Do you think The Boys would have better a better series overall, if they treated sex-related scenes just like any other show does?
Imagine a world where The Boys series exists and is exactly the same, but there is one key difference. All of the sex related scenes in the series, from Season 1-5, are like typical sex scenes scenes you would expect a normal show. No extreme or shocking things.
No scene of Popclaw killing her landlord by crushing his head, instead it's just a typical sex scene.
No scene of Homelander killing someone whilst having sex with Stormfront, instead it's just a typical sex scene.
No scene of Termite crawling inside of someone and then blowing up, it's just a typical sex scene.
The Herogasm house is just like a typical strip club or brothel, not a weird superpowered sex house.
Tek Knight's cave is just a typical bedroom, not a weird superhero kink place.
Overall, imagine the show treats sex scenes just how any other popular 18+ rated TV show would treat them (e.g. Breaking Bad, Peaky Blinders, The Sopranos, etc.), they exist but they aren't made to be shocking or completely bizarre. What difference does this make to the show overall?
I think overall the tone of the show would become more serious, it would come across less like an edgy shocking satire of superheroes and more like a mature superhero show, where some the superheroes are very corrupt.
Some people wouldn't like this change though, since The Boys comics were extremely edgy and they think the show should push boundaries in the same way. But I don't see what these extreme sex-related scenes even add to the show in terms of its quality to be honest.
Strangely enough though, I don't mind the scenes in The Boys that are shocking in a purely violent way, such as Homelander lasering the crowd, Stormfront getting burnt to a crisp, Neuman blowing up Congressmen's heads, Webweaver getting torn into two pieces etc. But the "shocking" sex-related scenes just became cringey past a certain point. I think it's because the violent scenes add a sense of realism and tension to the show (you start to worry about how much damage superheroes could actually cause if they were real), but the sex-related scenes don't do this at all.
Posted Jul 7, 2026, 10:00 PM UTC