Is This Allowed? | Why “The Handmaiden” Rewrites Sapphic Sex on Screen

biThe Handmaiden has two of the most iconic sapphic sex scenes in modern cinema. Two intimacy coordinators break down why they still feel transgressive.

Full description:

This episode is a love letter to immaculate choreography, devastating eye contact, and enough sapphic tension to power a small city.

Ariel and Morgan dive into the two iconic intimacy scenes from Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden — scenes so explicit, so intentional, and so beautifully constructed that they still feel radical nearly a decade later.

In this episode:

• How the film uses restraint, pacing, and POV to build erotic tension
• Why a simple hand-grip deserves its own IMDb credit
• How sapphic sex is framed as joy, discovery, and mutual power, not performance
• Why this might be one of the best examples of the female gaze in modern cinema

A masterclass in storytelling through intimacy

We also unpack the behind-the-scenes approach to filming the intimacy, the deliberate removal of the male gaze, and why The Handmaiden remains a gold standard for what intimate storytelling can look like when trust and intention lead the way.

It's sexy, funny, deeply thoughtful, and a reminder that sometimes the most radical thing a movie can do is let women actually enjoy each other.

Watch along timestamps:

• First scene: 41:47 – 46:56
• Second scene: 1:39:53 – 1:44:00

Subscribe for bi-weekly behind the scenes breakdowns of film and TV's most iconic sex scenes.

Credits

The Handmaiden (2016) | Director: Park Chan-wook | Moho Film / Yong Film

Hashtags

#TheHandmaiden #ParkChanwook #SapphicCinema #FemaleGaze #FilmBreakdown

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey, hey, fakers! Quick heads up, there's some muffled audio during parts of the scenework and reactions portion of this episode. We're still working through some of the kinks, and that one's on us. We hope you enjoy the chaos anyway, and stick around for a seriously fun and fascinating episode, and just a little teaser to start. Stay real, fakers.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I call it tribbing.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

I'm doing this for you, audience. I want you to know what I'm talking about, even if it's not what we would call it.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

You see this lesbian porn, you see a lot of scissoring. This is something that's been a polarizing subject. Is this something that actual sapphic people do or not? They're like the Avengers!

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yes!

SPEAKER_01 0:43

That hand grip moment is so iconic. And we know that Lady Hidako is not so innocent as Britney Spears would say.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Hi, I'm I just what hi. Hi, I'm Ariel Lee Cohen. It's just hey the yiddish inside of me too needing to come out. Yeah. Hi, I'm Ariel Lee Cohen. Hey, I'm Morgan Smith.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

And we're the hosts of Faking It with Ariel and Morgan. We're two intimacy coordinators here to talk about the spicy scenes you see in film and TV.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

So I'm wearing today my art hat. It is a blue hat that says art on it. And it's because we're watching something artistic today.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Oh my god. I love it. My sapphic news shirt is in the laundry right now, but I saw you wearing the art hat. It's fine. It wasn't meant to be. Today was about your art hat. That is what the people want, baby. That's what the people want. Oh my god, you're the new Society Six.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

It's me. Hi. I'm the new Society Six slash IKEA.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Okay, so today we are covering The Handmaiden.

unknown 2:24

Handmaiden.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yay! I saw this film initially when it first came out, and it completely rocked my world for so many reasons. I mean, the story is incredible. There are so many twists and turns, but also the simulated sex scenes are incredible.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Amazing. I also am excited. I saw this film in the 2016, 15, 17 world. I remember only the sex scenes pretty much and nothing else.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I remember the first time watching this and seeing the simulated sex scenes and being like, is this allowed?

