‘Heated Rivalry’s Sex Sells Good Storytelling — Not Shock Value
What To Know
- Heated Rivalry uses explicit sex scenes not just for shock value, but as a narrative tool to explore the vulnerability and evolving emotional connection between its main characters, Ilya and Shane.
- The show’s popularity stems from its nuanced storytelling and character development, as well as its sex scenes.
- As the series progresses, open communication replaces sex as the primary means of expressing intimacy.
Heated Rivalry stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams have matching tattoos that say “Sex Sells” inscribed in the center of a heart to commemorate the bond they cemented while filming the breakout hit series. It’s a tongue-in-cheek nod to knowing the show’s explicit intimate scenes would grab headlines from potential fans, but also understanding that sex is just one layer of their hockey player characters’ complicated love story.
The blush-worthy sex in Heated Rivalry is definitely a gateway into the series, but to imply that it is the only reason the show has garnered a rapidly growing fanbase is a disingenuous surface read of what Heated Rivalry is actually offering viewers. Are Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander extremely hot? Objectively, yes. Is it titillating to watch them kiss and manhandle each other around hotel rooms? Another easy yes, but there are plenty of ways to watch hot dudes touch each other on the internet if that’s all you really want.
Heated Rivalry has become the phenomenon it is because of the way it uses Hollanov’s sexual interactions to expand on or twist what’s happening in their daily lives.
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When done successfully, sex in romance novels and television is a metaphor for vulnerability. Characters get naked with their partners and show parts of themselves normally hidden by bravado, insecurities, or any number of masking behaviors. They can’t hide when they are bare for each other. Heated Rivalry has taken over the cultural zeitgeist because of the expert way series creator Jacob Tierney has adapted Rachel Reid’s novels, and how Storrie and Williams have sparked life into these characters, even in Hollanov’s quiet, clothed moments. (Wow, genetic.)
Those moments matter because of what happens behind closed doors, and what happens in the “real world” impacts how they act in the bedroom. The first time Ilya and Shane hook up is the first time Shane is with a man, period. Ilya knows that and consistently asks if Shane is okay with what they are doing. “I wouldn’t leave you like that,” Ilya assures Shane before bringing his partner to a mutual orgasm. He’s been a cocky show-off on the ice up until this point, but he’s supportive and encouraging when he and Shane get naked together, making Shane feel safe in exploring this new part of himself.
The duo is scheduled for a joint press conference shortly after that first hookup, and it is Ilya’s turn to feel uncomfortable. English isn’t his first language, and the reporters are asking personal questions about expectations and performance. Ilya looks like a deer in headlights, so Shane takes over the talking for both of them. The camera pans to their feet beneath the table, inching closer together. They press them together in solidarity, and “I wouldn’t leave you like that” becomes “I’ve got you.” Shane wouldn’t have supported Ilya in that moment if Ilya hadn’t supported Shane back in the hotel room. This is how trust is built, and their relationship evolves even after their first time together.
The Hollanov relationship trajectory isn’t linear. Their closeness ebbs and flows depending on what’s going on, and the sex illustrates that, too. In the second episode, they play in the Olympics for their respective countries. Russia is shockingly eliminated after losing to Latvia, which further strains Ilya’s relationship with his overbearing father. He’s under pressure to live up to the expectations of his demanding father and leech-like brother. That pressure leads to winning the Stanley Cup a year earlier than anyone else expects, but that isolated focus also takes a toll on his situationship with Shane.
The two don’t have sex again until after the MHL Awards in Las Vegas. Ilya is austere and domineering. He makes Shane perform for him while he watches. Shane obliges. He literally crawls across the bed to worship at the altar of Ilya’s hips, and Ilya takes what he’s being offered because he’s worked so hard for this, but doesn’t believe he deserves more. When they finish, Shane asks about Russia and how Ilya feels when he’s there. It’s way too close for comfort, and Ilya kicks him out of the hotel room. Shane drafts three or four different texts to say goodbye, while Williams’ devastated face sells Shane’s heartbreak that they didn’t even kiss. Ilya’s lack of affection in the bedroom ignites a glaring neon sign in Shane’s head that this isn’t just about sex for him anymore.
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So where do they go from here? The situationship continues for a few more years. Shane doesn’t push for a deeper connection, so Ilya makes the next bold move. He invites Shane to his house in Boston at midday. It’s the first time they are intimate in the daylight, in front of Ilya’s floor-to-ceiling windows. When they are done with round one, Ilya asks Shane to stay. He makes him a tuna melt. He offers Shane a ginger ale and asks if it is cold enough, after Shane has struggled the entire episode to get his drink of choice. When Ilya has to take a call from his ailing father, Shane listens and asks Ilya about it afterward. They are taking care of each other, but they don’t know how to say that, so they hook up on the couch with tuna breath and mutual orgasms.
