The 10 Sexiest TV Shows of 2025 (So Far)

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In a stunning turn of events that wouldn’t have been predictable 20 years ago, TV has turned out to be cinema’s more explicit sibling when it comes to depictions of sex. Without the threat of being evaluated by the MPAA (and slapped with a hard-to-market NC-17 rating), TV can confidently go more places and show its characters in less clothing than its media counterpart can. There’s been no shortage of sex on TV this year so far, between the likes of Severance, The White Lotus, and Dying for Sex on the fictional side and Love Island and Temptation Island in the reality genre. But how explicit—and, more importantly, hot—has it been? Some answers below.

Benito Skinner’s semi-autobiographical account of his college freshman year was plenty controversial on social media when it bowed on Prime Video earlier in 2025, but that was more for its handling of gayness than its depictions of sex. Since his character, Benny, is (mostly) in the closet, it’s rare that the gayness and sex actually come together on Overcompensating. We see Benny struggling to get an erection when attempting to have sex with Carmen (Wally Baram), who eventually learns his secret (though it takes her way too long). Benny does eventually make out with a guy from his past, though there’s no palpable chemistry—it has all the electricity of gay-for-pay porn made by actual straight guys. Other characters have quick, clothed sex in various arrangements, and there’s plenty of discussion about sex (including a conversation about a “Cleveland steamer”), but for a show ostensibly about sex, Overcompensating is underwhelming. The scene that best captures the sexual zeitgeist occurs when Benny meets his first would-be Grindr hookup, played by Matt Rogers, who turns out to be in an open relationship, which Benny learns when the husband (played by Rogers’s Las Culturistas podcast cohost Bowen Yang) materializes. They rapidly cycle through their open arrangement, which is don’t ask don't tell, unless one of them asks, and then the other has to tell everything. It’s manic, hilarious, and wise—more like this in a potential season 2, please!

This witty, well-acted, sex-positive, and ultimately moving limited series on FX is based on the life of podcaster Molly Kochan, who died of cancer in 2019. Created by Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock, Dying for Sex has set the gold standard of depictions of sex in media. Michelle Williams plays Molly, whose stage 4 cancer diagnosis (and dissatisfying relationship with her husband, played by Jay Duplass) leads her on a journey of sex and self-discovery. (As she’s pondering such an odyssey, she sees a man make lewd gestures on the street and wonders, “Is this a sign from the universe?” in just one of the show’s many hilarious jokes.) This brings her to places like a queer potluck play party and into a back room at a Crate & Barrel–type store where she submits to a dom played by Robby Hoffman. She has dalliances with a guy who keeps asking her to clasp his balls (played by SNL’s Marcello Hernandez), a dude who dresses like a dog (played by Oh Mary’s Conrad Ricamora) whom she eventually pees on, and most tenderly, a man referred to only as Neighbor Guy (Rob Delaney) whom she dominates and degrades. That relationship kicks off after she reprimands him over his trash in the hallway. She mocks him (“Look at the way you’re jerking off. Your pinky is out. You think you’re fancy?”), kicks him in the dick (which results in a broken femur, indicating her cancer has spread), and eventually finds tenderness with him. Throughout, Jenny Slate plays Molly’s devoted friend Nikki in a career-best performance. Molly’s mother (played by Sissy Spacek with equal parts battiness and gravitas) wonders just what she’s doing, having all this random sex, and Molly explains that she’s trying to learn about herself. Dying for Sex persuasively argues that using one’s body is a great way to do that.

HBO’s Hacks isn’t exactly known as a sexy show—Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder’s Ava Daniels don’t really have that will-they-or-won’t-they chemistry … yet. Nonetheless, the proudly bisexual Ava did find herself briefly involved with a male-female couple in season 4, as the show humorously riffed on polyamory. At one point, we see Ava having sex with the couple—he gives her oral sex while she kisses an orgasming Ava. And then Ava’s phone starts blowing up while the couple has sex between themselves. “Emily Blunt doesn’t want to do the Gravy Bowl Challenge,” she reports as he pumps away. She then excuses herself, letting the couple do what couples do. The relationship is short-lived, and understandably so.