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Like, is it allowed?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

How did they get away with this?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

I saw it with my boyfriend at the time, and he was like, You're gonna love this scene. I was like, Are you allowed? Nah, I kid, I kid.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Sorry, you you might have to leave the room. This is secret.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

This is secret.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

So the thing that I also really wanted to focus on today, specifically with these scenes, besides them just being amazing, is something that the handmaiden does in general, which is taking sapphic tropes that we see in sex scenes all the time and turning them on their head.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Ooh, I like that. Should we do some scene work?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Should we do some scene work? Okay, so for those who don't know, the handmaiden is an erotic historical thriller set during Japan's occupation of Korea in the 1930s that premiered at Cannes in 2016. It was directed, co-written, and co-produced by Park Chan Wuk. It's based on the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. In this scene, we are going to see Kim Min Lee as Lady Hidako and Kim Terri in her breakout role as Suke Hee. So if you haven't seen this movie, just pause right now and go watch it because this movie has like so many twists and turns, it's gonna get completely ruined for you.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

You should just go watch it anyway, though, to be fair. Yeah, just go watch it.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Just go watch it and then come back and keep listening. Even warrant. In the film, they show the same simulated sex scene twice from each character's perspective. First time we're gonna see this scene is from Suki's point of view. Suki is a Korean pickpocket who was recruited by the Count to dupe Lady Hidako. Lady Hidako lives with her controlling uncle who never lets her leave their estate. The Count gets Suki a job as Lady Hidako's handmaiden under a false identity, so Suki can manipulate her into marrying the Count. At this point in the movie, Suki has successfully pushed Lady Hidako into the Count's arms and caught feelings for the lady along the way.

unknown 5:12

Oops!

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Little snag. Lady Hidako calls Suki into her room and invites Suki to join her in bed because she, quote, feels a nightmare coming on. So for those following along, we are going to be at time code 4147 until 4656. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

For our audience, I have a Maddie in the lap who would like to be part of this watching of the handmaiden, which is very different from Handmaid's Tale. Okay, so they're lying in bed, facing away from one another.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

This lighting is gorgeous. Lady Hideko is talking about her fear of the Count, and she just doesn't have a good feeling about him. They're facing each other.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

It's happening. They're whispering and they're talking very close to one another's faces. And the sexual tension you could cut with a knife.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

She was like, I just don't know what men want on your wedding night. I I wish someone could show me. Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Okay, so she's sort of sitting up in bed. She gets a lollipop. Put the lollipop on her lips. And then she licks the lollipop. And then they go for a second kiss. Bitter, turning sour, sour, turning sweet. They have a hand gently placed on the face. The tongue has come out. The camera's moving around, but they're really still. I love the head pull. So we have a lot of tongue involved in this kiss. Hands aren't really gripping, but they are present. And when they try to pull away, they do stop the other person.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

She keeps trying to make it about the count, like this is what you're gonna feel for him.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah, she has cold hands and feet. As do I. It's not very clear what to do under the shirt, but there is touch and there is some level of grip to it. Okay, so she like latches down onto the breast. We don't see any nipple or areola at this moment. It's all sort of implied. We have a hand reaching down under her skirts and between her legs. We have toplessness, licking of the stomach.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Now, Lady Hidigo is completely noon.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Wow, this is a this shot is gorgeous. She's looking directly at the vulva, but we don't see the vulva. It's just a point of view shot from the vulva's point of view. Um and then she lets her tongue out of her mouth. We hear some moaning, and then we're on to the next scene. It's great. It's good stuff. When Suki is about to simulate oral stimulation to Lady Hidiko, you see the crevice between both legs, but you don't see her buttocks. You also see Suki's face mere inches away, but I don't see Vulva, I don't see buttocks, I don't see nipple, areola. There is no nudity. Maybe they're wearing pasties or something like that. As far as I could tell, I was unable to see any nudity or body parts involved in the nudity. So spectacularly done.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

It's so interesting because you're like right on the precipice of seeing everything, but you're not seeing everything yet. They build up the action really beautifully, where it's starting off as facing away from each other, then they face towards each other, then they get close, then their lips touch, and then things like very slowly escalate from there until we get all the way to the Vulva POV shot, which is brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

It's a perfect shot. You can see the legs around her head and just the sheer excitement on her face. I love the growth of the dynamic as it moves along. Breath quickens, motions quicken. It starts off very still, just this solid hand on her neck and on her face, and this light kissed pretty stationary. By the end, going down the stomach, legs are moving, arms are moving, bodies are intertwining. Ah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

