Sexy TV - is it just us or is everything getting a little bit x rated?
We've come a long way since Samantha's shenanigans in SATC seemed shocking: now there's full-frontal nudity, explicit sex scenes and x-rated drama all over our TV screens. We pick out the smuttiest of them all.
True Blood
Pulling your undead boyfriend from the grave and banging him straight away: that’s off the charts on the rude-factor. But True Blood never shied away from shocking, supernatural sexiness. Ritualistic orgies, dream sequence threesomes and who can forget Rachel Evan Wood’s debut scene (massively NSFW - you can look it up on YouTube).
Smut highlight: Alexander Skarsgard and Ryan Kwanten’s scene together was a gift we all waited a long time for.
Amazon Original series American Gods premieres on Amazon Prime Video 1st MayAmerican Gods
This mind-bending fantasy, adapted from Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, follows an ex-con (Ricky Whittle) who becomes embroiled in an epic battle of ancient gods and mythical beings. It also features some INSANE sex. In episode one, Bilquis, Goddess of Love, seduces a man and then 'absorbs' him via her vagina. Woah.
Smut highlight: Episode three's gay sex scene, which New York Magazine's TV critic described as the "single hottest and most pornographic gay sex scene ever put on mainstream television".
I Love Dick
Adapted from the cult feminist novel of the same name - try reading that on the bus without raising eyebrows - Transparent’s Katherine Kahn plays Chris, a woman with an intense sexual obsession with her husband’s kind-of boss, Dick (Kevin Bacon). Her husband initially finds it a turn-on: they have sex as she reads aloud her explicit love letters to Dick.
Smut highlight: Where do we start? There’s doggy on the sofa, oral sex in a trailer, and a rather aggressive hand-job.
The Affair
You can’t have drama about an extra-marital affair without plenty of desire-drenched bedroom scenes - and actors Ruth Wilson and Dominic West (who play the adulterous couple) have cracking on-screen chemistry. Their sex scenes are genuinely hot.
Smut highlight: A hotel room rendezvous, where West puts those muscles to good use.
Amazon Prime Instant VideoOutlander
Claire Beauchamp (Catriona Balfe) is a 1940s nurse who is transported to 16th century Scotland - don’t bother trying to work out how - where she meets horny Highlander Jamie (Sam Heughan). Amongst political upheaval - which is very much not the point of the show - they have a passionate relationship, with lots of rolling naked on animal pelts in front of roaring fires. Even better, it’s all about female pleasure (cunnilingus in a castle kicks it all off).
Smut highlight: Claire’s wedding night de-flowering of Jamie.
GIRLS
One of the many things we loved about Lena Dunham’s Millennial Masterpiece were the awkward, realistic sex scenes, complete with cellulite-y thighs. Casual nudity, wanking on the sofa, obscene dirty talk, hook-ups with strangers in toilets, dodgy role-play - GIRLS has it all covered.
Smut highlight: That scene where Desi motorboats Marnie’s bottom.
Game Of Thrones
OK, so the sex inGoT can be fairly disturbing - Melissandre and Stannis making an evil shadow baby together; Cersei and Jamie’s incestuous affair; Theon’s ill-fated threesome. But there are some more romantic moments: Tyrion and Shae; Daenerys taking control with Drogo (after a quick lesson from her handmaiden Doreah); Jon Snow breaking his vow of celibacy with Ygritte.
Smut highlight: Lord Bealish instructing his prostitutes how to fake their pleasure with the delightful command: “Play with her arse.”
AlamyCalifornication
Hank Moody (David Duchovny) is a boozing, womanising, all-round mess of writer in LA. In the first scene of episode one, he gets a blow job from a nun - in a church. Which pretty much sets the tone for the following seven seasons.
Smut highlight: The Huffington Post has handily put together a supercut of all of Hank's sex scenes, so you can pick your own.
Fleabag
BAFTA-winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge is Fleabag (we never learn her real name) a twenty-something dealing with grief, disappointment and feeling like a fuck up. She also has a voracious sexual appetite. She masturbates next to her on-off boyfriend over Obama , and drops her knickers in the middle of a cafe to send a 'special' selfie to a guy (not her boyfriend).
Smut highlight: Fleabag angsting about the size of her bum-hole after a surprising booty call.
Spartacus
This trashy Roman romp is wall-to-wall oiled abs - think Magic Mike in 70 BC. When your screen isn't filled with blood and guts, the gladiators are getting naked to distract from the dodgy acting and paper thin plot lines.
Smut highlight: A masked sex scene - like Eyes Wide Shut but really, really naff.
AlamyThe Tudors
Historically accurate this ain’t. Henry VIII - not exactly known as a sex icon - is transformed into a smouldering fiend thanks to Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. The actual history stuff is mere background, stringing together the steamy sex scenes - and with the amount of marriages, affairs and conquests he managed, that’s a lot of flesh.
Smut highlight: Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) in the woods, playing hide and seek looks to camera
The Borgias
Think a historical drama about the 16th century Vatican can't be that risqué? Think again. The Pope's daughter, Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger) has a particularly complicated love life - including an incestuous affair with her brother, a murdered first love, an unhappy marriage and a seriously hot affair with a servant.
Smut highlight: Lucrezia and her servant Paolo having a furtive tumble in the woods.
NetflixOrange Is The New Black
The inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary get their kicks when they can: the chapel being the number one shag-pad. Piper and Alex, Soso and Poussey, Nicky and whoever she can get her hands on: the OITNB women know how to treat a girl right.
Smut highlight: Boo’s ‘special’ screwdriver
Easy
Some people might describe this comedy-drama anthology as an intellectual study of modern love and relationships in all their diversity. Others might say it's an opportunity to see Orlando Bloom enact a threesome (episode 6 if you want to get straight to it).
Smut highlight: Two characters going at it against a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking a remarkably well lit driveway.
Rex FeaturesSecret Diary of A Call Girl
Based on the blogs and books of high-end escort Belle de Jour, Billie Piper plays Hannah, a call girl who adventures around London. The late 00s show is camp and silly, rather than shocking: in one scene Hannah baas like a sheep to satisfy a customer.
Smut highlight: Hannah and client in a room covered in plastic sheets where they partake in ‘splooshing’. Google that at your peril.
