The Sexiest TV Shows of 2026 (So Far)

8 min readThere is still plenty of sex in movies, but TV is truly where it’s at in terms of stories that are centered on sex. The long-form nature of the medium combined with a more permissive attitude toward what is depicted is a combination that often yields stories that are invested in exploring sexual intricacies. A few themes in 2026’s sexy TV offerings: examinations of online sex work (Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Euphoria), vampire four-ways, and, uh, finger blasting (Bridgerton, Outlander). Busy year!Below, we've rounded up the sexiest TV shows of the year so far.OutlanderOver the course of its eight-season run, which wrapped in May, Starz’s historical fantasy series Outlander has cultivated quite the reputation for its depiction of sex onscreen. Its final season included a marriage proposal to end all marriage proposals with yet another depiction of period fingering. (After Bridgerton’s from earlier this year, one more will make a trend!)The scene begins with a perfectly composed shot of Amaranthus (Carla Woodcock) sitting in a gazebo. William (Charles Vandervaart) joins her and they discuss various species of beetles in reference to a waistcoat she previously gifted him. “I’ve developed a particular species of feeling for you,” he tells her. The cheesiness of this dialogue is immediately acknowledged by Amaranthus, who laughs at his “terrible attempt at cleverness.” They discuss procreating, which would allow him to bestow his title should their child be male. Of course, that would require effort and, “We might just enjoy the try.”She pulls his hand onto her lap and he proceeds to reach under it. We see nothing explicit but it is implied that upon his digital penetration of her, she accepts what is effectively his marriage proposal. He pulls her onto his lap. They’re clothed but it very much seems like they won’t be soon. The scene ends. It’s perfect.56 DaysPrime Video’s 56 Days is a show that argues that revenge is a dish best served erotically. It’s composed of a double helix of storylines: one is a procedural depicting the investigation of a corpse found in an apartment, and the other is a romance between people who meet in a supermarket. That makes it technically an erotic thriller, though not always in that order. Still, the sex is frequent and explicit, and the show feels very much indebted to the slick studio erotic thrillers of the early ‘90s. Oliver Kennedy and Ciara Wyse, played by Nickelodeon and Disney Channel alums Avan Jogia and Dove Cameron, simply cannot keep their hands off each other, and why should they? They are extremely hot.Their first encounter takes place about a half hour into the first episode. He’s on top and the decidedly bisexual lighting turns his skin a shade of lavender. There’s a particularly effective close-up on her eye rolling in pleasure as she gets railed. The next day, before she can leave his place, he goes down on her. Episode 2 features an even more memorable scene of alleyway sex in broad daylight. They’re clothed and standing up against a wall. It seems less than ideal/comfortable but the scene really underscores their attraction. Elsewhere she rides him while topless. The plot of 56 Days is as twisty as a nipple during rough sex, but it would be just as watchable if it lay there and looked pretty.The Vampire LestatThe third season of the AMC show previously known as Interview with the Vampire turns to the second book in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series for its inspiration (hence the new name). It’s anchored by a tremendous performance by Sam Reid as the titular Lestat, who is now the lead singer of a rock band whose onstage shtick is that he’s a vampire (the slightest sleight of hand if ever there were when it comes to obscuring his identity).Vampires and eroticism go together like stakes and direct sunlight, but during a typically witty monologue in the season premiere, Lestat explains why sex is the “fourth-best thing a vampire can do to avoid thinking about the past.” A montage of past scenes and those set in the present day shuffles along rapidly while Lestat informs the audience that he’s had “a lot” of sex in his centuries as a vampire. “It’s not all pain and toxicity. I have an immortal life and I carry with it an immortal erection. And I am not ashamed of it. Sex is fun…” he says, adding that, “Carnal pleasure is essential to a vampire’s survival, if only to keep time’s baggage from burying you.”We see shots of him lying with and embracing the other men in his long life, kissing, fire-lit bodies, a bare butt, thrusting, bouncing, eyes rolling back as we keep cutting to the three-way between his entourage member and a fan that’s going down in an elevator. And then, when the bellman joins, it’s a four-way. Immortality has its drawbacks but clearly it doesn’t all suck.EuphoriaThe polarizing final season of Sam Levinson’s HBO series Euphoria finds most of its female characters either adjacent to sex work (Rue works in a strip joint, Maddy manages adult content creators) or performing it. As a sugar baby, Jules (Hunter Schafer) is seen catering to a range of men’s tastes in her backstory montage that opens episode 3, including indulging a fetish for nylons (there’s an artful shot from above of her torso and spread legs in stockings with a guy between them licking) and blowing a “run-of-the-mill finance guy” under his desk during a call. The sugar daddy she eventually settles on wraps her in cellophane in a dark Los Angeles penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s a gorgeous image, her feelings about the work necessary to maintain her art career, notwithstanding.Meanwhile, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) cultivates an OnlyFans following (@ItsJustMeCassie) doing just