Michelle Gannon

I'm the author of the appointment viewing column in The Cut, and I write for a few different publications.

I mean, growing up, I think I'd Google, like, queer as folk sex scene or kissing scene.

I decided you should take me back.

But those scenes were always very tame.

Like, you didn't see that much at the time.

Now, like, on streaming platforms like Netflix, you can find family programming as well as full frontal nudity on a show like Sex Life.

And I mean, historically, that comes from FCC censorship for what was on broadcast and that being intertwined with advertising.

And so for many, many decades, pre-streaming, there just wasn't a lot of nudity.

And broadcast TV today still has some of those guardrails.

I remember seeing an interview.

I think it was related to Pretty Little Liars.

about their sex scenes.

You know, that was a show that it was very clear the characters are having sex, but you cannot be thrusting during a sex scene.

Yeah.

If you watch those sex scenes, the characters are kind of just like not moving.

Or just like, you know, the focus is on their kissing.

So I think broadcast is still tied to some of those censorship rules.

But when you look at streaming and everything sort of HBO, premium cable, the shows that were on late at night, those are the shows with the sex and the nudity.

You know, these early shows, it was really, like, the shock value of going on HBO and seeing nude bodies.

Like, I think that was sort of the watershed moment, I guess, for nudity on TV.