@armandsbitchboy and I were discussing the lack of sex between the main "ships" this season, and how we both actually prefer non sexual intimacy - for me this was a huge draw of the books when I was first reading them as a teenager, as well as the way the characters can have sex without actually having it, via biting and blood drinking.
This made me start thinking about the way sex is shown in TVL as opposed to series 1 and 2.
For those first two seasons sex is generally shown on screen as a pleasant experience for all concerned. Unpleasant sexual encounters such as Claudia's repeated assaults by Bruce take place offscreen.
In TVL this dynamic is reversed. Every sexual encounter we are shown is rape (Magnus), abusive (Gabriella) or indifferent (the constant groupie sex that Lestat has). The only true intimate encounter we see, between Nicky and Lestat, has a cut away before anything really happens.
I would surmise that this is deliberate and speaks to the attitude of the respective narrators towards sexual intimacy. For Louis sex is associated with love, hence why he's hurt when Lestat wants other sexual partners. Even when he does have his own encounter with someone else immediately following this conversation, it's with someone he loved.
For Lestat sex is either traumatic, or it is utilised like a drug to numb his feelings of emptiness and loneliness, as he tells us in the song of the same name. BTW, it is not uncommon at all for people with a traumatic sexual history to become hypersexual as a coping mechanism, so these two things are not incongruent.
This leads me to the idea that perhaps for Lestat non-sexual intimacy with partners he actually loves may be more important to him. One of the reasons episode 6 was by far and away my favourite episode this season was because of how closely Lestat and Louis' relationship mirrored the dynamic of the books, and how intimate they were onscreen without even a kiss.
Another point I'd like to make regarding this: I've seen many in the fandom bemoaning the lack of sex scenes between intimate partners this season (Devils Minion, Lestat and Louis, Lestat and Nicky etc).
I would say that due to the way all the other sexual encounters are shown (violent, abusive or meaningless) it would be extremely difficult to frame an intimate sexual encounter as tender and emotional. Can you imagine showing Lestat and Nicky together in the same episode Lestat is raped by Magnus? Or Lestat and Louis getting back together in this way in the same episode that Gabriella's incestuous abuse is exposed? It would leave a really foul taste to the whole thing, and during episode 6 in particular I was really hoping nothing physical happened between Lestat and Louis for precisely that reason.
The performance of Brutal Love, the (unscripted!) hug in the street, their interaction at the bar, the conversation on the bench, did more to establish closeness than any "love scene" could have.
origamiaround
titsay
ellievsbear
germansingergirl