about whatever will bring the boys to her bank account: dressing as a sailor, ASMR, masturbating with increasingly large sex toys, mailing her panties, rating dicks. She draws the line at farting in a jar, telling Maddy (Alexa Demie), her manager, to do it. Maddie says she will. The montage ends with a giant Cassie in a macrophilia fantasy scenario: She’s giant and walking among the skyscrapers of Los Angeles, kind of a kaiju with a rack. The scene ends with Cassie’s boobs pressed against the windows of the office building in which the guy who’s masturbating to her works. And then, ridiculously, they crash through. “She knew this was her destiny,” says Rue (Zendaya) via voiceover. “To triumph. To conquer. To win. And she had finally been unleashed.” That’s definitely one way to put it.DTF St. LouisAs an inquiry into intimacy among (mostly) straight-identified male friends, HBO’s DTF St. Louis traces ground covered by Luca Guadagnino’s 2024 film Challengers, but in more exacting detail. DTF, named after a fictional sex app that characters Floyd (David Harbour) and Clark (Jason Bateman) bond over, draws a similar conclusion—that strong intimacy among men may look like what is (broadly and stereotypically) referred to as “gay,” but it’s much more nuanced than that. (Yes, Floyd and Clark dance together in their underwear at one point…as friends. But loving ones!) Floyd and Clark also bond over Floyd’s wife, Carol (Linda Cardellini, in an astonishingly frank performance), with whom Clark has sex sometimes while Floyd watches.The entire show—also, a procedural with a mysterious death at its center—is gripped with sexual tension, especially as Clark and Carol begin their flirtation, but it is not without its depictions of actual sex. At what we eventually discover is Floyd’s urging, Clark and Carol try out the Amazon position, a variation of missionary that inverts the typical inserter-insertee positioning (here, Clark is on his back with his legs back, and Carol is on top, making Clark the passive partner). During their hotel meetups, they experiment with role play (Clark acts as a “sex robot”) and Carol sits on his face while working on her phone. In addition to its explorations of male intimacy and gentle cucking, DTF St. Louis devotes itself to a repeated mantra and the title of the limited series’ finale episode: No one's normal—it just looks that way from across the street.VladimirNetflix’s limited series Vladimir was adapted from the 2022 novel of the same name by its author, Julia May Jonas (who is credited as the show’s creator and who wrote four of its eight episodes). Its protagonist M (played by a luminous Rachel Weisz) is a professor at a university in upstate New York who looks askance at #MeToo-era values, cancel culture, and pandering to the “uncomfortable” in direct-to-camera monologues and quips (instead of more conventional voiceovers). While her professor husband John (John Slattery) is embroiled in an investigation regarding students with whom he had affairs (M and John are in a peaceful open marriage), M pines for the freshly hired assistant professor Vladmir (Leo Woodall). Her lust and his seeming reciprocal flirtation extend over several episodes—in tightly edited montages, she imagines his touch and mouth on her. She fantasizes while having sex with her husband, the montages conveying her wandering mind.Spoiler: M and Vladimir finally consummate their tension in the show’s finale. As they begin, M wonders if she should take her clothes off and Vlad tells her that he can’t wait. When he enters her, she orgasms practically spontaneously, giving herself (and more importantly, the viewers) much-needed release.Margo’s Got Money TroublesApple TV’s charming and well-acted comedy about a young mother (the titular Margo, played by Elle Fanning) who turns to OnlyFans to help lighten her financial load is yet another show predicated on a college student sleeping with her professor. It is during those early scenes in which Margo and Mark (Michael Angarano) have the kind of can’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other fornicating that the generally sexy series gets explicit (at least, so far—only four episodes had been released at the time of the publication of this column). We see a rapid-fire montage of extremely tight close-ups of sex: her holding onto his sock-clad feet, his hand (wedding band visible) sinking into her skin, her head banging against a wall. All the while they thrust and moan. Later, they have clothed sex against a wall loud enough to disturb Margo’s roommate. And then when she gets pregnant, said sex proceeds to upend her life.BridgertonFinally, a show that is truly invested in hand stuff. The fourth season of Netflix’s beloved period piece focuses on Benedict (Luke Thompson), the second Bridgerton son, and his love affair with Sophie (Yerin Ha), a maid he encounters during a ball. Tension simmers until they find themselves together later on a staircase, where they make out passionately. He licks two fingers and up her skirt they go, as she finishes with an, “Mmm.” An episode later, Benedict pledges, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”It turns out she wants him too, and so lovemaking ensues. Brief, clothed cunnilingus leads to more extended penetration, albeit under sheets. In missionary to start, she tells him, “Slow at first please. I’ve heard it can hurt.” There’s a great shot from above the bed of his sculpted back. Sex on the side and from the back (spooning, if you will) occurs and then they finish on their sides facing each other. A few episodes later, sitting behind her in a bath, he washes her with a sponge. At the prospect of intercourse, she says, “I cannot risk it yet,” so he does as before and gives her a reach-around. She reaches back, returning the favor. Hand stuff for all!