This is different from every other time they’ve been intimate in the past. The lack of shadows anywhere in the sequence is the first clue that this is a game-changing event in the Hollanov relationship timeline. It’s an encounter that’s spread out rather than a rushed quickie before they’re set to fly out for their respective next hockey games. It is so overwhelmingly saccharine and precious that they call each other by their first names for the first time in the entire series. It is a teaser trailer for the potential of their future lives…and it freaks Shane the hell out.
He panics and bails, despite Ilya repeatedly saying, “Hollander,” from the couch to try to prove they can go back to the way they were before the name slip. It’s exciting that Heated Rivalry is bold enough to put a mutual masturbation scene in the series because wider sexual representation is good for everyone involved. But if you watch the fan edits of Episode 4, the reactions to that scene have nothing to do with what Shane’s hands were doing below their waists. They’re about the name slip. They’re about Ilya’s second, impassioned “Hollander” as Shane gets up to leave. They’re about the freakin’ ginger ale and whether it was cold enough. Neither Shane nor Ilya is saying what they actually want or fear, but it’s all right there in the sex and everything else around it, and you can’t divorce one from the other.
Shane and Ilya are notoriously bad communicators. The sex they have with each other, and how they present themselves in those scenes, says what their words don’t. Each sex scene is a progress report for the audience about the state of their relationship. It’s telegraphed in how they kiss, or when they don’t at all. It shows in how they touch each other before and after, in whether they stick around to cuddle in bed together or rush away to the next commitment. The physical proximity they share in those scenes correlates directly to where they are emotionally with each other.
Fans are riveted by the sex in Heated Rivalry because it telegraphs the secrets and emotions that Shane and Ilya refuse to share with each other until the penultimate episode.
Obviously, the Episode 4 hookup is a big step backward for Hollanov. They retreat to their separate corners to evaluate where they stand. Shane gets a girlfriend and goes on a journey of self-discovery that loops him back to the realization he’s gay — not bisexual or curious or just into the danger of banging his rival. He knows himself better when he finally sees Ilya again, so he’s not afraid to stare at his crush when he gets out of the pool in slow motion (albeit behind sunglasses). Shane’s ready to say what he wants, and it’s Ilya. They finally get to play on the same team, in more ways than one.
The more open communication between Shane and Ilya means they don’t need sex to speak for them. They still have it, of course, but there are no explicit sex scenes depicted in the entirety of Episode 5. If people are only watching this show for the sex, why is “I’ll Believe in Anything” now the highest-rated TV episode of the year? No one is complaining that the nudity is down in the episode. (Okay, hold on, we also wouldn’t say no to an extended cut of the glasses FaceTime call, but we understand why it didn’t happen.) Heated Rivalry understands that it doesn’t need the metaphor for vulnerability when Shane and Ilya are baring their hearts for each other in other ways – by actually communicating, holding each other, or talking on the phone (and I hope anyone saying the acting on this show isn’t good eats crow when Connor Storrie gets a nomination during awards season for delivering the couple’s first love confession in a four-minute monologue completely in Russian).
The penultimate episode ends with an internationally televised kiss between Scutt Hunter (François Arnaud) and Kip Grady (Robbie G.K.), which inspires Shane and Ilya to reconsider the supposedly doomed future of their own relationship. Ilya cancels his plans to return to Russia and informs Shane that they will get to spend time at his private cottage that summer instead.
TikTok and social media are now filled with memes of fans packing their own suitcase to spend two weeks at The Cottage with our boys. Are we so over the moon because we went a whole episode without seeing anyone naked? No. Fans are excited because this will be the first time that Shane and Ilya get to be together on the same page, and with hope in their hearts. They will get to love out loud, even if they are the only ones who hear it (for now). It’s going to be hot sex, and that is incredibly entertaining TV, but what makes it good TV is what that sex means for this couple we’ve been rooting for since they faced off in the junior hockey finals in Episode 1.
So yeah, sex sells. It makes headlines, and everyone can cash in on horniness. But to say that we are only here for the smut is a grave misunderstanding, an unfair criticism of the connection this show has forged with its audience, and a disservice to the incredible work the entire cast and crew of Heated Rivalry have put into this paradigm-shifting series.
Sex sells, but it also tells the story of four men willing to be vulnerable and put everything on the line for true love. The sex is good, but the story it tells is better, and that is why we watch.
Heated Rivalry, Season 1 Finale, December 26, HBO Max
