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Ah, the Bridgerton sex scene. The first Shonda Rhimes show to hit Netflix dared to ask: “What if a Jane Austen–style period drama…had soft-core porn?”
And upon the arrival of the long-awaited Bridgerton season three, we bravely ask our own questions: How many sex scenes are there? When, and in which episodes, do they take place? Who, prithee or whatever, is going to fuck? Who will cum to a Vitamin String Quartet cover of “Africa” by Toto, or something similar?
The smash-hit series, executive-produced by Rhimes, created by Chris Van Dusen, and based on the romance novels by Julia Quinn, doesn’t mimic Jane Austen as much as it parodies our cultural fantasies about rich Brits in the late 18th century. The show cheerfully maximizes everything that’s beloved in period-piece fantasies—the mansions are grander, the balls are more decadent, the marriage market is more like a human stock market, and coy glances have been replaced with slurpy cunnilingus.
Yes! Gen X had Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy emerging dripping from a lake in a soaked white shirt in BBC’s 1995 Pride and Prejudice. Millennials had the erotic thrill of seeing Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennet grasp her Mr. Darcy’s hand in the 2005 version. And Gen Z, bless it, has a duke eating out a lady on a staircase.
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In the first season, Glamour found 12 unique Bridgerton sex scenes, plus one lengthy sex montage. The touch-starved, late-2020 audience was wild for these scenes, making the show a massive hit and Regé-Jean Page an instant sex symbol. Even Drew Barrymore said that watching the show inspired her to go back on dating apps as she repeated to herself, “I’m not dead.”
Publicity for the show’s second season went on at length about how the famous Bridgerton sex scenes are filmed. And yet, there are almost no sex scenes in Bridgerton season two. Until the seventh episode, there is no oral, no anal, no hand stuff. There is nothing but heaving bosoms and suggestive eyelash choreography in six out of eight episodes. But the sexual tension between Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma and Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton builds up higher than Big Ben. There is more heavy breathing and chest heaving in each episode than in the entire Tour de France. Where the previous season was made somewhat less sexy because of Daphne Bridgerton’s (Phoebe Dynevor) total ignorance of sex, Miss Sharma and Lord Bridgerton seem like they could vividly describe every single thing they want to do to each other.
And it turns out, all those fans clamoring for more scenes of the viscount eating out the viscountess had to do was wait for Bridgerton season three. Halfway through the season, we’re also graced with a scene of Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) fingering Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) to Pillbull’s “Give Me Everything.” Yes, this is a real thing that happens and fairly tame compared to what happens later. The Bridgerton season three sex scenes are equal parts unhinged and incredible.
If you want to skip ahead to the banging, this list will show you how. But for both Bridgerton season three viewers and characters, the old saying holds true in this case: Good things come (!) to those who wait.
The Bridgerton season three sex scenes
Six minutes into the new season, Colin Bridgerton is already taking off his shirt and revealing his new six-pack. It seems his travels abroad also included a CrossFit membership or, as Benedict asks in a more old-timey way, “Under what foreign sun did you apparently get so sturdy?” Given how often women are expected to go topless onscreen, I appreciate Bridgerton’s commitment to equal-opportunity abs. While this is not a sex scene, it does send a clear message: Bridgerton season three is horny.
Anthony and Kate are tangled up in bed! He’s naked, she’s wearing what I believe is Free People lingerie! Anthony and Kate are finally making up for all that lost time spent pining when they coulda been boning. He goes down on her and the camera cuts to a close up of their entwined hands. This isn’t just any oral sex. It’s romantic oral sex.
Rudely, Kate isn’t able to come because the Bridgerton family is too loud and distracting. “What’s happening out there cannot be as important as what’s happening down here,” Anthony says from between her legs. Hot. But then he ruins it by adding, “Making an heir.” Sir, do you not know how babies are made? Between him and Daphne, the lack of sex education in this family is frankly startling.
Anthony and Kate, who’ve been back from their honeymoon for seemingly all of one day, decide they need to leave and extend the sex fest. They celebrate with hot clear-the-desk sex that cuts away before anything actually happens. At least—or, I hope—Kate comes this time.