You want to watch when the scene reappears? I dare you not to show it to me. Now for the second time we see this scene, but now from Lady Heidako's perspective, a lot has happened. After this scene, Suki accompanies the Count when they elope. After cashing out of the inheritance, Suki and the Count take Lady Hidako to the asylum, and then suddenly the tables turn, and Lida Hidako commits Suki instead. Lady Hidako and the Count have double-crossed her. Through flashbacks, we discover her fragility and innocence were an act. After realizing he couldn't seduce her, the Count lets Lady Hidako in on his plan. She agrees because she's desperate to escape her uncle, who has been forcing her to read and simulate erotic texts for other noblemen for most of her life. The abuse has forced her to become numb to intimacy. At one point, she confesses that she has never experienced affectionate touch until Suki came along. In a flashback, the movie revisits this scene from Lady Hidako's point of view. So now we are at 139.53. We're gonna go into like 144. Again, it's all gonna be in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Now we see Nipple and Ariola. It's much slower than it seemed in the last one. She's throwing down her leg, touching between her thighs. And now we see simulated manual stimulation. We see Lady Vedifo bite Suki's shoulder and then move her dress down. She's manually stimulating her and orally stimulating her. And her arms are up above her head. We see her elbows moving around. We're back to the POV shot. Now we're seeing them both in full profile. Okay. Love. We see wetness around her mouth. Authenticity. We have touching of her buttocks, which actually helps so she can follow the movement. And now they're hugging. We have a bird's eye view shot. The camera sort of spins above them, and their feet are trying to find purchase stuff. Now they're kind of rocking, straddled over one another. This is really tender and really beautiful. Lady Pedico's hand is just stimulating both of them. Now we're into what is proverbially known as scissoring, thighs in between thighs. Oh, they pull the hands! They're like, they're like the Avengers!

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Like holding each other.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

That hand grip moment is so iconic. Like as they're trimming, giving each other balance.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

They're getting faster, and then we're done. And we hear the moans. I like how it just like stopped talking after a while. I'm like, you guys got this.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Give me your initial thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I thought it was really, really well done. It's a little lengthier than I think it needs to be, but at the same time, it's all very earned because we've already seen this from the other perspective. We have more of that tenderness, just the physical and metaphysical connection between the two of them gets a little bit more intensive, which I appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Now we know that Lady Hidako is not so innocent as Britney Spears would say. And then you can kind of see her egging her on and being like, oh, like what would I do, hair twirl? What would you do? And then you see her starting to take a lot more control in what they're doing together. This movie plays a lot with role-playing and who you are in society and how much the clothing you wear defines you. Especially at this time period, clothing is still really tied to class and occupation. There are times where they're playing dress up together and Suki is dressing up in Lady Hidiko's clothing. And so it actually is metaphorical when they have sex together for the first time and they both strip down and they take all of that off. And there are a lot of moments where you can't really tell who's who and they become so enmeshed, and it's as if they're taking off their class and occupation and their different countries and everything else that defines them as separate and coming together in more ways than one.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

I love that film theory moment. At first, Lady Hidako is kind of looking around and closing her eyes, and then she pops up and looks at her, or the intense prolonged eye contact when uh Suki is straddled over Lady Hidako, and it's just this very intensive connective tissue that brings them together. Profound moment.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

And yeah, I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I also love the humor that still exists in the scene. Like at one point, Suki, when they're both connected by their vulvas, she's like, Wow, you're really good at this. And because in her Maji's like, this is your first time ever with another person, let alone a woman. It's important to note that this is the only time that we see Lady Hideko smile in the entire film until later when they're both liberated.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

This is a larger issue that I have that has nothing to do so much with this movie, and it's that orally stimulating someone the first time is confusing and difficult. And it's very rare that anyone is good at it right off the bat. It takes communication with your partner, what one person may like, another person may not like. And it's it does take time to develop those nuances and those abilities to kind of recognize the body language there. And it does sort of bother me sometimes when people simulate oral stimulation for the first time in their characters' lives and they're immediately amazing at it. I know why we don't take the time. It doesn't make sense to like sit there and be like, wait, she's gonna get there someday. But it does tick me off just a little bit because I think it lifts up expectations for blossoming young, queer women, or even just straight men that they think they're immediately gonna be great at it.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