Oh boy. If you haven’t seen Netflix’s The Ultimatum, get ready to have your mind twisted (or announcing it’s going to jump ship). The show takes a group of couples: One member of each wants to get married, and the other isn’t so sure. The one who wants marriage gives an ultimatum (hence the name): Marry me or we’re through. In ostensible service of resolving these quandaries, the couples are pooled, allowed to interact/speed-date, and then they choose a new partner from the group to join in a “trial marriage” for three weeks. They then get back with their original partner for a second “trial marriage.” Then each decides if they want to leave with the person they came with or their first trial spouse, or go home alone. You can see how this sets everyone up for drama, right? Shockingly (or maybe not) on The Ultimatum: Queer Love (which features only women and nonbinary people), only a few of them have sexual contact with their new partners during their first trial marriage, even though they’re all clearly encouraged to claim they have “broken up” with the person they came with and with whom they will soon reunite. After we watch the handsome Magan and Haley begin to make out on the couch, they retire to their bedroom and close the door. Then they discuss connecting sexually, and Magan eventually confirms to the camera that they “hooked up all the way.” This causes no shortage of pain and, more importantly for the show, discussion when Magan and Haley return to their original partners (Dayna to Magan: “It was a test and you failed.”) One would be foolish to mistake this for therapy. The turmoil this causes, as any reality-TV watcher (or someone who’s merely heard of the concept of reality TV) understands, is the point.

According to an anonymous report in The Sun, “tensions are definitely rising among the production crew” of Love Island season 7, because the participants won’t stop boning. What this yields as a viewing experience has been … not very much. Some under-the-covers tussling between Huda and Jeremiah in a communal bedroom (later confirmed by Huda to have been the deed), as well as some (unconfirmed) motion happening in Hannah and Pepe’s bed. Cierra and Nic were also spotted doing … something under the covers, which Nic told Ace later was “one of the best 25 seconds of my life. It was so fast. I had to apologize it was so fast. It was so good but it was so short.” They simply can’t wait for the Hideaway! A note to prospective production crews: Be careful what you wish for.

Season 2 of the beloved Apple TV+ series Severance made some time for the ol’ Innie-Outie. The first encounter takes place between Mark (Adam Scott) and who he thinks is Helly (Britt Lower) in a tent during a work retreat. Illuminated by a heat lamp, the red-hued pair make out—we see closeups on hands and faces while the naughtier bits are relegated to the shadows. In all, a tasteful scene (that nonetheless ended up in a dogpile with episode director Ben Stiller on top during filming). It turns out that it wasn’t Helly that Mark was bedding but her Outie Helena Eagan, who had been deceiving Mark (in addition to his coworkers).

A few episodes later, Mark gets to experience Helly properly after confessing the mixup. “You thought it was me. Which means you wanted to with me. What sucks is she got to have that and I didn’t,” says Helly, who then reasons, “I don’t want her memory. I want my own.” Under tarp-covered desks (“Tada, a tent”), they have sex. Again, it’s mostly shot in closeup, though somehow this scene shows even less (they don’t even kiss for very long), as though it’s just their secret. While not substantial or particularly steamy, the sex scenes gave the show’s plot even more depth, exploring notions of consent and bonding within the show’s idiosyncratic universe.

The sixth episode of The White Lotus season 3 brought a sense of release when one character jerked off his brother under a blanket during an inebriated three-way with an older character, Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon). The release, while ejaculatory in nature, was more importantly a narrative one: Finally, something happened on this inert season of a once bustling show. Sure, earlier in the season we saw the dong of patriarch Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) inadvertently spill out of his robe. (Later, Isaacs would bemoan a perceived “double standard” when it comes to asking male actors about the veracity of their onscreen genitalia. He then walked it back. Sam Nivola and Sarah Catherine Hook, who play Isaacs’s kids on the show, told TV Insider that the actor’s onscreen dick was indeed a prosthetic.)

Of course, there was the thrilling monologue by Frank (Sam Rockwell) about his sexual and gender exploration during his sexcapades in Thailand. (“Maybe what I really want is to be one of these Asian girls.”) But until Nivola’s Lochlan reached out and touched his brother Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), actual sex was confined to mere suggestion. The incestuous handjob was foreshadowed in an extremely open (and wandering-eyed) discussion about masturbation in the first episode. Plus, there’s the episode 5 kiss between the brothers. (It wasn’t a make-out, and it would not even be worth mentioning here if it didn’t kick off the threesome). It’s an incendiary move to show such intimacy between brothers, but scandal-starved viewers of the show don’t seem to be complaining.

