Today, Explained - Sexy TV is back

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

Why we’re obsessed with Heated Rivalry and hooking up on the small screen. This episode was produced by Kelli Wessinger, edited by Jenny Lawton and Avishay Artsy, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, engineered by Brandon McFarland, and hosted by Jonquilyn Hill.  Heated Rivalry press photo by Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max.  If you have a question, give us a call on 1-800-618-8545 or send us a note here. Listen to Explain It to Me ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance, Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee. With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend. Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, The Testament of Anne Lee, now playing in an exclusive Toronto engagement in theaters everywhere January 23rd. I have a huge problem which is that I can't stop thinking and talking about heated rivalry. Anyone who's ever had a really intense crush knows that it also feels really painful. I promise you're not going crazy. You're just being emotionally and existentially impacted by a brilliant story.

There's really only one thing I can think about right now. Will you come to my cottage this summer? Don't go to Russia. We'll have so much fun and so private. No one will know. I wonder you know he can't do that. The show Heated Rivalry has taken over my group chats, my scrolling, my brain. Maybe it's taken over yours, too. There's not a moment that I'm awake that I'm not thinking about the gay hockey show. My Heated Rivalry Thought of the Day is...

For those who have not watched, here's the quick and dirty. Heated Rivalry is a Canadian series on HBO Max, created by Jacob Tierney, based on the best-selling books by Rachel Reed. And it follows queer, closeted, professional ice hockey players as they try to keep their romance under wraps. There's also a lot of sex, like so much sex. Is your first time with the man? You? And no. And even though the nudity has everyone talking, it's also really sweet and sad and vulnerable and brave. It's giving me so much hope. It's real. awakened my sense of yearning.

It's reminded me that I can take charge and change the direction of my life. And that's kind of been the intention that I sent for 2026. And I have this show to think. I'm John Blenhill. This is Explained it to me from Vox. And today, we're going to find out why the gay hockey show has captured everyone's attention. Keep in mind, the show is what people nowadays refer to as spicy. So you may want to put your headphones on for this one.

To start things off, I called up another super fan. My name is Emma Glassman Hughes. I'm a writer and reporter, and I'm an editor at Pop Sugar. Emma doesn't think heated rivalry is an anomaly. She says the show is successful because it taps into a universal experience, yearning. Or deep in a yearning moment. I think the people are yearning every which way. I think in a more classic sense, like we've seen the success of heated rivalry.

Ilya Rosenov. Shane Hollander, I wanted to introduce myself. The summer he turned pretty. I'm pissed about last summer. We hooked up. And then you hooked up with my brother. And then everyone expected me to act like I was fine. Those have blown up and really are good examples of how everyone is just excited right now about the burn of like a true crush.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I have loved watching Heated Rivory. I may have even done some rewatching. I feel like it's awakened feelings in me that I have. have not felt since the theatrical release of you got served back when I was like a B2K stand before we were using the term Stan in that way. Are you seeing this yearning anywhere else, like even beyond TV and movies? Yeah, I think of yearning in a pretty broad sense around the Mom Donnie campaign in New York. Hope is alive.

My feeds were full of energy and enthusiasm and, like, true, like, yearning and aching for a better future, for some new options. I've also seen this, like, New Year's resolution trend on TikTok where people are aiming to receive a thousand rejections in 2026. My name's Liv, and I'm on the road to 1,000 rejections. Okay, so I made a post yesterday that my resolution for 2026 is to get 1,000 rejections. This year, I am attempting to get rejected as many times as I can. And that means, like, putting yourself out there at least a thousand times and proving to yourself that you're willing to try and be vulnerable and face the prospect of failure. And to me, that's big yearner energy. And obviously, like, along the way in between the thousand rejections, you're bound to get some yeses.

whether that's romantic partners or jobs or like community organizing or whatever it is that you're chasing. I think that's so interesting to think of yearning beyond just the romantic. Yeah, you know, if we look around, like, it's really hard to exist in the world right now and we're being inundated with distressing news event after news event. And I think yearning could be seen as sort of a distraction from that, But I actually think it's sort of a grounding force almost. Like yearning is really located in the body and it's this like deeply bodily like human experience to despair over like not having what you want and to feel the pain of being like so close yet so far. We're all familiar with the concept of exquisite pain.

And I think yearning can provide this sort of. like masochistic joy too. And like we all need more joy in our lives right now. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that. Like, you know, life is not easy right now. And crushes are fun, but they can be excruciating, but it's also like, oh gosh, this is kind of great. I don't know. It's hard to describe like how it's both painful and enjoyable. Yeah. I think like when I think of yearning too, it's like the phrase that comes up is all consuming. And I think, you know, like going back to like romance factor. Like, I'm in a long-term relationship right now. So it's, like, kind of been a long time since I've had, like, a true crush. But I actually really miss that. I miss that feeling.