You know, there's that trope of like we see this couple that's meant to be have sex together for the first time and everything goes amazingly, and everyone is so stimulated, and that's yeah, not always the case because it's a new person. In this instance, I can forgive that because there is a bit of role-playing happening here where Lady Hidako has to pretend to be innocent. She also has all this pent-up desire that she hasn't been able to get out. So it could very well be that any amount of touch is going to feel great, even if it's not true, the best technique.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

I will allow it. It's just a qualm that I have with many films. That's all. And it's you just it's totally fair.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

It's totally fair.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

All right. Well, is there anything about this scene in particular that you think you would approach differently?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I really admire the choreography and the masking work that's done in this scene. I think it's pretty flawless when they have their vulvas together, which colloquially we call scissoring in intimacy coordinator worlds. We call it tribbing. We call it tribbing.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

I'm doing this for you, audience. I want you to know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

I know. I mean, that's the thing, though, is in our work, we have to use deloaded language. It makes it easier to talk about things, but also it's a slippery slope when you start using colloquial terms.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Some things you're like, oh, I can assume most people know this, but then you don't know what terms people know and don't know. And then things get weird or they mean different things to different people. And so it's easier just to use probably the more boring word.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

One time I was on set and I had come straight out of intimacy school, let's say. He was simulating penetrative sex from behind. And I was like, all right, so you're just gonna open and close the space a little bit there. And then he was like, What are you talking about? The space between your pelvis and her buttocks, you're going to open and you're gonna close that space. And I have to like move my hands to show him what I mean. He's like, oh, like thrusting. I'm like, yeah, so it's it's the movement of the body, yes. Colloquially known as thrusting, but you don't usually say thrusting because that is loaded a little bit. But for the sake of the podcast, sometimes it's worth it's worth saying that. Anyway, okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yes. You know, you take this trope, this is something that you see, and a lot of porn that's geared towards straight men. You see this lesbian porn, you see a lot of scissoring. This is something that's been a polarizing subject. Is this something that actual sapphic people do or not? There are people who do it in real life, but it it has been overused in a lot of contexts because it approximates penetrative sex between someone with a penis and someone with a vulva. But here they're showing it as a moment of liberation, a moment where they're really connecting, not just physically, but also this is where the most eye contact is happening. This is where Suki is saying, wow, you're really good at this, and Lady Hidako smiles. Like this is when they're really seeing each other for the first time. And so they're taking this thing that usually flattens the people involved and is actually using it as a moment of them becoming complicated people who see each other.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

It is a move that can be done, like any move. It is sort of difficult to figure out physiologically, and not all bodies can perform that action. I do think one argument for it is that it does sh put bodies in display in an aesthetically pleasing way. I do also agree it is super overused.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I can give a little backstory on how they did these intimate scenes. Yeah, so they didn't have an intimacy coordinator, but I think the approach is really interesting, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. The actresses choreographed these scenes fully clothed before shooting. So they figured out what they wanted the choreography to be when they were actually filming. There were closed sets with only female staff present. The director controlled the camera remotely. Ooh, okay, that's cool. I had limited sources on that. So maybe that's 100% true, maybe a little bit exaggerated, but I do know the director was really committed to removing the male gaze, both in the product itself and also the process. So I would believe if he was like, I want to make sure I'm not even in the room, like I don't even want to influence how this is working. And he did speak to them a lot ahead of time about their boundaries, the shots, what was going to be seen during the sex scenes. There's a quote from an interview he did with Esquire where he said, quote, I wanted to do a sex scene where the process is the joy of it, the kind of sex where you can feel the intimacy between the two characters, where it is, as you say, a game. Sex where you laugh a lot, talk a lot, and even cry sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

That's just ding dang cute. I don't know. Even if you have a room full of women, it doesn't mean that the choreography you have is gonna be good. Now, the choreography in this is very, very well done. I don't understand why it's so good, but I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

It doesn't make any sense. It seems like the two women who are making it probably identify as straight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

So I'm like, great job, you guys. Like, unlike Ammonite, where it's real raw. I'm glad everyone was happy at the end of the day and that precautions were taken.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I don't have any information on the sexuality of the actors involved. So this is pure speculation. Well, what if we go to the spice scale?

