I’m Obsessed with the Terrible Sex in Netflix’s “Obsession”
With the Motion Picture Association making it harder to see sex on the big screen over the years, TV has had to pick up film’s mantle. In the 1990s, HBO led the way with sex scenes that would blow the minds of viewers who stuck to normal cable. With the advent of unregulated, uncensored streaming platforms, now we can binge-watch sexy shows on the regular.
Netflix’s Obsession is the latest series to bring sex to the forefront, and naturally, audiences have been going wild for it. It’s a show where the characters have sex, and a lot of it. That’s great! But there’s a major problem: Obsession is also a show that fundamentally misunderstands its own main attraction—hot, steamy sex!—by instead delivering some of the most tepid, lifeless sex scenes in recent memory. Obsession practically offers a blueprint for how not to showcase sex, undermining the reason the show exists in the first place.
(Warning: Spoilers for Obsession ahead.)