Penn Badgley Is Not Alone in Thinking Sex Scenes Suck

“You” star Penn Badgley wants to keep his pants on when doing his work, and many in Hollywood agree
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Penn Badgley is done being your favorite horny serial killer. Well, he’s done with the racy sex part, anyway.

“That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me,” the You star told Variety in a cover story that’s kicked up a lot of debate about whether he’s right or crazily uptight.

Badgley’s murderous character has had many a steamy encounter over the course of the hit series, which began as a Lifetime show before it migrated to Netflix. But Badgley says he demanded to keep his clothes on for Season Four, largely because it made him uncomfortable getting naked with co-workers as a monogamous married guy.

“My fidelity in my relationship. It’s important to me,” he said. “And actually, it was one of the reasons that I initially wanted to turn the role down”

But he also revealed that it was his wife, actress Domino Kirke-Badgley, who initially encouraged him to take the role, so he did—much to the delight of his character’s somewhat demented fan base.

Badgley’s take has predictably divided Twitter, with some supporting his right to keep his pants on and others saying he’s just fanning the flames of one of Hollywood’s more prudish eras (underscored by Karina Longworth’s deep dive into the erotic thriller heyday in her You Must Remember This podcast last year).

Badgley, however, is not alone in his modesty. More than a few thespians have spoken up about the various ick factors involved in shooting intimate scenes. A new documentary, Body Parts, explores the topic with commentary from industry insiders including Jane Fonda, Rose McGowan, Karyn Kusama, Joey Soloway, and Rosanna Arquette.

In a recent interview with the Daily Mirror, Kate Winslet discussed feeling awkward about shooting sex scenes with Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road, directed by her then-husband Sam Mendes. “It was the element of, ‘OK my husband is over there.’ That was a bit weird.”

And still others have weighed in on feeling anything but in-the-mood filming a steamy scene: Jennifer Lawrence calls it “stressful and scary,” while Sienna Miller has said “by the time nine hours of it has gone past, I was shaking with tears running down my face.”

The rise of intimacy coordinators on sets has opened up an ongoing discussion regarding what people are and are not comfortable with, but some in the industry are saying there are larger problems than that. French director Mia Hansen-Love recently took aim at Hollywood’s idea of sexy in a Daily Beast interview.

“I find [sex scenes] very conventional. I have the feeling that most of them are the same shots that are being reused. They’re supposed to be efficient, somehow, but they don’t have a soul. There are millions and millions of shots of people kissing and making love that don’t say anything about the feelings. It’s extremely difficult to have these contain the sexuality, but also depth that I want to give it.”

And few have referenced the industry’s sex scene tone-deafness with more relish than Rachel Bloom, who often tackled female sexuality on her show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

But Badgley’s clearly got his finger on the pulse (only figuratively!). Even the new Magic Mike movie—yes, the trilogy about male strippers!—has gone sexless.

“It’s not about the sex, per se, and whether the movie is explicit,” director Steven Soderbergh told Rolling Stone. “There’s no nudity in ‘Out of Sight.’ There’s no nudity in ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance.’ There’s not even a thong. And yet, it was our desire to make a sexy movie. The really radical thing to do right now,” he said, “is to show people who’ve been married for twenty years.”

We imagine Badgley, if not Joe Goldberg, would concur.

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