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, let's do the spice scale. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Now we'll uh dip into the spice scale, our not so scientific way of rating intimacy scenes based on consent and power dynamics, technical craft and coordination excellence and heat factor. Each category gets a score from one to five, with five being the highest. Then we add it all up to give the scene a final letter grade. So we've talked about this a bit, but let's get into consent and power dynamics. How the scene depicts consent and power in the story and behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Woo! Those power dynamics! Lady Hidako, her literal name is Lady Hidako. She already has that nobility and moniker. In that first scene, it seems like the power dynamic maybe is shifting slightly to Suki being in power because she's the one with the lollipop, kind of initiating this contact. And Lady Hidako is the one who's kind of dealing with this insecurity moment. But when you finally realize the full situation of what's going on, you realize that Lady Hidiko is kind of in control the entire time, regardless of class. Very consensual, although consent is never explicitly stated. Everyone is on board.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yes, everyone's very on board throughout the process. I agree. Yeah. The film in general does a lot with power dynamics at one point in the scene. I think it's Lady Hidiko who says, I wish I had milk so I could feed you while Suki is on her breast. Mother baby, that's something that comes up. The different classes, there's the Japan versus the Korea of it all at the time because Japan is occupying Korea, and all these themes of power and domination and submission that are really interesting. We see even in this little scene.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

You want to give a sexy little five? Getting like a sexy big ol' five.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Sexy, sexy big ol' five, technical craft, coordination, excellence, the staging, film coverage, modesty, protection, choreography, and overall execution of the scene.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

I mean, I was floored, floored by some of that between the deep floored, between the that one shot I can't get over where she's about to simulate oral stimulation. Like, whoa!

SPEAKER_01 24:22

The Vulva POV will stay with me for the rest of my life. It's so good. It's so funny. This director is so good at injecting humor in just the right places.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

It's the most perfect masking I've ever seen. At no point do we see a Vulva in either scene, and we are so close. We are right there. I'm in awe. So five for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Five.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

All right.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

I have a feeling I know what's gonna happen in the next one, but uh heat factor. Great job, team. I do think it was better in the second scene than the first one, but I just think that's because it became more complex as it went on.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

I think back to when I watched this for the first time and I saw the first scene and I was like, wow, this is great. And then I saw the second one and was like, whoa! I probably would have given the first perspective a five if I had never known about the other one. And then I saw the other one. I was like, we get more? We can have more.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

We can have more. I would say the first scene is maybe a four, and the second scene is a five. They're both great. So this gets an A.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

A. Another A. Thinking back to the first perspective of this scene, and it does feel like kind of a trope. The sleepover where someone's like, teach me how to kiss, like we would kiss a boy, and that turns into something. Wait, okay, I have a question. I am putting you on the spot. This scene, I feel like, is such a good example of the female gaze. If you were to re-choreograph this scene for the male gaze, just so we can highlight what actually makes it different, what would change?

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Oh, that's so interesting. I would slow down a lot of the action, particularly in that second scene, make it much more hands gliding, a lot more focus on nipple and areola, a lot more focus on like slow languid licks of the Vulva. I would also say more tribbing. And maybe I don't know if I would even do the lollipop like that. The lollipop idea is really interesting. It would be more male-gazeified. I just saw wicked. If there was more tongue involved, more moaning, groaning sounds, more teasing, seduction to camera. No, no more POV shot of her looking at the vulva and being excited. She is only looking at camera now because she sees you. She knows what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yes. Oh my God. It's so true, though. I feel like that would be one huge difference. It feels more performative, more for camera. Hair cascading over the shoulders and chest. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Bouncing like with curls or something.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yeah. A lot more shots of the buttocks, of the chest, um, just getting like the general curves of the body.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Oils on the body and foils. Putting, yeah, putting foils all. Putting just like any level of sheen to the body. Yes. Also, male gaze, absolutely no liquid on the face post-simulated oral.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Right, right. The lollipop would become a phallic symbol, so there'd be a lot more sucking on it than just general licking and placing it on the lips.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Or like even trailing the lollipop down the body or something and like following it with her tongue. Yeah. Just a lot of redundant, reductive kind of action.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Maybe this is like a new segment we do for really great scenes where now we have a section called Ruin the Scene and we talk about what we would do.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Yes. Let's do that from now on. Ruin. Ruin the scene. All this would ruin the scene, make the tribbing bit like 10 minutes long. And just have her absolutely just rocking on her thigh. There's no hand.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

