I don’t think what I’m about to say counts as a spoiler; partly because it’s in the source material and partly because it seems like the sort of thing the continuity announcer would reveal upfront before the show even starts. “American Gods contains strong language and scenes of violence,” they’ll say. “Plus a scene where a woman literally eats a man whole with her vagina during sexual intercourse.”
Yes, the most infamous moment from American Gods the book has made it into American Gods the show. Bilquis, a prostitute and goddess, accepts payment from a client. During sex, she asks him to worship her. He does, then she pushes his entire body into her vagina and that’s that. It’s by far the oddest sex scene ever seen on television but, hey, here are some runners up.
American Horror Story: Coven
American Horror Story has plenty of sex scenes, from the supernatural (like when Sarah Paulson has sex in a flaming pentagram surrounded by snakes) to the outright awful (like when that bloke from Maroon 5 bonks a lady for absolutely no reason). But, so far, it has only contained one scene where the woman from Precious lifts up her dress and gets boned by a literal minotaur. Arguably, even that is one scene too many.
Penny Dreadful
Nobody likes Penny Dreadful. This is either despite or due to the fact that it once contained a sequence where Eva Green had it off with an invisible demon, which meant we had to watch her flapping around on her bed alone, like a beached fish trying to stop a swarm of bees from stinging its genitals. The scene was not played for laughs in any way, despite being basically a carbon copy of MacGruber’s funniest gag.
Louie
There are two disconcerting sex scenes in the series five episode Untitled, or three if you count the moment where Louis CK looks down and sees that his genitals have been replaced with a flesh-coloured Viennese whirl. In the first, Louie has sex with a man wearing a giant, burned bunny mask. In the second, he simply has sex with a lonely neighbour – to the sound of a cheery song about drowning babies in diarrhoea.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
No character in all of TV history had worse taste in men than Buffy Summers, but her nadir was undoubtedly Spike; a bleach-blond vampire who looked like Max Headroom, once tried to rape her and also commissioned what was basically a sex robot of her. When the pair did eventually have sex, they ended up destroying a building in the process. To this day, I’m sad that none of the rubble landed on my head and killed me – because that’s how terrible this scene was.
Game of Thrones
I’ve chosen a “no rape” rule for this list, which automatically negates about 90% of all Game of Thrones sex scenes. In fact, the weirdest remaining sex scene cannot technically class as one at all. It’s in the close aftermath of Stannis Baratheon and the red witch Melisandre doing the deed – when Melisandre’s vagina emits a cloud of evil smoke that immediately starts killing people. Perhaps the most profound safe sex metaphor ever made on television.
The Girlfriend Experience
There’s no clip of this one, because it basically lasts for the duration of an episode. In the finale, the series arc – woman becomes prostitute while uncovering corporate conspiracy at work – is dropped in favour of one long scene where Riley Keough’s Christine finds herself being screamed at by what appears to be a jealous lover. As the story gradually reveals itself, it simultaneously becomes more and less clear with every passing moment, before ending on a coldly erotic flourish. It’s sex as a form of control, and it is staggering.