On Netflix’s spin on Temptation Island (originally on Fox during the early-aughts golden era of reality TV and then rebooted on USA, where it ran from 2019 to 2023), you can see a butt … but not much else. Picture it: Lured into the shower by Natalie, Grant disrobes, giving the cameras a clear view of his full moon. But then once the—per the onscreen captions—“[panting rhythmically]” starts, the glass shower is too fogged up to see much of anything. Well, that’s just great. A scene in the next episode featuring Natalie and Grant in the tent dubbed the “Temptation Haven” (an outdoor smush room, if you will) was much the same—just a long shot of the tent and panting on the soundtrack. Brion’s threesome with Courtney and Alex? Similarly offscreen, with some “[rhythmic wet slapping]” and moaning being the best evidence that actual sex was occurring behind a closed door.

The show’s premise, naturally, is all about sex, as couples arrive at the island together only to be split into gender-specific houses and introduced to singles whose sole purpose it is to facilitate cheating—if sex with someone at a place that’s literally called Temptation Island counts as cheating. The couples watch the most transgressive footage of their other half and make tough decisions about the nature of their relationship. In a world where polyamory and general nonmonogamy are increasingly more mainstream, it all seems rather quaint at this point.

The last four episodes of the third season of The Sex Lives of College Girls aired in early 2025 … and that may be a wrap. In March, it was announced that Max was canceling the show. While it is reportedly looking for a new home for season 4, nothing has been confirmed. If episode 10 of season 3 really is the end of College Girls, the chatty show will have gone out not with a bang but with an attempt at a showstopping musical number sung by relative newcomer Kacey (Gracie Lawrence). Sigh.

Earlier in the season, Kacey loses her virginity to Cooper (Roby Attal) in a completely tame scene that only hints at potential sex—her intensity after the fact (insisting he meet her mother almost immediately) is way more graphic and serves to scare him away. Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) takes her “first-ever nude pic,” but when it turns out to be a Live Photo with her face in it, she freaks out at her boyfriend Brian (Michael Hsu Rosen), insisting he delete it. Lila (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino) gets involved—and cartoonish, testicle-targeted violence ensues. Bela (Amrit Kaur) kisses a girl and she likes it, then comes out as bi and no one cares. Aside from a few conversations that slip in sex ed, like Jessica Seinfeld sneaking cauliflower into mac and cheese (“You still should get tested for HPV since there’s no test for men”), the last handful of episodes of this show that’s supposedly about sex were largely devoid of the act—well, save for a scene of Brian thrusting cartoonishly fast on top of Kimberly. They’re both under a blanket at the time. She’s wearing a bra. They engage briefly about Foucault’s ideas regarding prison reform while they’re doing it. At least they’ll always have that.

This import, which originally aired on British TV in 2023 and finally landed on Starz this year, has the timeliness of a contemporary magazine cover story and the sex-negative judgment of a ’60s pulp novel. It concerns good-looking couple Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) and Pete (Alfred Enoch), who move next door to an even better-looking couple, Becka (Jessica De Gouw) and Danny (Sam Heughan), who turn out to be swingers. Well, they don’t actually identify as such (“happily nonmonogamous” is how they put it), but their agreement means they won’t be joining a polycule or taking on secondaries any time soon. “We’re allowed to play with other people as long as we’re both present,” explains Becka.

Except they don’t even do that. When the inevitable partner swapping takes place, it’s in separate rooms during a country-house getaway. Evie and Danny have the time of their lives; Becka and Pete … don’t. That’s technically the second broken rule. The first? “Not with friends.” Then it gets even wilder when Evie tells Danny to finish in her despite a broken condom. “I’m on the Pill,” she says. Spoiler: She isn’t, and that her story begins with another unsuccessful attempt at IVF for her and Pete should tell you exactly where this is going.

Evie is straight-up maniacal by the end, openly pining for Danny and effectively coercing him into sex. There’s a subplot involving a stolen sex tape in which Becka and Danny hook up with another couple—it’s maybe the least explicit sex tape of all time—which eventually causes her yoga class to be empty (as if people wouldn’t be pouring in after getting to see her hotness in action). Oh, and Danny is a corrupt-ish traffic cop who is being investigated by Pete, a journalist. That Pete is the more sensitive, less nonmonogamy-inclined partner at least attempts to show us something new and non-stereotypical, but The Couple Next Door doesn’t have too much to say or add to the conversation about open relationships. It’s trashy fun that’s this close to being a soap opera. It’s less a sex-positive examination of modern love and more a cautionary tale whose overarching advice is: Be careful where you stick it.