Hot Stuff
Why the horniness of Heated Rivalry is revolutionary—and necessary.
We’re all a little obsessed with François Arnaud lately. I mean, how could we not be?
The hunky Canadian actor who portrays Scott Hunter in Heated Rivalry had us all in tears in episode five when he brought his boyfriend Kip (Robbie G.K.) onto the ice for a huge, coming-out smooch.
But I’ve also been thinking about something he said on CBS Mornings recently.
The interview started out rather tame, with co-host Gayle King gushing about how the show made her think, “Love is love is love.” But about halfway through, the other host (correctly) says, “We gotta talk about the sex.”
Here, Arnaud explains that the show, had it remained at its original home at a big (unidentified) streamer, might have been unrecognizably neutered. The original streamer, he says, wanted “no kissing until episode five.” (Can you imagine???)
According to Arnaud, that prompted director Jacob Tierney to take the show to small Canadian streamer Crave, which evidently allowed the latitude for something much steamier—and truer to Rachel Reid’s original novels (which are, lord help us, even more explicit than the show).
“No kissing until episode five?!” Gayle King responds. “Boooo!” (But, sweet Gayle. She was not ready for a horny red carpet interview with Hudson Williams, who talked about “schlanging and banging and loving and pouring, jizzing and squeezing.” After a beat, Gayle clutches her pearls and says, “Well, I don’t know about all that, but okay.”)
“Schlanging and banging and loving and pouring, jizzing and squeezing.” — Hudson Williams
This is all fun and games, but I also think it’s rather important. The horniness of Heated Rivalry is, in my humble opinion, kind of revolutionary.
We have a hugely mainstream show—one of the world’s biggest hits right now—that is unapologetically gay and sexy. It’s not a limp “love is love” narrative, but it’s not straight-up porn, either. The show manages to strike an excellent balance, where we get to see (almost) everything in the bedroom, but also get an emotionally resonant storyline.
This is giving us all permission, it seems, to be hornier out in the open. I mean, when was the last time we as a nation (a planet?!) were all collectively drooling over a bunch of gay TV characters? Mentioning to a friend (or, gasp, a colleague) that you’ve watched Heated Rivalry is also a way of implicitly saying you watched six hours of rather steamy gay television.
And I absolutely love that for us.
As Arnaud suggests in his CBS interview, I hope Hollywood learns a lesson from all of this. Now is absolutely not the time to shrink into tame, unoffensive media representation of queer people. We need more shows like Heated Rivalry—shows that are unafraid to depict queer life as it is, with lots of sex and lots of emotion.
Give us a season for every one of Rachel Reid’s books. Give us spinoffs about every other sport. Hell, give us a horny hiking show! (I’d watch it!)
If Hudson Williams can go on a red carpet and talk to Gayle King about “jizzing and squeezing,” the sky is the limit.
📸 Finocchio Foto
Here’s another snap from my hike on Lago D’Iseo last weekend.