Colin is entangled in a threesome with two women that’s either just beginning or just ending. Or perhaps he simply has a kink for ladies absent-mindedly rubbing his chest? Whatever the case, he removes himself from the ménage à trois because he’s running late to…wander around a farmers market with Pen. I know this is meant to show that she’s his real priority, but I don’t buy it.
After Lady Featherington realizes that her daughters have no idea how babies are made—seriously, does nobody talk on this show?—she instructs them on how to find pleasure in the bedroom. Prudence and Philippa head home with their respective husbands to do the deed. While not the sexiest scenes on this list, we support proper sex education and putting women’s pleasure first, so for that it gets a 10/10.
Not a sex scene, but Penelope does take charge of her life and asks Colin for a kiss. Granted, she did have to use “I could die tomorrow” as her argument, which is…dramatic. “I do not wish to die without ever having been kissed,” she moans. RIP Penelope, you would have loved Never Been Kissed. Despite being a pity kiss, it’s sexy and tender. The confused look on Colin’s face afterward says, “I have a boner. Huh.”
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No sex in this episode, unless you count Colin’s wet dream about that kiss with Penelope. I do not.
We see Colin back for his weekly threesome. And, as with most things in life, the women are putting all the effort into the experience. Apparently this is out of character for Colin, though. “Are you quite well?” one of the sex workers asks. (An excellent question—always get enthusiastic consent.) He admits he’s not feeling it tonight, so the women suggest that he watch instead. After all, he’s “already paid.” Not buying it. There’s no way Colin is so great a lover that these women would rather do extra labor when they could have said, “Great!” and sent him on his merry way.
Benedict has started a passionate affair with the widowed Lady Tilley Arnold. We see them in bed, naked and making out, and it feels like a good preview of what’s to come (pun intended) whenever Benedict gets his own season. However, we have to cut away because…
The first real Colin hook up is here!!!! They’re alone in a carriage, and then he’s making declarations of love and kneeling in front of her and saying that he’s been dreaming of her and prefers sleep because “that is where I might find you.” Damn. With a speech like that, there’s no other conclusion but to be fingered while Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” swells in the background. They’ve only reached third base, and yet it’s so good it ends with a marriage proposal.
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Lady Tilley Arnold and Benedict are finishing up their “morning delight” when she rolls off him and immediately picks up the latest issue of Lady Whistledown. Her commitment to gossip is commendable, but I do have some questions. Mostly, when and how did the paper get there? Can’t you just picture the awkward staff convo: “Don't go in there! They're doing you know what.” “Ugh, but Lady Tilley said under no circumstances were we to delay her Whistledown delivery. I can't afford another job search. In this economy?”
Colin takes Penelope to their future home as a married couple and almost immediately has her in front of a mirror, naked, as he showers her with compliments like, “You are the cleverest and bravest woman I have ever known” and “The way your eyes shine when you look at me, like two blue pools.” Nicola Coughlan was not lying when she described herself as a member of “the perfect breast community.”
But really, this scene should be studied by future generations as a preeminent example of the female gaze. The lust in his eyes when he looks at her. The way the camera lingers on him unbuckling his belt, and her expression of shock and delight as he drops his pants. The barest hint of butt in the mirror behind. The slow stalk he takes to the settee, where she is waiting in fantastic lighting with a luxurious blue velvet throw like a model in a Botticelli painting. How she gives consent and takes control of the whole experience when she says, “Tell me what to do.”
“May I?” he asks, then ensuring she has her pleasure first. No freaking wonder they broke the furniture while filming. “Can we do it again?” she asks as soon as it’s over. Girl, yes.
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Following a sexless episode six, in which Benedict declines an invitation to join Lady Arnold and her friend Paul in bed after he catches them making out, it seems he’s already changed his mind. “I’ve been thinking about your offer,” he says, before leaning in to kiss both.
Happy Pride, Benedict is queer! “I personally feel like Benedict reads as queer in seasons one and two, and I think a lot of audiences have felt that way as well,” the show’s executive producer Jess Brownell told Glamour about the decision to explore the character’s sexuality. “In the writers room, we wanted to make sense of that. Benedict is figuring out his place in society…and how he can skirt the rules of society while being true to himself.”