I would love to have that feeling again. I think it's, like, I talk about this with my friends, too. Like, there's sort of a nostalgic quality to, like, some person sort of, sort of of taking over your entire world, you know, for however long. And it's kind of like a simpler time when you're 13 and, like, that's all that you can, that's all you can think about. And nothing really matters beyond that. So if I open up my phone right now, I will probably see several text messages about heated rivalry. It's everywhere.

Saw my boys at the Golden Globes. You think everyone in the audience has seen heated rivalry? That's a maybe. but their trainers have and their moms have and their daughters have. Hi, moms. Hi, daughters. So many edits. The edits, again, it makes me feel like a kid again.

It's definitely a huge topic of conversation on the pop sugar team, but I'm queer and all of my like queer female friends are very taken with this show and like very drawn to. these more vulnerable depictions of masculinity that we don't really get to see very much of. I want to talk about who yearns. You know, heated rivalry is special because it's about queer men. It's like yearning typically something that's seen as something only women do. Like, who yearns?

I argue in my essay that women are frequently the objects of yearning, but we see fewer depictions of female yearning out there. I think we see a lot of depictions of women kind of passively wishing or hoping for something. But to me, that's not true yearning. I've been thinking about this a lot since Pop Sugar posted about the essay on our Instagram. Someone actually commented something that has stuck with me. they were saying that, you know, we're always seeing depictions of women who want and never receive. And that really made me think.

Like, I think there is a difference between the sort of passive wishing and the real, like, gut level yearning. The latter is what I want to see more of from women and queer people this year. It's not just, like, wistful stuff, but, like, the tornadoes and the storms and the, like, shattered glass of it all. I love that, the shattered glass of it all. Heated rivalry is all about the shattered glass. Up next, how TV got here. Support for this show comes from Quince. New Year, New You?

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Quince.com slash explain it. Support for today's show comes from Shopify. The start of the new year is the perfect opportunity to start something new. And Shopify wants you to have everything you need to make your business dreams a reality. Shopify says they have all the tools you need to easily build your dream store. You can choose from hundreds of beautiful online templates that you can customize to match your brand. Set up is fast with Shopify's built-in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit product photos.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash explain it. Go to shopify.com slash explain it. That's shopify.com slash explain it. Here you're first. This New Year with Shopify By Your Side. Explain it to me is back. I'm JQ. And if we're talking about heated rivalry, aka the busiest show out right now,

we got to talk about the sex. Enter Michelle Gannum. I'm the author of the appointment viewing column in the cut, and I write for a few different publications. Okay, so in our first segment, we talked about yearning. But I want to shift gears about what comes next, and that's the consummation of that yearning. Okay, and not to age myself, but I grew up during a time where it's like,

oh, my parents are in bed. Let's sneak and watch HBO or like Showtime or even, you know, Cinemax. Next, when a beautiful model turns up missing, her twin brother sets out to find her. There's trouble abroad and nothing underneath. Next on Cinemax. This was the late 90s, early 2000s, and you'd have a good chance of seeing someone naked. I mean, growing up, I think I'd Google like queer as folk sex scene or kissing scene. You wanted to see me? I decided you should take me back. No?

Even though I have made a few mistakes, I think you'd be making an even bigger one not to give me a second chance. But those scenes were always very tame. Like, you didn't see that much at the time. Now, like on streaming platforms like Netflix, you can find family programming as well as full frontal nudity on a show. like sex life. I'm tied between sleepy and horny all they long. Why am I just hearing about this now? And I mean, historically that comes from, you know, FCC censorship for what was on broadcast

and that being intertwined with advertising. And so for many, many decades, pre-streaming, there just wasn't a lot of nudity. And broadcast TV today still has some of those guardrails. I remember seeing an interview. I think it was related to Pretty Lowlyers about their sex scenes. You know, that was a show that it was very clear the characters are having sex, but you cannot be thrusting during a sex scene. I mean, maybe this is such a good idea.

I think it was been entirely too much type of thinking. What do you think? Yeah. If you watch those sex scenes, the characters are kind of just like, not moving or just like you know the focuses on their kissing so I think broadcast is so tied to some of those censorship rules but when you look at streaming and everything sort of HBO premium cable the shows that were on late at night those those are the shows with with the sex and the nudity yeah how have we seen sex and intimacy on TV change over the last several decades

You know, these early shows, it was really like the shock value of going on HBO and seeing nude bodies. Like, I think that was sort of the watershed moment, I guess, for nudity on TV. And, you know, a show like Sex in the City represented sex in so many different ways. I think this pre-premium cable to post-premium cable is really the big shift. But I think more recently, especially in light of niche programming and all these different streamers popping up, it's become sort of ubiquitous. And I think a backlash has sort of come with that in terms of some generations, perhaps not wanting or desiring sex on their shows. So it's interesting to see how it's shifted. Yeah, I've seen research that a lot of young people say they aren't interested in seeing sex in movies and TV.

