HBO likes to break the boundaries of television, and with its status as the king of cable TV, it has the freedom to do just about anything, including sex. HBO likes sex so much it’s become part of the framework for their TV planning. After all, you could stand around the water cooler at work and talk about the intricacies in making robots as real-to-life as they appear in Westworld, but let’s be honest, you’re talking about Game of Thrones’s boat sex. So here’s to all the HBO shows that turned tawdry into actual plot; may we never watch these shows with our parents.
Game of Thrones
Sometimes sex is great. Sometimes it’s terrifying. Sometimes it’s on a boat, and sometimes it happens between relatives. Game of Thrones has brought us every kind of sex imaginable, from the mundane stroll through a brothel to really inappropriate grief sex. There’s so much sex in Game of Thrones that you could make a Dr. Seuss rhyme out of it — I would not could not in a cave, I would not could not with a slave. I would not could not with a bear (looking at you, Tormund), I would not could not anywhere!
Game of Thrones wasn’t the first HBO show to bring sex to the forefront, but by fan reaction, you’d think otherwise. Probably because there’s a lot of sex in the show. Like, a LOT.
Westworld
There’s so much nudity in Westworld you’d think they’re a part of a movement to normalize nudity. Westworld is much more than casual nakedness; it’s the ultimate “what happens in (location) stays in (location).” There’s so much robot sex in Westworld that they’ve tackled the touchy subject of robot STDs. That’s serious dedication to the ugly realities of a libedo unleashed and set loose on an unsuspecting robot population. How do you put “Robot syphilis test specialist” on your resume? Is a robot STD test like STD testing for people? How does one avoid getting STDs transmitted by robots? This show really goes to uncharted territory.
Rome
It only lasted for a couple of seasons, and it didn’t get as much attention as other shows airing at the same time (Deadwood, for example), but Rome got every bit as naughty as a show about the country that gave us Caligula should. It starred Kevin McKidd before he got middle-aged mom-tainment slutty on Grey’s Anatomy.
Deadwood
For starters, two of the main businesses in town are brothels. It’s pretty obvious where this show is headed. While swearing might take the lead in adult themes run amok in the show, sex and violence are the currency on which the show was built. Deadwood is so smutty it managed to make cute-as-a-button Kristen Bell into a hooker. What would Olaf say?
True Blood
I’m still angry about Twilight turning vampires into sparkly nice guys. Vampires are monsters, not husband material. True Blood remembers that, though they kept the sexy seductor part alive. But saying True Blood is all about vampire sex is like saying Game of Thrones is all about Jon Snow’s love life. There are also werewolves! Fairies! Even boring old humans get in on the action.
Sex & the City
How could we talk about HBO’s sexy time without bringing up the show that literally has it in the title? Sure, it’s a chick show, and yes, those women can be anything from grating to the kind of humans that make you never want to leave your house again. But let’s be honest, Sex & the City did a lot for HBO. It, along with its contemporaries like The Sopranos, brought HBO into a new era of TV programming that would give us treasures like Game of Thrones. It also brought TV what HBO thinks is a frank and dirty look at the sex lives of women.
The moral of the story? These dirty delights have high-rating ends. Or something like that.