It’s true: ‘original series’ have officially become better than reality. We now have fully formed, four-dimensional characters who are relatable to our lives (am I Alex Voss? Am I? I am Alex Voss), even if their plot lines are wholly ridiculous. It's no wonder we never stop watching, even during sex. I mean, it’s a dead cert: invite someone over, whack on Netflix – or Amazon Prime, I’m not here to discriminate – bone a bit, eat some pad-thai, and click that space bar one more time.
But... what did we do before endless streaming and next episode autoplay? What were the films and shows we chose to guarantee a good bit of roasting the broomstick? What were the fail-safe go-to's for a bit of VHS & Vagina, a little DVD & Dick, a wee sesh of boxset & bottoming?
When wracking my little pink Smythson sex journal, desperately seeking a watching pattern for the era I now dub the "sloppy years", there was no one movie that stood out. I remember taking it deep during Annie, but only once. I was so terrified during Wolf Creek that I spent approximately an hour and a quarter gagging on my twice-my-age-love-interest so I didn’t have to gag at the onscreen violence. I once marathon watched Buffy Season Three while managing to fit 13 anal beads and two fingers in my bum before the principal turned into a giant monster (spoiler!), but I was alone for that one.
And so, turning to the world of social media, I decided to ask other people what TV shows and films they've used to guarantee the good stuff. And what did I not expect to hear? Endless anecdotes about how people hit play for a lay on the exact same film for years on end. Have some imagination people!
Ahead, I present you with a gallery of the pre-'Flix films people use to get some.
Charlotte, Cambridge, 27, James Bond: Casino Royale
I guess because it happened to be my first time, I just assumed Casino Royale was a part of everyone's sex life. I was 17 and I had gone to meet my ex-boyfriend's best friend to ask why I'd been dumped. He suggested we discuss it over wine at his place. He was 19 and this seemed an incredibly sophisticated way to discuss things, so naturally I agreed. Wine turned into Casino Royale (in his dad's bed), which soon turned into sex.
That pattern of wine, Casino Royale, sex, has since become a mainstay of my sex life. Do I like the James Bond franchise? Not really. Could I tell you what happens in the middle of the film? Probably not. But for whatever reason, when a guy suggests we watch some Bond I have a Pavlovian instinct that we must be getting down. Take for example the first time I had casual sex at university: it was with an anthropologist who loved David Foster Wallace and always gave off the faintest smell of Camembert. Our first date was on Valentine's Day and rather than awkwardly sit in a pub surrounded by people who were actually in love, he suggested we go to his room and watch a film. When he pushed aside his small mammal bone collection to reach for Casino Royale, I knew immediately what was up.
Chris, 26, London, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
When I was 14 I got my first girlfriend. Obviously I was terrified. Most of our interactions involved her watching me pretend to do homework but then one memorable night we watched Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and halfway through she grabbed my hand and shoved it into her knickers. We stared at the screen in silence as I cupped her crotch for the remaining hour of the film. You know how sometimes when tennis players serve an ace they ask for the same ball back, in the hope that this will increase their chances of serving another? Well, the next night I put Austin Powers on again. And this time, when I plucked up the courage to go for the old cup routine, she actually managed to guide my fingers to her clit. I sort of jostled it about a bit and twenty minutes later she came as, on screen, Fat Bastard was pooing a homing device onto a towel. On night three she did me. I came during the bit where Austin discovers he’d never really lost his mojo and I felt like God was great and maybe I was a heterosexual man after all. After a few months we’d reached fellatio, but when it came to the final hurdle, somehow I just didn’t fancy watching Austin Powers again. Instead, I put on Finding Nemo, nobody came, we broke up, and I came out as gay.
Maria, Chicago, 26, Brideshead Revisited , the boxset
Brideshead Revisited, the TV series. I used to see a guy who would bring the video boxset over (VCR, though DVDs definitely existed) and it was so boring it would always lead us to start making out. It was magical. When we broke up I downloaded the same series on my laptop and would use it to seduce other people… Priceless and a highly recommended aphrodisiac. The main thing about that man and Brideshead Revisited was that he could never acknowledge being in a relationship, and we could never really hold a conversation for very long, but we w ere very physically in sync... so I guess the boxset did the talking.
James, Thailand, 25, Robin Hood
Our first date had been entirely innocent. We'd switched off obscure Spanish horror in favour of The Princess and the Frog. On date two it seemed a logical extension to put on another Disney film, this time Robin Hood. We settled down to the reassuring country crooning of a cartoon rooster, and pretty soon we were canoodling to the saccharine sounds of Maid Marion and an inexplicable tortoise child. About half an hour in, I looked up, mid-blowjob, to see an animated hen rugby tackling militarised rhinoceroses. And as he ejaculated over my chest, Robin and his beloved kissed behind a moonlit waterfall. We repeated this routine countless times.