And yet there's all this explicit sex on TV. So what do you think audiences want right now? I think it's been really interesting to see what shows audiences have really grabbed onto recently. I mean, I remember when fellow travelers premiered on Showtime. Who do you belong to? That was two years ago, folks were really shocked by some of the gay sex on that show. I mean, it was super explicit. But it didn't, I think, break out in a huge way amongst, like, a mainstream audience

because it was, I think, a very, like, tragic story, as a lot of queer stories can be. Like, whereas, as I'm sure we'll talk about, heated rivalry, has really grabbed on to an audience that I think is looking for joy and escape. And there's just a lot going on on a day-to-day basis, you know, in our neighborhoods worldwide, on the news. And I think that sex and intimacy can be a place of like discovery that is isolated from that. And I think in terms of building really compelling characters, those scenes can be really pivotal and important. And that's how it is in heated rivalry and in some of the best shows that I've watched. Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting because I think of Bridgeton 2 and when

it first came out, everyone was like, oh my gosh, these scenes are so steamy. What is going on? I feel. Yeah, and isn't it funny to kind of look back on those shows in the context of what you've watched most recently and be like, oh, maybe those scenes weren't actually that steamy. Like, they just seemed so at the time. I think I think that about some shows. Although I've gone back and rewatch like sex scenes from Sex in the City. I thought like there's an episode where Samantha loses her orgasm because her friend has lost her mother and she couldn't kind of reconcile her friend's grief. When I RSVP to a party, I make it my business to come. And so she like has sex in all these different ways to try and get to the bottom of where her orgasm.

went and it's like just sex positions I've still not seen on TV. Over here on the Explain It to Me team, we're like kind of obsessed with heated rivalry. And he wrote a piece for the cut called Help. I'm obsessed with gay hockey smut. So I feel like you are one of us. What do you make of its success? I mean, I think it's just so easy to get sucked into this world. and I don't know if you got around to reading the books, but the books are very, very smutty. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

You're like, I'm going to be reading that. Well, maybe I should hit up my local library. Yeah. Once they get to the cottage on the show, there are like six 15-page sex scenes that happen in that setting alone. Like, what? That is a huge. huge part of the book. And so when I saw the show, it was like, oh, my gosh, like, this is actually

quite tame compared to what was in the book. And I opened my piece in the cut, writing about, you know, this thing that kept coming up in the book, this hyperfixation around the slit. And I don't know if you can put two two together when I say that. But like, the slit is mentioned one too many times in this book to the point where I texted my friend and I was like, is this a real thing? Like, am I missing out on some part of the game? gay experience by not having focused on the slit. My friend and I sort of concluded it may have been because of a woman was writing this material, perhaps. One thing I do wonder, because you know, I'm a straight lady and I enjoy the series a lot. Like I love love. I love the story. Like it's just

really nice to see. I think there was also a moment, and maybe this is too spoilery. But I think whenever I see a love story, it involves marginalized people, I'm like, oh God, when is the hate crime coming, when is the bad thing happening, when is the, and it doesn't, and that's admittedly really nice. But what is it like, I wonder like how it feels that so many straight women are like, and I love this too. Like, is that strange or weird at all? Or is it like, okay. I think it's just a nice break from what we're so used to seeing. And I think that says a lot also about queer media and marginalized stories. It's like we are, like you said, you brace for that impact of like the hate crime or the horrible thing that's about to happen. So I think it was nice to take a break from it.

And I think the show wouldn't be successful without its straight women audience. So like, I thank them. I'm like, thank you. I get more of this. I think if like this group of straight women who love he did rivalry, like start watching more queer media across genres, I think I would be very happy to see that. Coming up, The Anatomy of a Sex scene. Hey, it's Olivia from OLLI. I gotta tell you, I saw when you asked AI about probiotics. No judgment. But I think OLLI can help.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This is explaining to me. I'm JQ. Hi, I'm Chela Hunter, and I'm an intimacy coordinator. Chela's not just an intimacy coordinator. She is the intimacy coordinator. Yes, that's correct, for heated rivalry.

