Revolutionary Desires: The Political Power of the Sex Scene

404 Inklings #27

by Xuanlin Tham

Cinema is becoming less and less sexy; yet more and more people are rallying against sex on screen. What could explain this growing anti-sex sentiment among the producers and consumers of screen culture? The sex scene’s intimacies, transgressions, and dedication to pleasure can be uniquely poised to rupture dominant narratives of capitalism and the violences that flow from it. Why is the sex scene, demonised as it is, therefore more politically important and subversive than ever? Revolutionary Desires seeks to answer that question.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Sexuality, Feminism, Essays, Queer

112 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2025

Reviews

[Karolina]

Druga gwiazdka za rozdział o queer desire, bo w większości był całkiem spoko.

Zgadzam się z tym, że seksualność coraz bardziej podlega kontroli i że potrzebujemy różnych form intymności i seksualności i seksu jako takiego w kulturze. Ale błagam (!), oglądanie orgii w jednym czy drugim amerykańskim filmie wcale nie rozwali kapitalizmu i mierziło mnie naciąganie do opisów takich scen cytatów z Marka Fishera czy Audre Lorde, żeby spróbować udowodnić, jakie to wszystko „transgressive”.

W ogóle fascynujące jest czasem poczytać krytykę powstającą w sercu imperium, poziom odklejenia przechodzi tutaj miejscami ludzkie pojęcie, jestem ciekawa co powiedziałaby na temat przyrównywania kinky seksu na ekranie do fizycznych form oporu np przeciętna Filipinka czy Palestynka. Niech europejskie osoby na lewicy dotkną czasem tej przysłowiowej trawy i zastanowią się nad swoim przywilejem.

[rhian]

yes. a thousand times yes.

[Owen Hatherley]

This is good: short, sharp and convincing on what sex scenes can and can't do - it wisely doesn't go the full Wilhelm Reich, and instead makes a well-argued and timely case both against the Junior Anti-Sex League and for the use of fictional sex as a political and personal commentary.

[👜]

so extremely grateful for all my cultural/social lighthouses calling me back to my body. i cannot describe the feeling of reading this while listening to “off with her head” (banks’ own exclamation for us to “get out of our heads and into your present moment”) and finishing it right before i headed off to see “on falling” at the bfi (i won’t spoil cus it’s so new but very on topic). it’s no coincidence that my last few months have been led by kelela’s lulling words “starting to feel my body now” and the gentle push/grip of the collar from my flatmate to divest from disembodiment, to let the lorde into my life and move towards the erotic. the fight has hurt me the most when i haven’t been reached for, when i haven’t reached for others and when i’ve acted like that is acceptable. that was when my body was at its most broken. no longer will that be my everyday. i’ve been moved to move and find ways of making myself move (thinking of berjé’s love letter to dancing, in a book about lesbian sacred sexuality). thank you so much, xuanlin. love will never cover the impact of queerness to my life. revolutionary desires are following me everywhere. i’m ready to fuck the system

[Ambrose (Aco)]

I've been using "polymorphous" excessively ever since finishing this probably the best essay I read all year go get it ✨

[grace]

xuanlin is as brilliant in their writing as they are meticulous in their research, i expected nothing less! they also briefly (but fairly) critiqued my favorite batman movie, so matt reeves, in the unlikely case that you read this: add a fucking sex scene or two!!!!

[phloeby]

I’m still going strong with 2026 the year of reading alternating dumb book/smart book, but this was a smart book that was also sexy?? So?? It was perfect?? I really really really like the writing style, and I will be passing off all the opinions argued in this book as my own from now on. Especially that sex scenes are cool actually and we should have more of them. Would love to hear the authors opinion on Heated Rivalry thank you xx

[June Bug]

Recommended this book by a friend, and it did not disappoint! It's opened my eyes to watch scenes that we as audiences tend to shy away from or find awkward. As a writer, this has changed my perspective on what a sex scene can mean. Tham has given me a lot of films to watch too!