Finally, we get the threesome scene Challengers promised but never delivered. My only complaint is that the action cuts away to more of this nonsense about Cressida Cowper blackmailing Penelope.
Penelope and Colin finally consummate their marriage with her on top, a sexy visual representation of the power and control she now has by coming forward as Lady Whistledown. A fitting end to a very sexy season.
The Bridgerton season three sex scenes
Just before the 13-minute mark, a naked Sir Anthony Bridgerton climbs out of a bed shared with a woman who has clearly been following an excellent Curly Girl routine. Anthony’s muscles ripple beneath a half-extinguished candelabra. He turns, and magnificent ass cheeks fill the screen. Take a good long look readers, because we will not be seeing ass again for approximately 12,733 more minutes. Shortly after this unfulfilling sexual congress (for Anthony and for us), the viscount meets Kate Sharma in the woods. She is not like other girls! She is a hot and sexy horse girl.
Fast breathing. Building toward a climax. Shrieks of anticipation. Is it sex? No! It’s Lord Bridgerton and Kate Sharma at a horse race.
Twenty-five minutes into the episode, our favorite rivals have wandered into a secluded wood on the Bridgerton country estate to fetch a pair of balls. Seems promising, does it not? Kate gets stuck in a patch of mud and he has to try to wrench her out, but they both fall into the mess. “Ha, ha, ha!” they laugh. But soon, Anthony is lost in a reverie about witnessing his father’s death.
With five minutes left in the episode, the two of them are at it again, arguing in the garden, when a bee lands on Kate’s chest, nearly recreating the scene of Anthony’s father’s death. This instigates what can only be described as a very tender, erotic panic attack from Anthony, soothed by Kate. The tips of their noses touch; they are about to kiss. Instead, both parties run away, throw their bodies against hard surfaces, and pant excessively. Anthony, alarmed by his own desire, bites his own hand.
Kate, once again determined to prove that she is not like other girls, goes hunting with the men. Anthony, equally determined to prove that he is exactly like other guys, spends the whole hunt lecturing her. Eventually they get separated from the group, and he sort of upright-spoons her, unfortunately while trying to help her hold a gun. He lays his hand over her hand! (To hold the gun.) He turns his lips toward her cheek. (To help guide her to shoot the gun.) He inhales her scent! (The gun drops.)
That night, awakened by a thunderstorm, the two chance upon each other in the library. An entire generation, conditioned by the iconic green-dress sex scene in Atonement, waits. Nothing happens. The episode ends with another showdown in the library. If these people do not have sex soon, it will be a medical emergency.
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At the 23-minute mark of episode five, Anthony holds Kate’s hand, ostensibly to help her out of a boat. He clearly doesn’t want to let go; when he does he is so distracted that he trips and falls into the lake. He emerges, white shirt soaked, looking like a Magic Mike XXL performer. At 43 minutes in, he gives a very sexy ASMR whispered rant about his desire to seduce her. Bridgerton is edging America.
The big action happens here at the 20-minute mark. The action is that Anthony and Kate eye-fuck while Anthony is at the altar, about to marry her sister. Speaking as a sister: Don’t do this! There really is no need to involve your sister this deeply in your sex life. The two of you can just rock-paper-scissors or something. You could offer to trade her your Aritzia sweater for her fiancé! Or start the bargaining by saying that you’ll finally forgive her for that one thing she did in 2012 that you’re still mad about. Just be direct! None of this needs to happen.
Back to sex. At the end of the episode, Anthony and Kate kiss. Their bodies make a satisfying smacking sound when they run into each other. They kiss the way thirsty people drink cold water. Anthony does excellent makeout hand choreography. The kiss is extremely satisfying to the viewer. Still, this is not a sex scene.