So I feel like I have to acknowledge that your work has been the topic of discussion in my group chats for going on weeks now. Why do you think the audience has responded so? so passionately to heated rivalry. Yeah, I think the show is very joyful. Like, even though, of course, these characters all struggle with different things, you know, within society and their families and whatever, that ultimately the show is celebrating, like, queer love, queer joy, queer sex, like, that type of, like, positivity, I think, within a narrative is so contagious and alluring and attractive.

like it's this kind of like magnetic, romantic, embodied, sensual, sexual, but also like personal and emotional connection with another person, I think is like the romantic relationship or connection that a ton, if not all people desire, you know, in their life. And so to see it fulfilled in such a like visceral and complex way, yeah, I think people are really attracted to that because we all kind of like crave that on some level, you know? For people who didn't know that your job exists, what does an intimacy coordinator do? Yeah. My main priority is to ensure that any intimacy, nudity, or hyper exposure, anything that can kind of fall under the umbrella or rainbow of intimacy, which can include a lot of different things,

to ensure that any of that content within a narrative, the way that that action plays out is being fully consented to by anyone who's participating in it. And that additionally, that then the rest of the team, the production knows what has been consented to and what the actors' boundaries and consent levels are so that the job gets done and the story gets told in a way that's also honoring everyone's boundaries. How do you get started in that line of work and how do you train for it? I was an actor for a long time and still am. I did a ton of intimacy in my career. Like I did a ton of intimacy and a good amount of nudity as a performer. And I would say somewhere around when the role started to emerge and then gain popularity, I had people in my community reach out to ask me if I would be the intimacy coordinator

on a project that they were doing. And so I did that for a web series for a friend of mine and I did a bunch of research, you know, and tried to come as prepared as possible. But after I did that project, I went and did all this training with intimacy directors and coordinators who are based out of New York. And so I guess after that moment I became interested in it, I guess because I'd had a lot of experiences, to be honest, where I didn't have an intimacy coordinator. I wonder, how does your experience performing intimacy? How has that shaped the way you stepped into this role?

I think it shapes it a great deal in that I am able to go into the perspective of the actor. I have an awareness around what their process is. So I would say my approach to intimacy coordinating is super actor-centric. Yeah, I want to get more into heated rivalry. What were your thoughts when you first? I mean, I always want to get more into heated rivalry. What were your thoughts when you read the first sex scene? I was so astonished, to be honest, by all the scripts.

They're so beautifully written. They're so exacting and hilarious and heartbreaking. And I think when I read the first sex scene, simulated sex scene, I was like, oh, this is so specific. Like I could picture exactly what was happening. It's all laid out really, really specifically in the script. So like the sex in the story for these characters is such a huge part of their relationship. And it's so important to the narrative and it moves the narrative forward.

So yeah, I actually just felt like it was so specific and kind of like jumped off the page. And of course I was like, oh, wow, there's a lot of simulated sex in this story. But I understood why. And I actually just felt really like thrilled by the like boldness and originality. of the writing. There's a scene in episode one that takes place in a hotel where the main characters Shane and Ilya are hooking up for the first time. And you make me curious.

Do I make you curious? Obviously. I think it's also the longest sex scene in the show. It might be somewhere between like seven and nine minutes. Can you walk us through the process of choreographing that scene? Like, how did you do that? I mean, we had a full day of rehearsals with the cast and myself, which was just wonderful. But it makes such a massive difference when the actors can, like, get the motions in their body before the day where there's, like, a thousand lights and all these people behind them.

You know, we always have, like, a private rehearsal on blocking before we actually film any simulated sex or nudity or anything like that. But just, I think that rehearsal was so helpful. And then on the day, that was certainly a scene. where there's like all of the actions, the tiny little details, a ton of them that you're seeing play out, were scripted. And so a big part of that was just honestly making sure we had the order of things correct and that then it was able to feel intuitive for them. So yeah, there was a lot of that me being like, actually it's this first and then this and then this and then you go to your knees, that type of thing. You know, I see this larger conversation happening about sex being portrayed on TV. And, you know, if it even needs to happen, what do you think that it adds to a story?

Yeah. I guess it would depend on, honestly, on the content of the show. Like, there's still lots of ways to portray it. There's lots of different artistic approaches to how you're going to show simulated sex or, or intimacy between characters, but I guess I would say that I feel like sex is a part of, like, the human experience. And as long as it feels relevant to the story, then it belongs there. That's it for this week.

And if you're in need of another romance TV fix full of yearning, Bridgeton's coming back at the end of the month. Coming up soon on this show, we're working on an episode about online regret. Is there something you posted that you look back on and cringe? Tell us about it. Call 1-800-61845 or email AskVox at Vox.com. If you like this or other Vox podcasts, you can support us by becoming a Vox member. And it's not just a one-way street.

You get perks like ad-free versions of this and all other Vox shows. This episode was produced by Kelly Wessinger. It was edited by Jenny Lawton and Avashi Artsy, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, and engineered by Brandon McFarland. Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy, and I'm your host, John Glyn Hill. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you soon. Bye!