[Georgia Gardner]

so brilliant! so many pages marked to come back to.
a really inspiring book

[Isaac Badger]

4.5⭐️
These inklings just don’t miss

[Dena]

Showgirls shout out, hell yeah

[Shubham]

sharp, necessary, possibly life-changing. longer review is cooking but i will be thinking and talking about this book for a long time.

[effie allison]

to be honest, i am not sure how much more this book adds to the conversation if you have already read the carlee gomes article. i did appreciate the examples of films, which was something distinct from the article-- im excited to watch the ones i haven't seen! and really, i think the author is really on to something in connecting the lack of sensuality and eroticism in modern american cinema to larger issues, including my main concern w this, which is the growing disconnection of people from their bodies and organic desires. it would have been interesting to see more scholarship in this area, but maybe that's a different book than this. overall, worth a read if this is a subject that interests you at all, but also you should read the carlee gomes article and probably erotism by bataille (who got a brief shout out in this but i feel like could really add more to this conversation)

[bryan]

4.5
i enjoyed this so much! pro-sex-scene brigade up 400 points.

    ”One of the most visceral ways an art form can instantaneously bring us back to sensing in our bodies (just think about the blood rush it instigates, maybe the held breath; the heightened awareness of other people in the room, the way you might begin to feel your clothes against your skin), the sex scene is, by nature, an interruption: a moment of pause in the otherwise smooth automatism of our disembodied media consumption.”

    not in a bad way, but at times this almost read like internet (read: twitter) discourse in novelized form. it honestly just made for a clear and concise way to understand the conversations people have about sex scenes online, which was really helpful considering the cyclical nature that those conversations typically take online.

    i’ve always been drawn to imaginative/inventive depictions of sex on screen, but have never really had the language to describe why that is. i definitely have a lot more to think about in regards to that now.

    i found the pushback on the way people use “male gaze” today really insightful. as well as the argument against representation for representations’ sake. anyways, i’m gonna go watch a movie mentioned in the book now.

    side note: what’s the deal with movies with sexual themes not streaming anywhere? kanopy, thanks for saving me from that.

[charlie]

"Sex is not going to be the revolution, and neither is cinema. But I do believe they are some of the many portals in our everyday lives to feelings of revolutionary impulse..."

Liked this a lot more than my last Inklings read! Well scoped, good close reading, and thoughtful application of a few different theoretical frameworks. Small quibbles:
• I would have liked if each example was twinned with another instead of being sort of singular in its point; it would have done a lot to illustrate pattern
• I don't know if we needed two examples of the Wachowskis' work, especially because one was about a tv show—at this book length I would have rather it been another film from a different director

Wish this had been longer so it could fit more examples! But I acknowledge that's a limit of book length. Extra shout-out for me having some new movies to add to my watchlist, genuinely a couple in here I hadn't heard of.

[Lola Stocking]

Short and interesting analysis! Some really good points and directions for further reading although I’m not completely convinced by the idea that this can be related to anti capitalism in such a clear way. Obviously sex and its representations are highly political but at times this felt a little shoe horned (or too hopeful). And a couple of the film analyses felt somewhat contradictory or simplistic when describing the desire of their female protagonists as essentially expressions of the “male gaze” just after the author critiques the idea of an oversimplified gendered gaze and discusses how UN-simplistic shifting etc desire is. Still great though (and the conclusion reads as somewhat of a softening of the anti capitalist stance which I think was more convincing)

[Jack Birrell]

‘The sex scenes in this book critique capitalism and find the energy to break past it; they experiment with risking and reinventing pleasure under patriarchy; most crucially, they refuse to surrender to the violence of the present, and they refuse to leave anyone behind. Feel it: that outward-reaching ecstasy, the way it senses so much more possibility than the here and now. Follow it into the future.’

Inspiring, expansive, educational. Viva the revolution of desires and the freedom of expression that is being a human and sharing thoughts, feelings and intimacy. We are all here. All connected. And we aren’t going anywhere so let’s embrace it rather than degrade it.

