Beyond ‘Sex Sells’: The Power of Suspense in Erotic Sports Media
Increased sexualization in the media today may be best reflected in a growing trend that explores sexuality within a competitive sport setting. At its best, this eroticism has the ability to empower the image of those often otherwise sexualized in exploitative ways. But in less successful attempts, this content often profits from sexual imagery without a compelling plotline, catering to the short attention spans of modern viewers and causing erotic films to lose the essence of what makes them so liberating.
After its release last November, the Canadian sports series “Heated Rivalry” became a global overnight success. Adapted from Rachel Reid’s 2019 novel, “Game Changers,” the story follows two young male hockey players who begin a sexual relationship. The show received mixed criticism, with some fans raving about its intimate portrayal of queer romance, and others reducing the show to soft porn.
Interestingly, the rise in highly sexualized queer media appears to coincide with largely straight fanbases. When a show such as “Heated Rivalry,” which was intended to celebrate queer liberation, enters this landscape, the sex it portrays begins to feel less like a form of empowerment and more like a marketing strategy.
It’s not that sexualized content is inherently bad, but that this type of content is increasingly working its way into mainstream media. Viewers similarly took issue with Emerald Fennell’s recent cinematic adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” which turns a largely non-sexual classic work of literature into something far more overtly sexual.
The media’s portrayal of sex and romance shapes how younger audiences perceive it. In a post-COVID environment, many have turned to media rather than personal experience, having spent key developmental years engaging with the world through a screen. With rising mental health struggles among Gen Z, the prevalence of porn and erotic media may be shaping how they view themselves.
With increasingly surface-level storytelling in works like “Heated Rivalry” and “Wuthering Heights,” one might wonder whether sex is losing its capacity to reclaim harmful dominant narratives. But what if it were still possible for sex to remain alluring in cinema without participating in this trend?
“Challengers” (2024), the cinematic predecessor of the “sexualized sports” trend, is an example of how erotic media can remain compelling without relying on explicit sex scenes — the film, though undoubtedly an erotic tennis film, has none. It’s a continuous build-up of sexual tension, without the delivery of explicit payoff, that allows the film’s competitive and angsty sports scenes to be the space where the budding sexual tension erupts. What makes “Challengers” so intoxicating is that the tension within the central trio in “Challengers” — Tashi (Zendaya), her husband Art (Mike Feist) and his friend Patrick (Josh O’Connor) — only finds release on the court. When the tennis scenes are the only moments that allow for any kind of release, they effectively become the film’s sex scenes.
As Tashi says: “[Tennis is] a relationship… For about fifteen seconds there, we were actually playing tennis. And we understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It’s like we were in love. Or like we didn’t exist. We went somewhere really beautiful together.”
The characters never separate their sexual tension off the court from their relationship on the court, forcing that tension to be redirected through the structure of the game itself. Patrick tells Art that he slept with his wife (Tashi) by simply placing his tennis ball on the shaft — or the throat — of his racket. It’s conniving, and it causes Art’s eyes to swell with tears mid-game, but he keeps playing.
The distinction between a game of hockey, as in “Heated Rivalry,” and tennis is that tennis offers physical distance. You are not allowed to touch your opponent; a net holds you back, creating a strong sense of repression. The film ends with Patrick and Art finally breaking that barrier, hugging across the net in the ultimate act of consummation: forgiveness.
Through its ability to penetrate deeper into the suspense and tension surrounding eroticism, “Challengers” becomes a true master of the form. Eroticism in media is a high-stakes storytelling device, and with constant societal shifts in how sex and romance are perceived, suspense and restraint should carry the narrative, even if popular media continues to give in to explicit scenes too quickly and fumble the play.