Jennifer Horgan: All this female-gaze sex on TV is a wonderful distraction

The explosion in women-friendly raunch on the likes of Bridgerton, Rivals and Vladimir shows there's a huge appetite - but is it for fun, or to distract us from wider horrors?

Bridgerton. 'It’s such good sex because it’s for women.'

I feel for my male colleague, John, as four of us hop over the school wall. We’re in helping on a Saturday morning, and the person with the key to the main gate has yet to arrive.

Swinging our legs over, on the hunt for coffee, the conversation turns to sex. Not just general sex but women’s sex, and as in any school's teacher cohort, poor John is outnumbered three to one.

“It’s such good sex because it’s for women,” my colleague enthuses, having just binged the latest season of Bridgerton.

Much like the flush appearing on her cheeks and neck, she adds, “It’s slow and sensual; it builds.” 

And it builds… “Usually, sex on screen is for men. Finally, it’s all about Sophie! We are all waiting for Benedict to take us on the stairs. It’s just… Fabulous!” 

John meekly shares he hasn’t seen it. “I’ve been watching a documentary about F1,” he mumbles, bringing our TV chat to a close.

Ever since, I’ve been noticing just how many shows offer this sort of ‘sex for women’ fare. Another one is 'Love Story' — the enjoyably cheesy exploration of the relationship between JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette. The sex feels like it’s her fantasy, not his. The market is female and we’re all (more than) happily gazing at JFK Jr.

In the name of research, I tucked into Vladimir on Netflix last weekend and my God does it involve tucking in. It backs my colleague’s point — about as often as Rachel Weisz imagines getting backed into/onto a bookshelf (or a wall, or a desk) by the hunky Vlad.

Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall in Vladimir.

To further earn my keep, I tried A Woman of Substance next. Now, I didn’t last as long because it’s a little bit rubbish, but however we spin it, it’s hard to refute that this is the age of female sex on screen in abundance.

Dying for Sex with Michelle Williams is another one, and Rivals of course — two shows into which I haven’t yet dived.

Is this what full female liberation looks like? It’s possible. Maybe all the naked celebrity dresses are part of the same movement. We’re happy to wear our sexuality freely at last — naked bottoms away!

Rewind a hundred years, and DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was busy getting banned for its sexually explicit content. Lusty Constance Chatterley simply had too much libido altogether, her desire for gamekeeper Oliver Mellors being far too hot to handle.

Well, look at us women now, Mr Lawrence — how far we’ve come!

Is the sex a distraction?

Or is there something else going on? Maybe Lawrence wouldn’t be quite so proud of us after all. What was it he said? “Ours is essentially a tragic age so we refuse to take it tragically.” 

Is this sexiness less about women’s liberation and more about denial? Maybe we’re looking for sex on TV not for empowerment but for distraction.

Is that what we’re doing when we’re salivating over hunky men in period dress, or in no dress at all? Is it possible that women in 2026 are craving sex in response to the awfulness of the world? Do we simply need sex to cope?

Our world leaders are vile, vile men, hellbent on war. Violence against women, in all its forms, feels like it’s on the rise.

Is our craving for sex actually distress? Psychology tells us that war can increase intimacy, that during danger we often long for touch, and intimacy. Sex promises connection, belonging, and the continuity of life.

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Maybe all the sex is about those two forces so many of us read about during our meandering and gloriously morbid Arts degrees — Eros and Thanatos.

Or could it be that women are giving up the fight? Poet Sylvia Plath said this about desire: “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” 

Are we displaying signs of an inner void, a spiritual emptiness? Is this what utter hopelessness looks like — wall-to-wall bonking? There does come a point where everything starts to look like nothing.

Is the sex compensation?

Musing on all these sexy shows, I can’t help thinking about another text from the past — Cabaret, the musical based on Isherwood’s novel, Goodbye to Berlin. I’m seeing flashes of Bob Fosse’s 1972 film adaptation starring Liza Minelli as I type.

If you haven’t seen it, go watch it immediately. I really don’t think there is anything like it. The action is set in Berlin during the twilight of the Weimar Republic. It is a study of a society on the verge of collapse, its citizens drugged and titillated into inaction and moral bankruptcy.

The Emcee, master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Club, is the most disturbing character in the show. His “Willkommen” invites us into a world of pleasure and seduction. Meanwhile, decency burns, Jews die and evil takes hold. 

Cabaret is a mirror. It asks us to look at ourselves as we descend into animalism.

Fosse’s film walked away with more Oscars than The Godfather in 1973, including Best Director and Best Actress. If it were released today, it would certainly strike a chord with audiences, of that I’m certain.

There is another possibility — that women are not so much as feeding on all this sex as being fed. Sexy shows are being created to keep us docile in a highly unjust world. 

I don’t mean in a considered way. I’m not a conspiracy theorist – not yet. I don’t think there’s a big evil man behind these raunchy, romping plot lines. But it’s possible that there is something in the cultural ether, some acknowledgement of women’s oppression, and so we’re being fed sex as compensation because there’s a ready-made market for it.

In all honesty, I’m not sure why there is so much sex for women on TV. I would bet most confidently on one of two things. 

It’s compensation for the failed project of feminism in a time of war. It is for women who have landed that dual role of worker bee and full-time carer, while watching the world implode. Here you go love, here’s some sex to have with your tea.

Or it’s Cabaret, a sign that us women have decided that what’s coming is too horrible to bear. And so, we’ve decided to look away. If our small screen is this, a mirror, it’s worth our time looking at what it’s reflecting. Pain? Pleasure? A delicious mix of both? I wish I could give you an easy answer.

Until I find one, it’s best I continue my investigations. Rivals it is then. Twelve hours romping in the Cotswolds should clear the whole issue up. The trailer tells me I “can have anything,” alongside flashes of naked people in gardens, sex on airplanes, and balls flying into sockets. 

If Jilly Cooper’s classic doesn’t make things clearer, at least I’ll be prepped for series two. I’m bound to figure out why there’s so much ‘sex for women’ on TV by the end of season two, right?

I’ll be keeping my observations to myself at work, though — probably best to leave poor John out of it.