More (And Better) Gay Sex Scenes, Please

American Gods on Starz is hell-bent on shattering our mythologies. The series, based on Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel, depicts supernatural beings of all faiths living in the gritty real world — working, thieving, and fucking mortals. The epic gay sex scene in the show’s third episode, “Head Full of Snow,” set tongues wagging on social media immediately. Everyone went crazy over its carnality and cock shots.

Depicting one of the most erotic scenes from Gaiman’s novel could only be done by gay director Bryan Fuller, who demanded a reshoot after the original take. “I was like, ‘OK, unless he has a 12-inch, candy-cane cock and can fuck around corners, his dick’s not getting in him,’” Fuller told Vulture. “So you guys need to go back and figure out where holes are.”

In the first take, everyone who attempted the scene was straight, including actors Omid Abtahi and Mousa Kraish, who play a mild-mannered Omani salesman and the bearded, hung-as-fuck djinn — one of a group of supernatural entities who appear in the Koran.

Yes, Abtahi could’ve been more expressive and convincing, but they did a good job. The beautiful way the (beefy, bearded) Persian djinn comes inside him is something every gay man should see.

Why are we making such a big deal over it? Because queer men are sexual creatures accustomed to seeing one of three things on TV: heterosexual love scenes, queer-baiting homoerotic undertones, or clean, hetero-approved sex scenes between boyfriends. Sorry, TV makers, but that’s not what my sex life looks like.

TakeTrue Blood, for example. All gay “sex” scenes in the show were fakes — dream sequences brought on by vampire blood lust. The rest — Teen Wolf, American Horror Story, and others — never came close to fuck scenes on HBO’s Looking, which was canceled after two seasons and explicitly catered to gay audiences.

When these shows had sex scenes, they were neat and cursory. I’ve never seen a gay orgy on TV or a quick bathroom breeding or an anonymous fuck-and-dump — or, more simply, an authentic depiction of real gay sex (I grew up before Queer as Folk, which was more glossy than realistic when it came to screwing). Even the one from American Gods, although the most explicit gay sex scene ever shown on mainstream TV, overlooked real-world aspects of sex between men: the pre-fuck douching many of us do or, if he’s especially hung, the painful stop-and-start attempts as you loosen up before going full throttle.

I’d love to see a gay sex scene that starts clumsily, an initial failed attempt, until they both get past their shame and fear — the result of years of homophobia and of living in a hetero-dominated world — and start fucking like dogs. Every time you lie down with a man, you cross this threshold. It mirrors the coming-out process: Fear and isolation lead into curiosity and exploration, then clumsily we stumble into full-on faggotry. Every man I fuck, whether it’s a quick bang in a stairwell or the finale following a romantic date, journeys to this place with me. We lead each other out of cultural oppression into light.

American Gods hints at that. It gives us a taste of that — metaphorically and quite literally. Two burly men of color — who aren’t young, athletic, traditionally fit models — fuck in multiple positions, warming each other up before literally transporting to a spiritual plane of ecstasy. The djinn breeds his gasping mortal bedmate on a desert plain with a load of fire. It’s fucking beautiful.

Heterosexual people will see this. Queer men in the Middle East, who may live in places where they can get thrown off rooftops for being gay, will see this. In our current political and social climate, in which people from the Middle East are increasingly demonized across conservative media, it’s powerful to watch an Islamic deity fuck a queer Omani man.

We need more of these. We need better queer sex scenes on TV, ones that represent all colors and gender expressions and body types. As divisions run deeper and bloodier between queer people and the religious people who punish us, American Gods delivers the truth.

ALEXANDER CHEVES is an Atlanta-based writer. Follow him on Twitter @BadAlexCheves.