Chapter 1: Why are we obsessed with Heated Rivalry?
I have a huge problem, which is that I can't stop thinking and talking about heated rivalry. Anyone who's ever had a really intense crush knows that it also feels really painful. I promise you're not going crazy. You're just being emotionally and existentially impacted by a brilliant story.
There's really only one thing I can think about right now.
Will you come to my cottage this summer? Don't go to Russia. We'll have so much fun. It's so private. No one will know. I wonder you know we can't do that.
The show Heated Rivalry has taken over my group chats, my scrolling, my brain. Maybe it's taken over yours, too.
There's not a moment that I'm awake that I'm not thinking about the gay hockey show.
My heated rivalry thought of the day is... For those who have not watched, here's the quick and dirty. Heated Rivalry is a Canadian series on HBO Max created by Jacob Tierney based on the best-selling books by Rachel Reed. And it follows queer, closeted, professional ice hockey players as they try to keep their romance under wraps. There's also a lot of sex. Like, so much sex.
Is this your first time with the man?
And even though the nudity has everyone talking, it's also really sweet and sad and vulnerable and brave. It's given me so much hope.
It's reawakened my sense of yearning. It's reminded me that I can take charge and change the direction of my life. And that's kind of been the intention that I set for 2026. And I have this show to thank.
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Chapter 2: What themes of yearning are present in Heated Rivalry?
I'm pissed about last summer.
We hooked up and then you hooked up with my brother and then everyone expected me to act like I was fine.
Those have blown up and really are good examples of how everyone is just excited right now about the burn of like a true crush.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I have loved watching Heated Rivalry. I may have even done some rewatching. I feel like it's awakened feelings in me that I have not felt since the theatrical release of You Got Served back when I was like a B2K stan before we were using the term stan in that way. Are you seeing this yearning anywhere else, like even beyond TV and movies?
Yeah, I think of yearning in a pretty broad sense around the Mom Donnie campaign in New York.
Hope is alive!
My feeds were full of energy and enthusiasm and like, true yearning and aching for a better future, for some new options. I've also seen this New Year's resolution trend on TikTok where people are aiming to receive 1,000 rejections in 2026. My name's Liv, and I'm on the road to 1,000 rejections. Okay, so I made a post yesterday that my resolution for 2026 is to get 1000 rejections.
This year, I am attempting to get rejected as many times as I can. And that means like putting yourself out there at least 1000 times and proving to yourself that you're willing to try and be vulnerable and face the prospect of failure. And to me, that's big yearner energy. And obviously, like along the way in between
the thousand rejections, you're bound to get some yeses, whether that's romantic partners or jobs or like community organizing or whatever it is that you're chasing.
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Chapter 3: How does Heated Rivalry depict queer love and intimacy?
I've been thinking about this a lot since PopSugar posted about the essay on our Instagram. Someone actually commented something that has stuck with me. They were saying that, you know, we're always seeing depictions of women who want and never receive. Um, and that really made me think, like, I think there is a difference between the sort of passive wishing and the real like gut level yearning.
The latter is what I want to see more of from women and queer people this year. Not just like wistful stuff, but like the tornadoes and the storms and the like shattered glass of it all.
I love that. The shattered glass of it all. Hated Rivalry is all about the shattered glass. Up next, how TV got here. Support for this show comes from Quince. New year, new you? Well, that's a pretty tall order. New year, new wardrobe might be all you need for a fresh start. For that, you can check out Quince.
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Chapter 4: What impact does the show have on its audience?
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the buzziest show out right now, we gotta talk about the sex. Enter Michelle Gannon.
I'm the author of the appointment viewing column in The Cut, and I write for a few different publications.
Okay, so in our first segment, we talked about yearning. But I want to shift gears about what comes next, and that's the consummation of that yearning. Okay, and not to age myself, but I grew up during a time where it's like, oh, my parents are in bed. Let's sneak and watch HBO or, like, Showtime or even, you know, Cinemax.
Next, when a beautiful model turns up missing, her twin brother sets out to find her. There's trouble abroad and nothing underneath. Next on Cinemax.
This was the late 90s, early 2000s, and you'd have a good chance of seeing someone naked.
I mean, growing up, I think I'd Google, like, queer as folk sex scene or kissing scene.
