Netflix’s ‘Sexify’ is showing us how to embrace healthier conversations about sex

Anna Luo

Season two of Sexify has debuted on Netflix, continuing its story of three young women, Monika, Paulina, and Natalia. The show follows their story as they try to break into the tech industry with an app aimed at helping women have better (and more) orgasms. 

The Polish series is fun and lighthearted, making for easy viewing, but it also pleasantly surprises with its representations of healthy sex habits on screen. As a show aimed at teenagers and young adults, these depictions are a welcome change to recent unhelpful portrayals of onscreen sex that tend to dominate film and television. 

Euphoria, and its cultural predecessor, Skins, have a less nuanced approach to sex and underage characters. In these shows, sex is more often used as a shock factor, and sex scenes are often paralleled with drug use and mental illness. 

The pilot episode of Euphoria, for example, portrays statutory rape of a sixteen year old, in addition to cuts of graphic scenes from pornography. While creator Sam Levinson has commented on the inclusion of nudity and sex in the show as an intention to “open up a dialogue” on the difficulties of being a teenager, actors on the show have spoken up several times about their discomfort with what Levinson has asked them to do – especially considering that most of the actors are portraying teenagers. 

 Actors from Skins have also spoken out in their twenties and thirties about how they were not protected when filming sex scenes, which depicted nudity among characters in high school. Some actors were as young as fourteen when the show began. 

Sexify’s college-aged characters are thus a welcome change to the genre. First and foremost, the show’s three main characters are all college-aged women. This type of representation is significant in that it shows actors and characters in alignment in regards to age – so often, shows and movies about sex and young people focus on teenagers in a high school environment.

Tackling the issue of sex among teenagers is tricky and is certainly done better in some media depictions than in others. Sex Education does a fairly good job at portraying healthy and realistic sex among its teenage characters while also platforming discussions of rarely talked about conditions, such as vaginismus. 

Significantly, almost all of Sexify’s characters are sexually inexperienced and in the throes of learning about their body and sex – another aspect that aligns more realistically with their age group. 

Typically, sex in the media is presented as something that everyone is doing, all the time. Sexual prowess is treated as the norm, and inexperience is often ridiculed. Sexify, on the other hand, never portrays sexual inexperience as inherently negative. Instead, it weaves this aspect into its character development.

For example, Natalia and her boyfriend work to overcome their shyness and insecurity when it comes to having sex for the first time. Paulina ends a long relationship due to sexual incompatibility and a lack of communication, and eventually learns how to communicate better (which leads to a satisfying closure with her ex). Monika, the show’s most sexually active and confident character, leaves a toxic relationship and learns how to have healthy sexual relationships with other people.

When it comes to the sex scenes themselves, season two stands out in particular for promoting healthy – and more realistic – depictions of sex. In most of the scenes, male characters are shown taking out condoms on their own accord before having penetrative sex. 

In episode 2 of the second season, Paulina is about to hook up with a guy but is turned off by his aggressive approach to sex. Instead of continuing, they end up talking instead, and he thanks her for listening to him. Episode 7 then shows Paulina and her ex-boyfriend finally discovering how to have sex while actively communicating what’s working for them, and what small adjustments they’d like. 

Episode 7 also showed Natalia losing her virginity after struggling to have sex with her boyfriend for the entire season due to nervousness on both sides. Sexify takes a subtly refreshing approach to Natalia’s virginity by having her first sex partner be an old friend from high school, a character who is only present for the short scene when she is staying at her mother’s house in her hometown.  

While the scene has all the ingredients for a potentially scandalous storyline (she has broken up with her boyfriend and has sex in a flower booth near a graveyard), Natalia’s virginity is never mentioned after the fact. She continues to be herself, without having undergone any radical changes other than having a slight increase in self-confidence. By presenting the subject of Natalia’s virginity as a banal and normal storyline, Sexify manages to profoundly confront archaic conceptions of womanhood and virginity. 

These elements make the show’s sex scenes feel much more approachable for young people who may be watching and comparing the show with their own sexual experience or inexperience. If a viewer has not received significant (or comprehensive) sexual education, they could still gain something positive from the discussions and portrayals on how to approach healthy sex and relationships.

Despite these wins, the show does have a glaring missed opportunity in the storylines of its queer characters. The only openly gay character, Jabba, is never shown in a sexually desirable light and rarely interacts with other gay men. The sole openly lesbian character, Lilith, while depicted as charming and confident, remains a stagnant minor character who mostly serves the plotline of Paulina’s sexuality.

The chemistry between Lilith and Paulina is built up well and their scene is artistic and tasteful, but the entire storyline is cheapened when Paulina implies that she had sex with Lilth mostly to figure out her own sexuality. While this is not inherently problematic, it feels unsatisfying as it is the only storyline with Lilith in the second season and her character does not appear much afterwards. 

By the end of season two, the show has mostly focused on heteronormative sex and spends  a great deal of time curating a dichotomous discussion between “what men want in bed” versus “what women want in bed”, with the implication that men and women will always fall into their respective camp when it comes to sexuality and desires. There are some valid – and funny – points made, but the sidelining of queerness and sexuality makes it fall short of its full potential. 

Despite being a show centred around sex, Sexify also makes sure to develop its characters – especially female characters – with deference to their humanity. Beyond exploring sexuality, the show spends a great deal of time exploring what it means to fail as a young person. 

Monika, Paulina and Natalia are all tenacious and constantly finding creative ways to overcome their obstacles. The app that they create, Sexify, and its sibling app, Sexiguy (for men’s sexual pleasure), is geared at genuinely helping their peers have healthier and more satisfying sexual encounters. 

It’s easy to root for them as they take on archaic and institutionalised sexism in their studies and in the ‘real world’, but ultimately, the most poignant moments come after it is proven, in both seasons, that we do not yet live in a world that is ready to embrace healthier conversations about sex – especially women’s sexuality. The issues are laid bare, the girls fail massively and have to pick up the pieces together, and there is no magic solution presented. 

By taking the time to develop its characters and explore their lives and growth, Sexify offers an empathetic story on young adulthood that feels refreshing and joyful to watch. After failing a second time, the girls comfort each other and find solace in their friendship. They take time to nurture their wounds, focus on their personal lives, and then prepare to move on to healthier and better things. 

Above all, Sexify’s approach to sexuality onscreen playfully signals that sex doesn’t always have to be shown as something serious or scandalous. Sometimes sex is funny, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it’s just a hookup – but we can accomplish so much more if we talk about it honestly.