Gay Sex on TV: Is America Finally Growing Up?

In “Strangers,” a 1989 episode of the zeitgeist-y 1980s show thirtysomething, two minor gay characters are seen lying in bed together, post-sex. Despite the fact that the two of them never touch, the scene caused a major controversy, with the network, ABC, deciding not to rerun it after advertisers balked and the network lost more than $1.5 million in revenue.

Flash forward more than 20 years to “Everything is Broken,” the August 8th episode of True Blood. Eric and Talbot are openly having very suggestive sex when Eric says, suggestively, “Turn over,” to which Talbot enthusiastically responds, “Yes, Daddy!”

Granted, Eric ends up staking Talbot (with, um, an actual wooden stake), but two men talking about intercourse, mid-sex, on mainstream television? The scene couldn’t be much more explicit without being openly graphic.

Eric and Talbot's True Blood love scene

It’s difficult to compare the two scenes exactly: after all, thirtysomething aired on advertiser-supported broadcast television – back when people actually watched broadcast television – and True Blood airs on subscription-only HBO, which doesn’t have any advertisers to offend.

But when it comes to gay sex on television, there’s no denying that the degree of openness, and explicitness, is many times greater now than it was 20 years ago.

That said, there is definitely something of a “cable curtain” on the current TV landscape, with most of the gay action happening on the cable side.  

On the “Out of Town” episode of AMC’s Mad Men, which aired just over a year ago, closeted Sal ends up getting seduced by a horny bellhop, who starts to give him what is clearly a hand-job.

Mad Men's Sal gets help with his luggage

A few years earlier, Noah and Wade (and the other cast members) were surprisingly friendly on Logo’s Noah’s Arc – this, along with HBO’s The Wire and Showtime’s Sleeper Cell, are among the very few shows ever to feature gay men of color getting busy onscreen.

Clockwise from top: Sleeper Cell, The Wire, Noah's Arc

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