Written by: Grace Plumpton-Hill

Edited by: Abigail George

November 28, 2025, Canada witnessed the advent of an unexpected cultural obsession: the queer hockey series Heated Rivalry, written and directed by Montreal-native Jacob Tierney. Since the show’s release, it has remained at the top of pop-culture debates largely due to a romance plot which, according to Teen Vogue, “is largely told, with striking and crucial boldness, through sex.” In pop media, it is frequently dubbed “horny,” “steamy,” “sexy,” along with a plethora of other sensual terms, and justifiably so considering its intentionally explicit eroticism. Online discussions and media publicity quickly foregrounded sex as the show’s defining feature. In turn, this emphasis on sex has become the primary lens through which audiences approach the series, while its narrative, characterization, or other thematic goals are subordinated. The erotic content determines how the show is consumed, evaluated, or even rejected.

There have been two major audience responses to the sensuality of Heated Rivalry. Some viewers consume the show as erotic spectacle and appreciate the lack of female objectification, emphasizing explicit scenes to such an extent that the narrative is seen as a vehicle for the sexual content’s escapist mode. However, overtly detaching erotic pleasure from narrative context risks morphing escapism into fetishization and reducing queer intimacy to spectacle. This undermines the show’s complexity and places the value of the erotic content solely on its sexual charge. 

Other viewers label the series as unreasonably pornographic. Of these viewers, some are overtly homophobic, but the rest argue that the show’s excessive eroticism distracts or discredits its plot and cultural impact. This implies that the show appeals to viewers’ sexual desires at the expense of narrative meaning. Though these two major responses seem opposed, they operate on the same logic of extracting the sex from the story and thus refusing to consider queer eroticism as a legitimate site of narrative meaning-making. In the process, both sides disregard the possibility that the series deliberately entwines eroticism and narrative to portray authentic and hopeful queer love. 

Audiences’ insistence on separating Heated Rivalry’s eroticism from its narrative meaning creates a false binary that strips the depiction of queer intimacy of its emotional and political complexity. Additionally, dismissing the narrative significance of queer eroticism leads to a reductive consumption of queer romantic media and misconceives both the directorial intentions and cultural significance of the show. 

Queer Media and Respectability Politics

Many criticisms of the show rely on terms like “fan service” or “soft-core porn” to characterize Heated Rivalry’s eroticism as sensationalist and narratively empty. The Guardian argues that the show’s “problem” lies in the fact that “once you move past the relative novelty of the sex, there is only just enough of all the other stuff you need to make a good, rewarding story there.” However, by framing sex as a distraction from the plot rather than a component of it, queer pleasure is positioned as something that cannot be taken seriously within the narrative and as an unacceptable depiction of queerness. This criticism carries an inherent assumption that queer stories must sanitize sexual expression to be perceived as acceptable media. Such logic aligns with the tradition of respectability politics, which demands that stories about marginalized identities earn cultural legitimacy by conforming to conventional norms of propriety. It is then understood that queer desire is only tolerated when it is minimized or displaced in favour of more “pure” romantic intimacy. In an interview, Tierney addresses why mainstream queer media often does not feature explicit erotic content by saying, “because they don’t want to watch us have sex, watch us fuck. And that’s what this show is inherently doing.” By incorporating bold eroticism in its depiction of queer intimacy, the show intentionally subverts respectability standards that have often censored queer authenticity. Queer eroticism is uncritically labelled pornographic by these standards of propriety. Immediately treating its explicitness as obscene excess negates the possibility of a creative directorial intent to produce meaning. In addition to disregarding both the narrative and the broader cultural impact of the show’s intimacy, this criticism also reveals an enduring cultural discomfort with queer pleasure itself that is seeping into audiences’ assessments of narrative quality. 

Eroticism and Queer Storytelling

The assumption that the meaning derived from sex and narrative is mutually exclusive is particularly harmful to queer storytelling. Extracting sex from the narrative context denies queer eroticism the capacity to produce meaning, reducing it to spectacle or overindulgence. In the queer community, erotic expression has historically functioned as one of the few available sites of agency and authenticity. As previously mentioned, queer media has often been shaped by censorship, invisibility, and respectability politics. To disengage with queer eroticism’s narrative significance reflects a partial understanding of queer media and a failure to engage with the crucial role sex has played in queer history. Heated Rivalry is evidence that queer erotic intimacy can function as a unique mode of communication and resistance rather than meaningless spectacle. Sex can articulate vulnerability and relational change in ways that exceed other forms of storytelling, functioning as a narrative propellant instead of an interruption. This challenges the treatment of queer explicitness as incompatible with depth. 

In an interview with Teen Vogue, Tierney emphasizes the necessity of the show’s sexual realism, stating that the protagonists are “people who learn about each other through fucking, so the sex didn’t feel gratuitous… this is how they communicate.” He says that the erotic content gives certain insight into the two characters otherwise inaccessible in the other narrative components, like how protagonist Ilya’s prioritization of consent reveals him to be “a very sensitive and empathetic lover” rather than “a carefree playboy.” Additionally, sexual intimacy offers a unique space for authenticity between the two men that their professional and social lives do not yet permit, especially as high-level male hockey players. Tierney claims that when protagonists Shane and Ilya are having sex, “it’s the only time, especially in the first two episodes, that they’re not lying to each other.” Significantly, their shared sexual moments contribute to a narrative that does not end in stereotypical tragedy, but is instead “radical in its foregrounding of queer joy.” 

Rather than being sensationalist, the show’s sexually intimate moments are carefully positioned to portray the relational and emotional development of an optimistic gay love story. Tierney does not sanitize queer desire to secure legitimacy, but rather insists on erotic authenticity as central to the narrative. The show’s refusal to separate sex from storytelling reflects its broader representational aims as a piece of queer media. As Tierney explains, “[w]hy shouldn’t we get some horny good sex for gay people on TV? Like sex that we know is not going to end in misery or AIDS or punishment. We often get punished for getting sex as characters in queer storylines.” In a history of media where queer sex has so often been associated with shame, immorality, and even death, Heated Rivalry offers pleasure without retribution in its telling of a queer romance, promoting its cultural impact. The series entwines sex and storytelling in such a way as to create a “safe, nurturing space,” unburdened by cultural suppression or tragedy. For this reason, the show’s “unabashed” nature should be acknowledged as intentional and meaningful so as to understand the political implications and broader social importance of explicit queer eroticism in media.