No, the hand. We haven't even talked about the hand. Wait. Wait. Okay. It does feel a little Avengers assemble. I'm not gonna lie. It is. But but there's something so wonderfully cohesive about it. There's something that just brings me queer joy because it's like, we're in this together. We are no longer power dynamics apart. We are the same.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yes. Which also ties back to the story that's happening in the film. Is spoiler alert, the two women end up running off together. So they really are in this together. I also liked that I was like, oh, that would probably help with balance. Like there's a practical element too. Yeah. You know? Absolutely, it would.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

That's a great point.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Describing what ruins this scene highlights what's important about it and why it matters. It feels like a very authentic representation of two women having sex together. There's zero male gaze in it. The scene is still really hot. This movie did incredibly well. People loved it. And I think it's important to remind the industry that this kind of scene is successful and we don't have to go back to the safe old tropes that we keep going to. We can actually get a lot out of turning those tropes on its head or just abandoning them completely and exploring something new.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

I keep going back to the thing that you said earlier, where you said, is this allowed? Yes. Yeah. Because you never get to see anything like this. It is a period piece, which we very rarely get to see any kind of sapphic behavior in a period piece. Although that's slowly starting to change, but not really.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

There's so much joy in this scene.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Yes. There's joy, there's discovery, there's different pacing as different positions are found.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Pet peeve of mine is I feel like often in period pieces, especially if we go before like the 1950s, I want to say, sex starts to feel really limited and proper unless we're talking about specific types of characters. And that wasn't the case. If you go to Pompeii, you can see on ancient ruins of houses images of people performing different sexual acts to each other. Because it was so much a part of their lives. And it was like a big joke to them to be like, look at this funny thing. Let's keep eating dinner. It's not like only recently we just started doing more explicit acts. It's been happening. I really appreciated that they did that in a period piece.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Leave your puritanical roots behind, baby. Start afresh.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Get out of here.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Do you have anything to plug?

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Okay, I don't know if this is gonna be out by the time we drop this podcast, but I'm about to shoot a vertical for Fox that is like Heated Rivalry, but with wrestling. And the writer directors actually wrote this way before the show Heated Rivalry came out. They actually didn't even know about the book series. But, anyways, I'm really excited. This is gonna be my first gay vertical, and it is being done well. I am really looking forward to working on this. Wrestling for Love. It might be out on my drama by the time this drops, or maybe by the time you're listening to it, whenever that is.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

That's great. Yeah. What about you? I don't think I have anything I want to plug right now, but maybe next time. Cool. Well, thanks so much for listening to Faking It. This episode's research and context were done by Morgan Smith.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

You could find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every other hump day, Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

If this was good for you, the best way to support our show is to follow the podcast and leave a quick rating or review. It takes less than 30 seconds, and it really helps us.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Tell one friend who loves spicy movie secrets about us. Find us on social media at faking it the pod.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Want to get involved? Head to patreon.com slash faking it the pod. For just one dollar, you can request scenes for future episodes. For $10, you can get bonus content and never before seen footage. And for $5, you can get a shout-out like these listeners. Thank you, Lee and Kiki Brown.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

This episode was produced by Errol Lee Cohen, social media and branding by Morgan Smith. Our theme song is Faking It by Suno AI until we get monetized, so feel free to send us a new one. Credits for the film or show we reacted to are in the episode caption. Stay real, fakers.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Woo!