Are you a fan of shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal? There are plenty of reasons to watch the series created by television icon Shonda Rimes, including awesome characters and over-the-top stories. However, what most audiences tune in for is the last thing they’d admit to: all the fun, freaky sex!
Rimes’ shows have always toed the boundaries of what can and cannot be shown on network television. Accordingly, the shows have broadened the sexual horizons of its audiences, introducing plenty of vanilla fans to some downright kinky bedroom shenanigans.
Wondering just how kinky these shows got? Or maybe you’re a fan and want to go down a memory lane of really freaky television? Either way, we’ve got you covered…just keep reading to discover a steamy timeline of sex scenes in Shonda Rimes’ TV shows!
Grey’s Anatomy starts us off right
Grey’s Anatomy took the world by storm with its first episode. And the very first scene certainly got our attention in the naughtiest possible way. This 2005 episode kicked off with Meredith and Derek waking up after having had passionate, one-night stand sex (on the floor, no less).
This steamy scene certainly set the tone for what was to come, but Season 1 was relatively tame, often cutting away to something else right before characters got busy. Fortunately for frisky viewers everywhere, it didn’t take long for the onscreen action to get downright explicit in subsequent seasons.
And, to be clear, we were SO here for it!
Things heat up at the hospital
Starting with Season 2, Grey’s Anatomy got more sexually adventurous. Network limitations still curtailed how much outright sex we got to see onscreen. However, the series got away with showing us orgasmic bliss on the face of the doctors. And in 2006, that was a fairly big deal!
Later seasons got even more naughty by adding some dirty talk into the mix. For example, Season 4 features Mark and Callie getting it on while actively fantasizing about having a threesome. Considering how taboo threesomes are to most couples and how dirty talk is so taboo to most networks, this scene helped establish Grey’s Anatomy as a particularly transgressive TV show.
Scandal takes things to the next level
From those spicy scenes in Grey’s Anatomy, we thought we had seen just about everything. However, Shonda Rimes’ show Scandal raised the sexual bar to a whole new level when it premiered in 2012. Most of the frisky freakiness came courtesy of President Fitzgerald Grant and Olivia Pope, two characters who practically can’t share a scene together without getting it on. And while these actors are achingly hot, their coupling was sometimes disturbing for unexpected reasons.
For example, Season 2 featured a scene where these two had angry sex in a closet before the president told Olivia that while she turned him on, he didn’t really love her. It’s a brutal scene to watch, but we can’t help but laugh at the idea that countless viewers learned about the concept of hatef****ing thanks to this wild scene!
From dirty sex to dirty talking
Not to be outdone by Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal also had some of its own dirty talking that really got us hot under the collar. One of the best examples of this was in the Season 4 premiere where Jake took his and Olivia’s naughtiness to new heights with some dialogue straight out of a spicy novel. “I’m the one you like to ride. I’m the one who makes you moan,” he said. “I’m the one who reaches you in places he can’t begin to touch.”
For real-life kinksters, seeing someone get turned on by the idea that he has somehow claimed a woman from another man is not all that special. But it was wild to hear such dirty talk from a network TV show, even one that came to us courtesy of Shonda Rimes. Honestly, we can only hope all the onscreen dirty dialogue has inspired fans to add a bit of naughty talk to their own love lives.
A show with plenty of ‘oral’ presentations
Some might laugh at the idea that a TV show could change how society looks at sex. However, the truth is that no ideas are “normal”…instead, things are “normalized” by our culture, and television plays a huge role in this. Shonda Rimes, for example, helped to normalize same-sex relationships and marriage with some of the relationships on Grey’s Anatomy. As for Scandal, it helped normalize something else entirely: oral sex.
To our delight, this went both ways, so while we do see the First Lady get busted for going down on Andrew, we also see that the President can’t keep his mouth off a lover’s anatomy whenever they have sex. Normalizing oral pleasure for men and women alike? You go, Shonda!
How To Get Away With Murder pushes even more sexual boundaries
When Shonda Rimes’ latest show How To Get Away With Murder was announced, we wondered if it could possibly be as sexy as her other shows. Fortunately, it didn’t disappoint: in this show, we’ve seen the married Annalise receiving oral sex from a cop and Connor describing how a lover “did this thing to my ass that made my eyes water.”
What takes the cake is probably two characters talking about someone receiving an “Eiffel Tower.” If you’re not familiar with this sexual slang, the term refers to someone being penetrated from the back while going down on someone in front of her. When the two lovers on either side high-five each other, it temporarily transforms their bodies into a dead ringer for the Eiffel Tower.
Over a decade ago, the reference to this sexual act made How To Get Away With Murder seem like it had gone too far. Now that musical icon Sabrina Carpenter simulates the Eiffel Tower on stage, though, it’s fair to say that Shonda Rimes was just ahead of the curve.