When series two of finally loomed on the horizon in late March, there was a sense of expectation management happening during promotion.
Headlines began to emerge, warning that the series would have far fewer sex scenes than the first batch of episodes, as if this news was controversial and even potentially off-putting to fans of the show.
In fact, now the series has aired, it seems the opposite has happened.
Many fans, myself included, have noted that series two of the drama has been ever sexier than the first, even without the wealth of outright fornication that defined the first.
To be honest, the steamy scenes that were all through the first series made little sense to me in the first place.
Fans of period romances (myself included) aren’t necessarily all that interested in watching full-on sex scenes.
Bear in mind we’re talking about an audience that has dined out for 27 years on a single clip of Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy climbing fully clothed out of a lake, and we’re still going strong.
Even in Bridgerton itself, one of the most talked about moments of the first series wasn’t the sex, but the moment in which the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page) licked a spoon. It really doesn’t take a lot to get romance fans going – and sometimes less is more.
Period dramas have a long history of doing a lot with very little when it comes to these moments of sexual tension.
Dance scenes are some of the most sexually charged in existence, and in the right hands, a stolen glance between two beautiful people with chemistry is, to me, worth 10 times anything full frontal nudity could deliver.
Bridgerton is just the latest in a long line of romances that can make its audience clutch at their sofa cushions without ever dropping a stitch.
Something about watching Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) dance around each other, clearly fancying each other but being unable to express their love, is more sexy than anything the first series delivered, spoon included.
It’s unmistakably all about the tension. In period romances, sex feels like the resolution to romance, not the sole driver.
In series one, the Duke and Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor) were loved up and married by the time they were having sex with near reckless abandon.
The tension there came not from the will-they-won’t-they, but from the question of whether the Duke would let Daphne into his life emotionally. In fact, the sex had very little to do with any of the sexiness at all.
Even the moments that do descend into romping share far more in common with the stolen glance than people think.
The sex scenes rely on the relationship that Bridgerton author Julia Quinn and the TV adaption have spent time building up. They are both written as moments of connection between the main characters, not as the be all and end all of a plot.
With the sheer amount of nudity and bedroom action in television today, I sometimes think people forget what makes them good.
It’s something I blame on the perfunctory nature of sex scenes in shows like Game of Thrones, which was justifiably accused of ‘sexposition’ – having nudity in a scene where it wasn’t warranted.
But people watching Bridgerton are not enraptured because of the act itself. If the sex was all they were there for, we’d simply be rewatching series one now. Now, we binge watch for the tension, not the sex.
Bridgerton’s selling point was never the sex alone – it was different and new to the ankle-shy period romances we’re used to on TV, but it didn’t change what made them great in the first place.
It’s always been about observing the intimacy between people grow and become something new and exciting.
Watching someone like Anthony Bridgerton, who has sworn off true love, fight against his feelings, and be utterly melted by a single look from Kate Sharma, is enough to give us butterflies in our stomachs.
Bridgerton is a romance. By definition, it is about love.
And love, in the magical kingdom of romancelandia, transcends anything physical; it’s just another expression of it. Anthony Bridgerton teasing Kate about how many children they’re going to have is another. Kate calming Anthony down after a panic attack is another.
Society has taken a wrong turn somewhere if we equate romance with sex.
The romance genre is home to some of the hottest scenes on screen, but rarely are the most impactful ones those involving sex.
It has always been about chemistry and connection, which Bridgerton has always had in spadeloads.
In Bridgerton, sexual tension, not sex, has always been the diamond of the season.
When it comes to romance, a fleeting glance, or even a hand flex is worth a thousand full frontal penises.
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