Finally. Finally. Fourty-three minutes into the seventh episode, we get a sex scene. Kate and Anthony run into each other after nightfall on the grounds of the Bridgerton manse. They meet under a bower of hanging vines and thick clusters of flowers, surrounded by Roman statues, lit candles, and cushioned settees, which is still not good enough reason to have sex outside feet away from your sleeping family. They scream at each other for a while, and then Anthony delivers a passion-drenched monologue about his violent, unwanted desire for Kate. This is very good. He sniffs her neck in a move that seems to be lifted directly from the Edward Cullen seduction playbook.
And then it happens! The bosoms are a-heaving and the abs are pulsating. Kate’s lingerie is a sateen lilac shorts set, and I want it. Anthony painstakingly rolls down Kate’s thigh-high stocking. They make out. He fingers her. We have suggested digital penetration, folks! Team, this is what we’ve been preparing for. Anthony inches his way down Kate’s body and delivers pedigreed, land-owning gentry-style oral sex. Then he makes strong eye contact and enthusiastically kisses her on the mouth. Anthony: Denies women’s rights in the streets, worships their bodies in the sheets. There is a version of this man on every dating app.
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Kate and Anthony dance to an orchestral version of “Wrecking Ball.” (And??? Who hasn’t?) Their sexual energy grabs the entire room’s attention, including the Queen of England’s. (The queen does not let matters of state get in the way of more important things.) Good news: The queen ships them!
With seven minutes of the season left to go, Anthony and Kate have their sophomore sexual experience. However, it is immediately revealed that Anthony’s family is waiting for them downstairs. It would not be an episode of season two of Bridgerton if family wasn’t heavily implicated in a sex scene! The season ends with Anthony and Kate embracing and kissing ecstatically as their family watches.
The Bridgerton season one sex scenes
But 15 minutes into the first episode, Bridgerton makes one thing clear: We’re not on ABC anymore. This is Netflix, and you should expect sex groans, conveniently billowing sheets, and glorious side boob. Kicking things off is toxically masculine eldest brother Anthony. He is having a secret affair with opera singer Siena, while telling his sisters that a single open-mouthed kiss makes a woman a defiled hag. Every Bridgerton son has Panic! At the Disco hair and weird sexual proclivities, and Anthony is no exception. Do not have one-sided fantasy sex with this hypocritical fictional character.
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There is no sex in episode two, but there is a moment of foreshadowing. The duke tells Daphne, “If I were truly courting you, I would not need flowers, only five minutes alone with you in a drawing room.” In my notes, I wrote, “Underestimate?” Reader: As the show goes on to prove, no, this is not an underestimate.
This is not a sex scene; it is a scene in which Daphne and the duke touch hands while looking at a painting. Still. It is very nice.
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One theme of Bridgerton is that the young women do not know what sex is or how human life is propagated, while the men are fucking everything that is not tied down. Daphne’s knowledge of what people do “at night” stops at kissing, so she petitions the duke for information. He gives her vague directions to “touch yourself” and if it feels good, “carry on with that.” Daphne masturbates in her Anthropologie-store-themed bedroom, and we fly in her mind through a series of beautiful and weirdly hot memories of the duke touching her back. A close-up of her preclimax face then cuts to a shot of her playing piano, smiling slyly as she lifts her fingers off the keys. “You finished. How lovely,” her mom says, a horrifying creative decision that will be discussed by entertainment scholars for centuries to come.
This is not a sex scene, but it is a surprisingly wild first kiss, considering that its price turns out to be: Get married against your will, or her life will be ruined and he will be shot. Nevertheless, we see: Hand on butt! Hand on side boob! Petticoats hoisted up to the midshin area! Then we have makeoutus interruptus, thanks to another family member. Weird choice to bring the family into a sexual moment again, but okay!
Anthony wants one more for the road before he shoots his best friend for kissing his sister (toxic masculinity and haircut anxiety strikes again), so he grabs Siena by the throat and smashes his face into hers. It could be hot, but their power dynamic is so off—he’s made it clear that she’s an object he sees as pleasant but ultimately inferior.
The second-born Bridgerton son attends a party on the other side of the tracks, where artsy types are having a freewheeling orgy. Instead of freaking out about seeing two men have sex, he chooses to have a threesome in the hallway. For this reason, he is the coolest Bridgerton sibling.
