TV's Most Influential Gay Male Sex Scenes

7. Six Feet Under: Keith and David

In 2001, HBO debuted Six Feet Under, a drama about a family of undertakers. Funeral director David Fisher (Michael C. Hall) and his cop boyfriend Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick) were American television's first ongoing gay interracial relationship.

Other television boundaries surrounding gay male sexuality definitely got pushed when Keith and David went out for a wild day of paintballing, after which they end up in bed with Sarge (Josh Stamberg). This encounter launched an in-depth story line about threesomes and open relationships, and an examination of monogamy and its alternatives.

What makes this so groundbreaking is that it took place not on Queer as Folk or Noah's Arc, shows clearly aimed at gay men, but on an Emmy-winning drama on cable's premiere channel. It was an unapologetic look at a certain kind of gay relationship.

Keith and David's tumultuous relationship weathered a number of storms before veering, somewhat unfortunately, into the obligatory gay parenting focus of which TV dramas are so fond. Six Feet Under was never sexually graphic, but its sexual story lines were edgy and controversial — and, like its gay characters, always fully integrated into the overall story.

Hotness Rating: 5/10
Romance Rating: 5/10
Significance Rating: 8/10

8. Dante's Cove: Toby and Kevin

Oh, Dante's Cove, how terrible you are in your cheesy fabulousness. The series begins in 1840, apparently an era when the women used parasols and wore lots and lots of eyeliner and Madonna's 1983 black lace gloves. Grace, an evil sorceress, curses her fiancé for having hot gay sex with the butler, and there's lots of full-frontal nudity and chaining and whipping by candlelight. It's brilliant.

Then we cut to modern times where Toby (Charlie David) and Kevin (Gregory Michael) have fallen in love and have hot gay sex pretty much everywhere — like the beach with the waves crashing over them, and on their hot, sweaty bed in Toby's hot, sweaty apartment with hot sweat pooling artistically on their naked skin, intercut with camera angles shot through the whirring blades of a fan.

This show is kind of Queer as Folk meets Charmed meets, oh … Dark Shadows, anyone? With lots of gay sex. And however lacking it might be in greater cultural and social significance, that's definitely a television first.

Hotness Rating: 8/10
Romance Rating: 6/10
Significance Rating: 5/10