Let’s Talk about Sex! In Bridgerton Season 2
* SPOILERS *
It’s no secret that a large amount of Bridgerton’s success was because it featured not only sex scenes but female-centered sex scenes that highlighted a woman’s experience and female gaze. There’s a reason romance novels are popular; they provide a strong story, compelling characters, a happy ending, and sweeping romance with what usually ranges from adorably sweet to downright delicious and even to explicit sex scenes. And it’s all provided without having to slog through fantasy plots (if that’s not your thing), like in Game of Thrones, or female exploitation, like in Game of Thrones, or copious rape, like in Game of Thrones…Ok, I seem like I'm ragging on GoT, and I kind of am, though I love it. But Bridgerton provides an entirely different sort of sex than most any other show; guiltless, fun sex that celebrates one of the most profound ways human beings connect.
Nowhere is this more powerful and more pure than in Bridgerton Season 2. But not only does it provide the intense and joyous experience of sex, but it underlines it with the complicated, nuanced, and often maddening personal and societal pressures that can corrupt an experience that can and should be so beautiful. It is contrasted sharply with the first season in it’s approach to sex and sensuality, and for some viewers, that can be jarring or even frustrating.
But I contend that this season was in fact way sexier than the first, and that, while the first season broke down barriers concerning female pleasure and the female gaze, Season 2 brought something much deeper and more sensual.
It makes sense that the first season had a more immature expression of sex, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing. The plot centers around a young virgin discovering her sexuality and indeed even discovering how the mechanics of sex work. It is supposed to be a revelation, a revelatory experience that brings Daphne forward as a woman. A huge part of the plot is also about Simon using the withdrawal method, again, something that is helped along by the visualization of it. Having their naked bodies tossed about onscreen fit with the storyline better. That’s not to say there wasn’t some sensuality (the spoon, the hands, Daphne and the rose Simon gave her), but the focus was on something more direct and obvious as is befitting the naivete of the protagonist.
The same can’t be said for what Season 2 was doing. This was a much more mature season, a season of rampant sensuality, of almost kisses, of heavy breathing and charged looks. The thing about sexual tension is that it works a lot better when both parties actually know what sex is. While Kate is, almost certainly, still a virgin, she is clearly far more in touch with her body and her sexuality than Daphne ever was. She recalls their intimate moments and overheats, their kiss and seems to be headed toward something when she gets interrupted by the maid. Kate clearly knows what it means when Anthony is so close to her, understands her body’s reactions, even if she ignores and denies them.
What we get because of that is a masterpiece of the slow burn. It is almost excessive and certainly frustrating, both for us and for them, but our reaction as the audience mimics the sexual frustration of our leads. For an enemies to lovers story, and a forbidden romance too, it’s not about the act itself but about the passion, the buildup, and the release. Having so much that leads into that sex scene at the end of episode 7 makes for a truly sensational culmination of all that anger, passion, and frustration.
And it is one heck of a sex scene. Personally, I was much happier with one scene like that, with all the steaminess, the intensity, the connection, as well as the skin, one scene that communicated all the emotion and was not only justified by but absolutely necessary to the story than half a dozen that were far less powerful. That scene did so much, and it took my breath away.
Bridgerton kept it’s reputation for female pleasure, and still managed to push the limits. Anthony’s hand going up Kate’s skirt as soon as he starts kissing her marks that this interaction is going exactly one direction. They aren’t messing around. They’ve been dying for this for months, denying themselves until they’re going to explode, and when they do finally give in, it’s a dam bursting. Everything about it is punctuated with sensuality. Her hair coming down, the slow way he removes his shirt and the focus on his torso, Anthony rolling down her stocking which, I guarantee, he has been dreaming of doing since he caught a glimpse of her thigh when they went hunting, and on and on.
They really do let us sit in the scene. We feel both the eager mania of it, but the slow, sensual pace of unfurling desire. Anthony knows what he’s doing, and has laid out a big promise with his “the things I could teach you” line. He doesn’t disappoint. The emotional intimacy of the moment almost outweighs the physical — they are bare to each other in every way possible.
