By Luca Woodruff, Second Year, Law
In honour of Bristol's 2026 S.H.A.G week, Luca Woodruff looks at sex fatigue on the big screen. Television in 2026 is laden with sexuality. Flick through Netflix right now and every other release is either depicting sex or talking about it. And it’s not just streaming services. Anora’s (2024) recent win of Best Picture at the 2025 Oscars made history as the first film centered around sex work to win the most prestigious award of the year.
Critically acclaimed or not, sex is a hot topic.
A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 87% of comedy and drama television and 92% of films contain sexual content. However, only 14% of programs with any sexual content mention sexual risk or responsibility.
Why are audiences fed up with sex on screen in 2026? It’s the omission of sexual health and safety. Character relationships are enhanced by seeing the way they approach sexual chemistry, and the inevitable conversations around STIs, contraception and pregnancy - the things that touch our everyday lives much more frequently than they grace the screen. Characters who engage with sexual health are grounded and relatable, and without it, sex scenes become soulless.
The portrayal of sexual health and safety is a tightrope that the industry is hesitant to tread; writers would rather avoid it entirely to preserve romantic tension than attempt it in any compelling way. This doesn’t mean it is completely sidelined in TV. Sex Education (2019-) is the poster child of how sexual responsibility and romantic desire dovetail most effectively, resulting in three award-winning seasons of sexual intimacy which feel naturalistic, not fantastical.
Its first two seasons were groundbreaking in their frank honesty around the experience of teenagers, covering sexual stamina, genital insecurity, abortion, douching, female masturbation - pretty much all corners of sex which are hardly discussed on screen.
In fact, British comedy tends to succeed at weaving both organic and awkward moments together. Fleabag (2016-2019) and Normal People (2020) also share a dry English humour which makes slower-paced sexual conversations feel like beat hits, rather than misses.
Although, the final season of Sex Education gives explanation to the industry’s fear of this sexual honesty. The therapy-format, the advice which had made the show so fresh became pedantic and sanctimonious. It became a utopia of sexual maturity and lost sight of the realism it had become endearing for. Crucially, this maturity overwhelmed the natural romantic chemistry between characters instead of supporting it, leading to a more preachy and literal ‘sex education’ compared to the well-balanced prior seasons.
Following this faceplant end to Sex Education in 2023, representation of sexual health and safety is few and far between. In most cases, sexual intimacy is aestheticized. In shows like Bridgerton (2020-) and The White Lotus (2021-), explicit scenes feel more like decoration to the narrative than a vehicle of character development.
Intimacy is lavish and stylised but disconnected from the preparation and consequences that affect authentic relationships. Even Heated Rivalry (2026) stands accused of this. Rife with intimate scenes which, although brimming with sexual chemistry, fall short of capturing the lived reality of same-sex relationships, instead offering a glamourised idealisation of intimacy.
One notable exception to this trend is queer historical drama. Series such as It’s a Sin (2021) and Fellow Travellers (2023) are forced to centre sexual health because of the looming backdrop of AIDS, meaning sex scenes automatically assume a narrative significance.
Intimacy is never detached from risk; pleasure, fear and consequence all live uncomfortably side by side. Where It’s a Sin frames this through community and collective loss, Fellow Travellers communicates through repression and institutional power. Yet in both, sex matters as a character decision because it cannot be free of consequence.
And in cinema, the recent surge of films exploring kink reveal the difficulty of integrating sexual intimacy with emotional and narrative stakes. Harry Lighton’s Pillion (2025), a film which lays bare the awkward mechanics of BDSM with clinical honesty, is then unable to imbue the central relationship with emotional depth beyond soulless pleasure. Just as Colin thinks Ray might feel something in return, he is never seen again.
Felix Glanville
When consent and safety are presented as procedure rather than a part of intimacy, sex risks becoming narratively empty, and Pillion risks saying very little at all. Even Reijn’s Babygirl (2024), though it integrates kink and emotional stakes more carefully, becomes inauthentic as Romy and Samuel are aestheticized into caricature.
Sex fatigue is not the result of prudishness, or an oversaturation of sex itself, but of its increasing emptiness on screen. Until film and television are willing to let sexual health and safety share the same narrative space as romance and chemistry, sex on screen will continue to feel weightless and forgettable.
Featured Image: Alexey Demidov / Unsplash
For information and advice about sexual health, visit the Yuno Sexual Health Service drop-in on Friday as part of the SU's S.H.A.G week.
