Welcome to Long Live the Sex Scene, a special project by Cosmopolitan that explores why these steamy television and movie moments truly matter, especially right now. Join us as we rewind, replay, and then rewind them all over again.
Set in ’80s New Mexico, the erotic thriller Love Lies Bleeding follows antisocial gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Jackie (Katy O’Brien), an aspiring bodybuilder on her way to a competition in Las Vegas. The two quickly fall in love and become enmeshed into each other’s turbulent lives.
Nearly a quarter of the way through the film—and several sexy montages in—Lou and Jackie have their first fight after an awkward dinner with Lou’s family.
Eager to make up, Lou follows Jackie to the bathroom, gets on her knees, and begins to finger her. But a moment later, she leans back and asks Jackie to demonstrate how she touches herself. With some heavy breathing and finger licking, Jackie does.
I was salivating as I scanned the rest of the cinema. Had anyone else seen that?
As a queer-sex-scene obsessive, I’ve watched and rewatched Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I never skip past the sex scene in The Handmaiden. But the sex in Love Lies Bleeding just felt...different. Probably because Jackie and Lou look different.
Lou has a wolfcut and wears loose clothes. Jackie is mostly seen in tank tops with shorts. They don’t wear makeup. They lift weights, shoot automatic weapons, and drive beat-up cars. Emphatically, explicitly masculine, they are rare onscreen examples of women I want—and women I want to be.
Despite being out as a lesbian for several years, until recently, I believed desirability demanded femininity. As a not particularly skinny Black gay woman who grew up attending predominantly white schools in the South, I thought looking feminine and girlish would make me more appealing. More digestible.
But as I got older, I got tired of wearing layers of makeup, having long hair, and maintaining a bad dye job. So one sweltering day in NYC, I had my long curls clipped into a short pixie. Instead of feeling vulnerable, I felt…sexy. Like Lou and Jackie are sexy. Not despite their masculinity but because of it.
At the end of the scene, Kristen Stewart as Lou takes over fingering Jackie, stares into her eyes, and whispers, “Good girl.” Is this how good girls look? Is this what good girls do? If Kristen Stewart in a cutoff denim vest says so, then it must be true.
