House Of The Dragon's X-Rated Sex Scene Is Such A Big Deal It's A Little Hard To Swallow
Contains spoilers for "House of the Dragon" Season 2 Episode 3
There's a very salacious moment in the most recent episode of "House of the Dragon" — so is the scene in question crossing any major lines where the "Game of Thrones" universe is concerned?
Okay, so what even happens? In the episode, King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) brings a few Team Green soldiers to a brothel after they all enjoy a night of drinking together, at which point Aegon, who is terrible, starts ripping open curtains to expose people engaged in pretty explicit sex acts. In the very first room, Aegon — and the audience — get a real eyeful as a woman performs oral sex on a man (presumably a patron of the brothel), only for Aegon to just move on and yank some more curtains.
Nothing else Aegon finds, though, is quite as eye-popping as that first scenario. While it's definitely a prosthetic penis in the scene, it's still jarring — only because this is a boundary that "Game of Thrones" hasn't crossed quite yet. Sure, shows set in Westeros never, ever shy away from showing naked women (in fact, it's kind of strange to make it through an entire episode of "House of the Dragon" or "Game of Thrones" without getting an eyeful of either a main character or a background actor), but it doesn't usually show sex quite so explicitly. It shouldn't be that surprising, though; the sex scenes on "Game of Thrones" were so gratuitious that they spawned their own term.
Game of Thrones was so sexually explicit that it created a new term: sexposition
To be absolutely fair, "Game of Thrones" pretty much immediately made a name for itself as one of the most explicit shows on television — to the point where critic Myles McNutt zeroed in on one scene in the show's ninth-ever episode, the Season 1 standout "You Win or You Die." During the scene, Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish talks at length about his childhood and the fact that his unrequited love Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) never took him seriously. The thing is, Littlefinger owns a brothel, so for the entire duration of his monologue, two sex workers are practicing on each other.
As McNutt wrote, Littlefinger's reveal about his yearning for Catelyn does "flesh" out his character (pun very much intended), but he couldn't really take the whole thing seriously: "But the choice to stage it while Ros and another prostitute loudly simulate sex just becomes too much to handle. I get that his story connects with their actions, and I like the idea that Littlefinger is using some of his own strategies for tricking/deceiving men like Ned in his advice, but any real symbolism is lost amidst the moaning." Thusly, the term "sexposition" was born, and it was all thanks to "Game of Thrones." From that point on, it definitely seemed like the show just leaned into its newfound reputation, frequently staging scenes where people are either mid-act or completely nude while they have a conversation of some sort ... but it all started with Petyr and two of his loyal employees.
House of the Dragon hasn't been shy in terms of sexual content — but this scene was certainly explicit
"House of the Dragon" is only in its second season, but so far, it definitely hasn't shied away from showing nudity and sex. In fact, in the very same scene where Aegon keeps invading upon people's privacy, he finds his brother Aemond in the arms of the proprietor Sylvi (Michelle Bonnard) and mercilessly taunts him, only for Aemond to walk away from the entire group ... all while he's completely nude.
Even earlier in the series, there was plenty of sex and nudity to be found amongst the graphic violence (another hallmark of shows set in the Seven Kingdoms). In Season 1, a young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) is desperate to break free of her gilded cage and convinces her troublemaking uncle Daemon (Matt Smith) to bring her to a brothel late one night. Rhaenyra is shocked and intrigued by what she sees around her — and it's very graphic — to the point where she puts the moves on her own uncle. (They get married later on in the season, for what it's worth.) In Season 2, Aegon's mother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) is carrying on a secret arrangement with Ser Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel), and they're shown getting down and dirty pretty often ... though Cooke did say the show cut a scene that she described as "animalistic."
Still, "House of the Dragon" is clearly following in its predecessor's very graphic footsteps ... and apparently, going even further. The "Game of Thrones" prequel and spin-off airs on Sundays at 9 P.M. EST on HBO and Max.