Gay Sex on T.V.

***This article contains spoilers for the HBO series Game of Thrones through Season 2, Episode 3***

In the past couple of decades, LGBT representation in mainstream media of the U.S. has progressed in leaps and bounds. We have popular television shows that focus exclusively on gay and lesbian communities, shows with gay gangsters, gay slobs, and gay teenagers, one Oscar winning movie about a gay political figure and another one about gay cowboys. As for real life people in the media, there are out news anchors and political commentators, out actors and actresses, and out musicians. We’ve come a long way from Jodie Dallas and Xena; it would be easy to think that we’ve achieved equal representation in the media. Unfortunately, we haven’t.

There are still some overarching issues that affect the entire LGBT community’s representation in the media, such as the complete lack of U.S. professional athletes who are out of the closet. However, there are also issues that affect one section of the LGBT community more than others. In other words, many of the problems bisexual men face in the media are different than those faced by lesbians, and those that lesbians face are different than the issues transmen and transwomen are facing, etc. I'd would like to focus on one way in which gay men are treated unequally in television shows produced for a wide audience: sex scenes. If that makes you squeamish, then I suggest you stop reading now.

You might be reading this thinking that, actually there’s too much sex on television, full stop. Why add to it? Or better yet, why not put that can of worms away and take sex off of television? I’d like to emphasize that this article isn’t about whether portraying sex on television is a good or a bad thing in itself. I am just arguing that if a television show 1) has gay and straight characters and 2) portrays straight sex scenes, then it should 3) give the gay sex scenes the same treatments as its straight sex scenes. The most recent example of a television show that certainly qualifies for numbers 1 and 2, but fails at number 3 is Game of Thrones.

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Game of Thrones doesn’t just have some straight sex scenes; it has quite a few straight sex scenes, along with a large dose of both male and female full frontal nudity, which isn’t surprising considering it’s on HBO. However, it’s also a show that uses that sex and nudity as a storytelling device. This is true from the first sex scene of the show between the twins Cersei and Jamie Lannister, all the way to the most recent sex scene: the teenage king, Joffrey, forcing a prostitute to beat another prostitute for his own entertainment. A lot of these scenes aren’t even particularly enticing. Instead they are there to tell a story. What’s more, this use of sex is consistent with the way the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, uses sex: to further a story or explain a character.

What is different between the book and the television show is the depiction of the gay couple, Renly and Loras. The books are written from the perspective of only a few of the characters, and neither Renly nor Loras are POV characters. This means that their relationship, which is scandalous in the world created by these books, is only hinted at. The television show, on the other hand, does tell the story from Renly’s perspective. So, in episode 4 of season 2, there is something of a sex scene between Renly and Loras. Unfortunately it hardly qualifies as such, and worse most of the character and plot development during this scene relies on dialogue as opposed to actions.

A brief description: Renly and Loras make out for a bit and end up shirtless and on Renly’s bed. Then Renly reminds Loras he was beaten at the joust by a woman, which pisses Loras off. And that’s pretty much the end of the physical side of their scene; the rest is dialogue and Renly trying to kiss Loras again. It turns out, Renly is married to Loras’ sister, Margaery, and Loras snidely suggests he trades places with his sister so that Renly can do his kingly duty and produce an heir. Renly protests, but Loras ends up leaving. A few moments later Margaery comes in and Renly is completely unable to have sex with her. Margaery isn’t a fool; she knows what’s up between Renly and her brother. She suggests that maybe she could bring her brother, Loras, back in to help out. That’s right; she is willing to have a threesome with her brother in order to strengthen her husband’s position, and thus her own position. There is a brief discussion between Renly and Margaery about how they need to do whatever is necessary to make sure Margaery becomes pregnant. Then it cuts away, and we don’t know whether they did actually end up inviting Loras back into the room or not.

Here is where Game of Thrones really dropped the ball, I think. For starters, they ended up relying on dialogue to tell the story and create the characters. Game of Thrones is already a very talky show, but what was great was that between long bits of dialogue, there’d be violent scenes or sex scenes which would tell you so much, particularly about character development. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then in Game of Thrones a sex scene is usually worth a hundred thousand. Not so with the gay sex scene; here they opted to use the thousand words.

Also, the show failed to even address what a threesome between Margaery, Renly and Loras would even be like. The show’s creators have already shown they’re not bothered about depicting incest, as evidenced by their inclusion of a scene where Cersei and Jamie have sex. Yet, when it involves a gay couple and a sibling, then suddenly they become squeamish. I’m not even interested in the scene because I think it would be sexy or because I think it would be breaking taboos. I am interested in seeing how Renly, Loras and Margaery would negotiate such a situation. Would Loras be willing? Would it work, or just turn into something way too awkward? Have Loras and Margaery done something similar in the past? These are all questions that, had they been answered, could have provided such depth to these characters.

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So you might be thinking that this is a single sex scene in a single television show; it hardly constitutes a trend. However, all sorts of shows do this, whether they’re on cable or network T.V. A show on network T.V. that only really shows couples making out with probably treat their gay characters particularly gingerly. A show on cable T.V. that has graphic sex scenes will probably fit in with what happened on Game of Thrones, and their gay sex scenes will be watered down. Some examples from cable television: Shameless, Spartacus: Vengeance, and The Tudors. All of those shows are known for their use of sex, and yet they’ve all treated their gay sex scenes with kid gloves. They were short, or out of frame, or involved a lot less nudity. Somehow they just weren’t quite the same as their straight counterparts.

So why does this matter? What if people just don’t want to watch two men having sex? Well the problem is that, as with Game of Thrones, such a mentality ends up damaging character development. More than that, though, is the fact that such a mentality indicates that our society is still miles away from normalizing sex between men. If our media is still more comfortable portraying straight sex scenes and lesbian sex scenes, over gay sex scenes, then that is a big red flag for equality between gay and straight men. It’s proof that heteronormativity is still alive and well within our society.

That is why this is important. It’s not about whether television shows are sexy enough; if I wanted sexy I’d watch porn. It’s about what this lack of gay male sex says about our society as a whole.

This article was also published at The Good Men Project.