over the course of two seasons, it explores Kim’s sexual curiosity with equal frankness and hilarity, as she comes to terms with being a lesbian, has a one night stand with her best friend, and ultimately finds a girlfriend who gets her, in the bedroom and out. “All in a day’s work for a 15-year-old, sexually-frustrated, gay virgin.” Skins When we meet Emily Fitch, she is sweet. And shy. And a closeted lesbian. But when she finally summons the courage to come out, she doesn’t pretend for a second that she’s into girls because she likes hair-braiding and emotional intelligence. In fact, she just makes a list of what she likes: “I like girls. I like sex with girls. I like their rosy lips, their hard nipples, bums, soft thighs. I like tits and fanny, you know?” Later, she gets a chance to test out her theory with her longtime crush Naomi Campbell. Skins could have given snuggles and implied love-makin’. But instead, they treated Naomi and Emily like all of the other sex-starved teens on their show. First, snogging. Then, skinny-dipping. Then, Naomi inviting Emily to go ahead and disappoint her, and Emily doing the exact opposite of that. She even comes out to her parents by bragging about her sexual prowess: “Her name’s Noami. She’s rather beautiful. So, I was nailing her.”

The L Word We clown on The L Word an awful lot, and, honestly, the show really does deserve it. They dedicated an entire season to solving the mystery of Jenny Schecter’s death (without ever solving the mystery of Jenny Schecter’s death). And also, they killed our beloved Dana Fairbanks with impossible rapidcancer. But despite all that (and the talking manatees), The L Word gave us six seasons of sex we could believe in. All kinds of sex in all kinds of relationships with all kinds of accessories and also without accessories and sometimes in the daytime and sometimes in the nighttime and sometimes with kinks and sometimes with groups and sometimes with pregnancy and lots of times the sex was because of love but most of the time the sex was because of fun. And it was hot. Hot, hot, hot. All of it, hot. The L Word‘s legacy is a lot of things, but one of the most important things is hotness. Lip Service Like, The L Word, Lip Service was a full-on lesbian TV show. And also like The L Word, Lip Service wasn’t afraid to portray lesbian sex with an eye toward the actual lesbians in the audience. As opposed to side-stepping it due to conservative outrage or capitulating to the male gaze. (Also like TLW, it aired on the appropriate channel in the appropriate time-slot for naked sexual hijinks.) Whether it was sex with new love interests, or cheater-pants sex with ex-girlfriends, or bad sex they had to bail on, the ladies of Lip Service showed us sex that rang true to its gay lady audience. Except maybe the morgue sex. The morgue sex kind of freaked us out a little bit.

What show do you think gets lesbian sex the most right?

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