Sex! Sex! Sex!
Why we love to watch.
      by Rachel Hyland

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even 24th-century androids with no human emotions do it... and I defy you to get that tune out of your head by the end of this article.

To what am I alluding here, you wonder? What on God's green Earth could I possibly be referring to in such an oblique manner? It couldn't be anything as crass and commercial as... sex could it?

Damn bee.

Hell, yes!

Sex! Sex, people. That's what it's all about. Even in genre. Even in television shows about conspiracy, evil, the past and the future -- not to mention that whole political allegory thing that they think is so clever -- the main points of interest to most of us are who is doing whom, or soon will be. Whether it's the unresolved sexual tension of The X-Files' Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson), or the renewed passion of Now and Again's Michael (Eric Close) and Lisa (Margaret Colin), all of our favourite genre shows inevitably delve somewhere into Red Shoe Diaries territory (speaking of Mulder), and we just love it.

Come on, be honest. Sure, it's not the only reason we watch. There's the... the... well, I'll think of it in a minute. And, before you non-shippers and hard-core technicians start to get all cranky with me here, yes, I am joking. Of course there are other reasons we watch. Smart storylines, amusing dialogue, great clothes, attractive people in great clothes, attractive people in great clothes kissing...

What was my point again?

The fact is, most of us just adore it when characters, be they ever so enlightened, serious or dedicated, come apart at the seams as a result of some good, long, hard... character development. We await anxiously each longing gaze, each tender glance, each enchanted smile, and we smile right along with them when, at last, the creators get it all right. When the girl finally gets the guy, or the girl -- or the alien -- and, as we cut to a commercial, we just know that for one brief instant, our heroes are actually happy.

Not that it ever lasts long.

No, because as much as we love seeing our beloved world-savers and ass-kickers going in for some well-needed stress relief, we don't seem to like them getting it too easily. Apparently what the people want is angst, and lots of it -- which is clearly impossible if those relied upon to do the angsting are actually getting any. As Yoda might have said, had he happened to think of it: suffering leads to story arcs. Story arcs lead to ratings points. Ratings points lead to future episodes. Future episodes lead to more suffering...

"Will you still have a soul in the morning?"

And no one knows the best application of this complicated formula better than one Mr. Joss Whedon. It really almost needs not be stated -- except that I enjoy the obvious and wish to subject you all to same -- but Whedon, creator of Buffy and Angel and all around asset to the species, seems to have issues. Sexual issues. Big ones.

It has often been observed that sex in the Buffy-verse always leads to badness, and that is none the less true for having been plagiarized from a million different sources. Let us examine the evidence: Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Angel (David Boreanaz) had sex, and she made him so happy that he turned horribly evil the morning after. Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Faith (Eliza Dushku) had sex, and she later tried to kill him. Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Oz (Seth Green) had sex, and he got wolfy with some freak-child Star Search reject before leaving poor Willow all broken-hearted and un-Willow-y. And from the home office in Ickville, California, must I mention that Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) and Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) actually had sex in public one time. In fact, twice. If that's not badness right there, then I don't know what is. I mean, Joyce?!

Ahem. There's more.

Buffy, new in college and recently abandoned by her commitment-shy true love, had sex with pretty-boy Parker, and while he didn't turn out to be a demon, he did turn out to be a... guy. Bastard. Xander, new in his basement, got man-handled by ex-demon Anya and had to listen to her discuss their plentiful orgasms in front of his friends. Spike (James Marsters) had sex with Harmony and had to... well, have sex with Harmony. And I don't even want to go into what happened over on Angel, except to say that if Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), after her one-night stand with a demon-worshipping proxy, didn't end up with some hellish stretchmarks, I shall be very much surprised.

So, in Buffy, sex, like beer, is bad. Which is what makes it so gosh-darned good. But what about in some other genre shows? Surely someone out there is happily getting a happy. Right?

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