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Chapter 5: How has the portrayal of sex on TV evolved over time?
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.
I mean, maybe this isn't such a good idea.
I think we spend entirely too much time thinking.
Don't you think?
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.
Yeah, how have we seen sex and intimacy on TV change over the last several decades?
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. And, you know, a show like Sex and the City represented sex in so many different ways. I think... this pre-premium cable to post-premium cable is really the big shift.
But I think more recently, especially in light of niche programming and all these different streamers popping up, it's become sort of ubiquitous. And I think a backlash has sort of... come with that in terms of some generations perhaps not wanting or desiring sex on their shows. So it's interesting to see how it's shifted.
Yeah, I've seen research that a lot of young people say they aren't interested in seeing sex in movies and TV. And yet there's all this explicit sex on TV. So what do you think audiences want right now?
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Chapter 6: What role does an intimacy coordinator play in a show?
For people who didn't know that your job exists, what does an intimacy coordinator do? Yeah.
My main priority is to ensure that any intimacy, nudity, or hyperexposure, anything that can kind of fall under the umbrella or rainbow of intimacy, which can include a lot of different things, to ensure that any of that content within a narrative, the way that that action plays out is being fully consented to.
by anyone who's participating in it and that additionally that then the rest of the team the production knows what has been consented to and what the actor's boundaries and consent levels are so that the job gets done and the story gets told in a way that's also honoring everyone's boundaries how do you get started in that line of work and how do you train for it i i
Was an actor for a long time and still am. I did a ton of intimacy in my career. Like I did a ton of intimacy and a good amount of nudity as a performer. And I would say somewhere around when the role started to emerge and then gain popularity, I had people in my community reach out to ask me if I would... be the intimacy coordinator on a project that they were doing.
And so I did that for a web series for a friend of mine and did a bunch of research, you know, and tried to come as prepared as possible. But after I did that project, I went and did all this training with intimacy directors and coordinators who are based out of New York. And so I guess after that moment, I became interested in it.
I guess because I'd had a lot of experiences, to be honest, where I didn't have an intimacy coordinator.
I wonder, how does your experience performing intimacy, how has that shaped the way you stepped into this role?
I think it shapes it a great deal in that I am able to go into the perspective of the actor. I have an awareness around what their process is. So I would say my approach to intimacy coordinating is super actor-centric.
Yeah, I want to get more into heated rivalry. What were your thoughts when you first... Of course you do. I mean, I always want to get more into heated rivalry. What were your thoughts when you read the first sex scene?
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Chapter 7: How do the characters' relationships develop through intimacy?
And I think when I read the first sex scene, simulated sex scene, I was like... Oh, this is so specific. Like, I could picture exactly what was happening. It's all laid out really, really specifically in the script. So, like, the sex in the story for these characters is such a huge part of their relationship, and it's so important to the narrative, and it moves the narrative forward. So...
Yeah, I actually just felt like it was so specific and kind of like jumped off the page. And of course, I was like, oh, wow, there's a lot of simulated sex in this story. But I understood why. And I actually just felt really like thrilled by the like boldness and originality of the writing.
There's a scene in episode one that takes place in a hotel where the main characters, Shane and Ilya, are hooking up for the first time.
And you make me curious. Do I make you curious?
I think it's also the longest sex scene in the show. It might be somewhere between like seven and nine minutes. Can you walk us through the process of choreographing that scene? Like, how did you do that?
I mean, we had a full day of rehearsals with the cast and myself, which was just wonderful. But it makes such a massive difference when the actors can like... get the motions in their body before the day where there's like a thousand lights and all these people behind them.
You know, we always have like a private rehearsal and blocking before we actually film any simulated sex or nudity or anything like that. But just, I think that rehearsal was so helpful. And then on the day, that was certainly a scene where there's like all of the actions, the tiny little details, a ton of them that you're seeing play out were scripted. And so a big part of that was just
honestly making sure we had the order of things correct and that then it was able to feel intuitive for them um so yeah there was a lot of that me being like actually it's this first and then this and then this and then you go to your knees that type of thing um
You know, I see this larger conversation happening about sex being portrayed on TV, and if it even needs to happen. What do you think that it adds to a story?
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