After reading several reviews before watching myself that said that this season was less sexy, I was nervous that when these two finally got together, it would be a disappointment. That was very wrong, and I feel like many of those reviews were missing the point. Sexier doesn’t always mean more sex, and it never means just more sex. Especially in a genre built for women where the story, the romance, the mind and heart, are just as involved as the body in the fantasy, there has to be more than just body parts onscreen. And this scene delivers.
Anthony’s worshipful treatment of Kate is enough to drive a girl mad. For all the passion and fire that’s woven into the scene, all the desperation, there is so much joy as they smile as they kiss. There is tenderness as he removes her glove, kisses her stomach. And there is connection.
It’s that connection, I think, that makes this scene feel different than any other I’ve seen on Bridgerton, and truly, in almost any other show. The best and most beautiful thing about sex, especially in a show centered around romance as well as in our lives, is the way it can bind us, bring us together with another human in a powerful and intimate way. It’s union on a level we can’t reach in really any other capacity, and Kate and Anthony embody that to the letter in this scene. When she reaches for his hand and they clasp them together, that’s the connection. When he keeps eye contact with her as he’s between her legs, that’s the connection. No fear, no shame, just connection.
It’s not until Kate and Anthony are apart that the rest of the world starts to seep in. Kate experiencing the aftershocks of the experience is jarring. She stares at herself in the mirror, the universal sign in movie language of a person asking “Who am I? What have I become?” Kate starts to panic, does something rash, because she’s realizing the ramifications, not necessarily of the intimacy, but of the way she is going to have to deal with it. She has been told by her society that she is somehow lesser now, that she did something wrong. Compound that with the shame she was already feeling about Anthony being the one who brings this out in her, and we have a recipe for disaster.
Bridgerton did a wonderful job this season of giving us something so pure and intense, but then showing how that can be marred when other things get in the way. It’s an idea that still rings disturbingly true to this day, where girls in particular are taught that their sexual desire is something to be ashamed of, that they’ve “lost” something when they have sex for the first time. It brings forth an interesting angle and new angle. While Season 1 had all the joys of sex, then corrupted by internal issues between people, Season 2 shows that joy and connection of people, then ripped apart by the main theme — duty and what is expected of us.
It really is a masterclass in letting character and theme dictate where the story goes, but that’s probably for another blog post.
Anthony, meanwhile, is facing his own set of fears, guilt, and self-loathing, is going to do his duty (again) and propose. I’m not saying he doesn’t want Kate because of course he does, but he brings the ring and does what he’s supposed to do. Obviously there’s the accident in between and a lot of self discovery, and I’ll get into that sometime too, but focusing specifically on the ramifications of sex here, that first proposal does so much to show the inner turmoil he’s facing.
That first proposal broke me. It broke my heart for Kate as she thought it was coming from obligation, but it shattered me for Anthony. He has finally pushed everything aside, finally put his own feelings and desires first and taken what has to feel like his first breath in months, maybe years. He gives himself, all of himself, heart, soul, and body, to the woman he loves. And he thinks it's not enough.
He tells her he wishes it hadn't happened like that, that she deserved better. As if everything he is and everything he has is not enough. As if he has dishonored her because this took place outside of marriage. Of course that's how he was raised and how he thinks, but it rips my soul apart to watch Kate believe she is not worthy of love, and for Anthony to believe his love is not worthy. I am so glad it went like that, frustrating as it was, but it showed all the fears and vulnerabilities like nothing else could have.
That’s why it is so important that the proposal, the real one, the one Kate accepts, is all about love. It’s about wanting a life together, not for duty or obligation, but because that’s what they want. And it’s why, in the end, their last scenes together are also deliciously sensual, but are all about joy.
It’s also no accident that when they are in bed together in the last few minutes of episode 8, they are completely naked. No corset, no pants, nothing. There are, literally and figuratively, no more barriers. They are keeping nothing else back.
There is less sex in Bridgerton Season 2 than there was in Season 1, but I don’t think it’s the poorer for it. The sex is doing and saying something entirely different in the most recent season than it was in the last, and that is both okay and good. And really, when the chemistry is that strong, when the emotion is that poignant, and when the story is that powerful, it makes for something truly special.