Miranda, Kent, 27, Woody Allen films
A few years ago I got chatting with a guy at a friend's birthday. We bonded over a mutual love of Woody Allen movies. We got on so well that we decided to have a Woody marathon the next night; even now as I'm saying it I can't believe I didn't know what that meant. After the second film – Sleeper, as I recall – I was about to put on a third when he kissed me. To be honest, I wasn't convinced, and said so, but, in a creeper move no doubt inspired by his hero, he put forward an actual case as to why I should sleep with him. (He was in a long distance open relationship, he was really good in bed... I'm not making this up). I thought about it and was like 'yes, fuck it, why not?' And the sex was incredible! He stayed ’til 7am and then I sent him on his way. In retrospect I would never let someone 'talk me into bed' again, but luckily this wasn't the worst way to learn.
Anna, 27, Plymouth, Carrie
It’s not a confession I’m particularly proud of, but it seems to be the sex story I wind up telling most at parties. Make of that what you will. So here goes: I seem to have had sex to the original Carrie movie four times, and the tacky remake once, too. The last time I watched the original, however, was certainly the most memorable. I was super-stoned one evening and heading over to my boyfriend’s to ‘hang’. I was on my period, but we’d dropped the L-bomb a few weeks before so I figured he’d still be DTF. However, having smoked Snoop Lion quantities of weed, I probably wasn’t that entertaining as company, so he put on a movie at random. It was Carrie. Sissy Spacek was getting a real earful from her mother and I was 9/10ths of the way through a family bag of cool original Doritos when he gave me 'that look'. We started going at it, and just as Carrie went full pigs-blood-realness behind him, he pulled out, and we both looked down at his junk, which looked appropriately Steven King. He on the other hand, looked appropriately concerned.
Lorna, London, 30, Requiem for a Dream
I didn’t realise this was a thing until recently – but Requiem For a Dream has accidentally become my sex movie. I have absolutely no idea how this has happened, but on three separate occasions – each a few years apart – this film has gone on and I have shagged my way through the entire middle section. Is it Jared? Is it Jen? Is it the heroin? Fuck knows, but I’ve always zoned back in at the gross bit where they’re in the car and he puts a needle in the big open sore in his arm. At that point I always feel confused and ashamed.
Chloe, 25, Sunderland, The Trilogy of the Ring
I’m a ‘Ringy’ 'til I die anyway, so any opportunity to whack out The Fellowship I’ll pretty much go for, but there was certainly a streak where the ring wasn’t the only one being fingered during that movie if you get me. Maybe it’s the adventure, maybe it’s the beards, or maybe I’m just down AF for furry feet, but God, I DON'T KNOW WHY but I’ve had sex to Lord of the Rings 10 times and counting. It could literally be a ‘push the Spag-bol’ away, bloated stomach situation and within 15 mins of wizardry and small-people defying great odds, I’m on it like a rat up a drainpipe.
Philip, 23, London, Confessions of a Shopaholic
I was basically a raging bottom, and he had just shown me his Henry Holland T-shirt collection and we chatted about how much we "looooooooooved" fashion. So we decided to watch a suitably #fashun film: Confessions of a Shopaholic. Him feigning shock at her throwing her clothes away was what started stuff off... Like when shit gets scary in a horror film and you cuddle, I got my first blow job thanks to Isla Fischer, and a few more thereafter too.
Betty, Glasgow, 26, Thirteen
The film I always got laid to as a teenager through to my early 20s is super dark: Thirteen. I used to put it on because it was one of the only DVDs in my family house that wasn't one of my Dad's boring old ones. But fucked up underage girls having adolescent breakdowns seems to have got guys going… it baffles and slightly creeps me out to this day the amount of times that film was the backdrop to an inept teenage fumble.
Laura, 26, London, Anything by Louis Theroux
Louis Theroux crops up a lot on dates and I haven’t figured out if all horny people are aware that Theroux is intrinsically irresistible (if you disagree you are lying to yourself) and can therefore be deployed at opportune moments on a date to successfully seduce the present company. Perhaps the proof lies in the fact that even though I nearly sabotaged a date with a beautiful girl by knocking an entire bottle of San Miguel across her living room floor, we still both fell prey to the sonorous, impartial querying of Louis, and had to pause the documentary ten minutes in.
Ellie, London, 26, Shane Meadows anything
I've never heard anyone describe Shane Meadows' films as an aphrodisiac, but ironically, his dingy scores, drug-riddled characters and manically depressing plot lines provided much of the scenic background to many of my University sexual frissons. What happens when you get a big group of men, in their young twenties, at university, is a large amount of academic peacocking. At the university I went to, cerebral bench-pressing was an integral part of the dating scene. "Do you like Kant?" would not be an unthinkable opening line for a Sussex Anthropology BA Hons student in his second year. "Do you like kitchen sink drama?" they'd ask.
I think I definitely had at least three sexual encounters in single bed dorms with Shane Meadows films being used as the pretentious hook by which the boys had lured me back to their dusty dens. I can certainly recall having doggy with Dead Man's Shoes playing in the background.
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