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You know that thing when you’re desperately in love with your new husband and he’s desperately in love with you, but you both don’t tell each other because you’re both far too modest, and then you confess your feelings at the exact same time and have blissful missionary sex for 26 seconds in front of a roaring fire? It goes like this—Simon unhooks Daphne’s gown and unstrings her corset in the time it would take a 21st-century man to so much as locate the back of a bra. He asks for consent with genuine care, after which we are rewarded with a full, soft-focus shot of his butt. All of this is sadly overshadowed by the fact that Daphne doesn’t know what sex is and doesn’t find out until it is happening to her. Couldn’t he have drawn her a diagram or something? It saddens me to report that the Duke of Hastings would not make it in the competitive world of sex-positive Instagram educators today. Luckily, unlike almost all human women, Daphne comes after having less than one minute of penetrative sex and almost no foreplay. They don’t call her “the season’s incomparable” for nothing.
Lying in bed in their sprawling mansion, Simon drags Daphne’s hand down his bare chest and says, “You are the duchess of all this.” Good for them!
Sim and Daph can’t make it through appetizers without nearly doing it in front of their staff, who are Definitely Not Being Paid Enough for This. Daphne does a sensual arm striptease. (Bring back elbow-length gloves, that we may all indulge in this!) They run outside in ecstasy and kiss up against what I hope is not a grave. An instantly iconic Vitamin String Quartet cover of “Wildest Dreams” by Taylor Swift plays. It rains, which makes them laugh, gaily! They run into another structure, which I hope is not a mausoleum, and start hooking up on the ground.
Now, this is very important: In this scene we see the couple have sex from start to finish—the camera does not cut away once. I counted, and counted again, and from start to finish, Daphne and Simon engage in 29 seconds of foreplay once they get out of the rain. Then he takes off his pants and gets on top of her, and they have sex. I timed 13 seconds between him getting on top of her and then rolling away across the stone mausoleum (maybe) floor. In fact, you can think about it this way: They have sex only long enough for Taylor Swift to sing, “Wildest dreams, oh! Wildest dreams, oh! Wildest dreams, oh!” I recognize that this is a TV show, not a how-to sex guide. But the Bridgerton team made the choice to give impressionable young fans the idea that heterosexual sex is a 13-second affair that ends in perfect mutual climax! Ask for more from your outside rainstorm graveside sex, friends.
Sex in a bed! Sex in a field! Sex that causes glass to shatter and ballet flats to fall off! Atonement-style sex, with the lady suspended on a ladder! May those impressionable Bridgerton fans see this as a sex-positive, female-pleasure-focused bacchanal and not a giant advertisement for the pullout method. Daphne and Hastings say they “burn” for each other, and with the amount of sex they are having, there is a 99% chance she is going to actually burn, via a urinary tract infection. But can you put a price on ladder sex?
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Trouble in paradise? No! Sex on a desk! Once again, the filmmaker chooses not to cut away and give the impression that time has passed. Our favorite couple enjoys 12 seconds of bliss.
This scene starts so hot. Daphne’s in control! Daphne’s on top! Daphne is Daenerys, mother of dragons, queen of having beautiful crimped hair! And as a bonus, this is the one and only time Simon lasts for more than 30 seconds. But the scene ends with Daphne doing something that’s really unethical and nonconsensual, and wrong.
The ideal Bridgerton sex scene. This combination of female orgasm and sumptuous real estate? It’s what people want.
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Anthony and Siena absolutely must have sex under a rickety stage on which there is a live boxing match watched by hundreds of their close friends (you know how it is). Siena has more agency here, and the camera even cuts away, allowing us to relish the fantasy that at least one character on this show lasts more than 30 seconds.
Anthony and Siena have cheerful sex in a bed for a change. Siena is wearing a crop top I would like to own.
Daph and the duke have exchanged heartfelt speeches, and even more important, they have been rained on. They have passionate makeup sex, during which they once again perpetuate the falsehood that good sex is a two step-process: one, a conversation, upright and fully dressed; two, instant penetration.
Until next season, dear reader.
