The second coming

Who turned up the heat on your TV? Shows and films are back to being passionate, romance has returned, intimacy feels real. It better not fizzle out

- Kritika Kapoor [e-mail]

Garrett Graham sits across from Hannah Wells, separated by a few feet of highly charged air.

Their eyes remain locked as they — ahem — take matters into their own hands. Together. Separately. That’s Episode 4 of Off Campus, which dropped earlier this year. The show is a cheesy mishmash of romance clichés. What’s refreshing is how little time it wastes getting to the sex. Abs and bosoms arrive in the opening scene. No waiting until Episode 14 to see lingering hands touch. The sex is frequent, explicit, in beds, bathtubs, public spaces. It is Prime Video’s third mostwatched debut season and, among women aged 18 to 34, their most-watched debut season of all time.

What just happened? Not too long ago, we were in the middle of a Horniness Recession. In 2023, there were think pieces saying that dating apps were dying. That Gen Z was too anxious, too online, or too exhausted to flirt. In 2024, a UCLA study found that 60% of American teens didn't want sex on screen. By the end of the year, steamy scenes had dropped by 40%.

Looks like we're over the hump. Off Campus carries the baton from Heated Rivalry (2025), in which gay hockey players Ilya and Shane's chemistry got social media hot and heavy. In Bollywood, the steamy Saiyyara had audiences collectively holding their breath. In young romance stories now, sex is the point. Yes, yes, oh yes!

Passion project

We've come a long way from Bella and Edward's chaste nuzzling in the Twilight movies (2008-2012). By 2020, when Marianne and Connell get together in Normal People, the intimate scenes are 10 minutes long. They're so awkward and sensitive, no one would think them pornographic.