[Jimmy Sherwood]

As much as I thoroughly loved every page of this book, I just wanted more, more and more, and less than 100 pages wasn’t enough.

This is the exact sort of book I was missing and craving when I was in university (I even referenced the same sex scene in Sense8 which blew my mind as a young queer person). But, I wish there were opportunity to branch out on sex scenes in other forms of media beyond film (and the brief foray into television.)

I completely understand the authors dilemma of writing what feels like such a ‘frivolous’ book in our current year of political turmoil, but I would given *anything* for a much deeper dive on this topic that I can sink my teeth into.

[elle]

Doesn’t really tread new ground to those that take up space online/on social media where discourse like this happens on a cyclical, almost weekly basis, but this is a great, condensed argument for the sublimation of the erotic into quotidian life on the basis of building a circuitry of sexual, physical bodies that open up possibilities to move towards queerness— that is, not necessarily in terms of strictly sexuality, but against a de-eroticized surveillance state of policed bodies where the only viable future is an atomized, cisheteronormative one. Best as a companion piece to Jose Esteban Munoz, Katherine Angel, and Linda Williams.

[chlotatoreads]

I really enjoyed and read it in one day.
I have a few things that couldn't quite make it a 5* for me personally.

1) Sometimes felt the language was way to overcomplicated to sound smart.
2) I wish this was longer!
3) I don't know whether if I read this in 1-5 years time if it would still be relevant, as it mentioned very current/recent topics. The war in Gaza came up which through me off a bit- I understand the need to talk about it of course, but felt out of place in this book.

Despite all of that, I would still recommend and I'm glad I read it.

[Kasandra]

Genuinely opened my third eye. A great book on why sex scenes (and their disappearance from mainstream cinema) are important. What happens when we are not permitted "unnecessary" sex scenes, when we are denied the eroticism and involuntarily physical pleasure of something beautiful, messy and unifying? What happens when we are taught to be moved by nothing, to be trained to not want, to not desire? What are the wider implications of being forced to disavow desire? 🤔 amazing little book and I can't believe I found it this month when the publisher shut down!

[Enea]

Vote: 5/5

This was a surprise. I was expecting an ok book on representation of sex in cinema, but this was wildely political, sexy and erotically charge. There are cinematic examples throughout the book, but they are almost an excuse to develop a quick, smart, easy essay on how desire is the drive for change and how owning your own body and use it for pleasure, it’s a revolutionary act related to liberation. Seriously impressed. Highly recommended.

[Charles]

An excellent deep-dive into the mechanisms behind the increasing scarcity of sex scenes in Western movies; the author’s analysis of late-stage capitalism as a hurdle for the expression of desire is particularly well-articulated and compelling. I would recommend this read to anyone interested in cinema or concerned about the rise of conservatism and its implications for sexual freedom.

[Algirdas Kraunaitis]

There is something odd about reading a book about a movie (I am not very likely to ever watch). But this book made some very interesting points, that extend beyond the movies and explore a particular social trend - that of the de-sexualisation - that is worth exploring today. Also, I am always surprised how academic these little books are, so don't be fooled by the lovely cover!

[Ben]

Interesting work of cultural studies inves igating the movie sex scene (or lack of). Some may be familiar territory (e.g. Laura Mulvey's work on the "male gaze") but it does cover admirable ground for a short book, particularly enjoyed the section on the sexlessness of modern movies (and wider media) and I think there's room in a different book to thrash that out more.

[Liam]

Always feels like a bit of a cop out to call pieces of work “urgent” or “important” but this absolutely is. A wonderfully constructed bit of writing that is crucial for understanding the importance of sex scenes outside of their immediate context.

[Eve]

a must read for anybody who cares about sex in cinema and wants to die every time they read a post about the ‘necessity’ of pleasure on screen <3 a perfect little book

[Laura]

Incredible

[connie]

makes you think

[Toby Crime]

This was nice, recommended some interested sex scenes for my letterboxed, haven't actually watched any since but here's to hoping. Sometimes walked on the line of too pomo but never crossed it