Gregg Araki Thinks Sex Is Coming Back to Screens Thanks to Films and Shows Like ‘Heated Rivalry’ — and Hopefully, ‘I Want Your Sex’

One of the most talked-about movies of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival has undoubtedly been “I Want Your Sex,” ’90s New Queer Cinema figurehead Gregg Araki’s first feature since 2014’s “White Bird in a Blizzard.” The zany throwback to teen sex comedies of yore stars Cooper Hoffman as the assistant to gallerist/artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), with whom he enters into a BDSM relationship in and out of the workplace. In his social orbit are a flamboyantly gay colleague played by Mason Gooding and a roommate questioning her own sexuality, played by Chase Sui Wonders.

Araki previously told IndieWire that his latest film is a rejoinder to the notion that Gen Z has become disinterested in sex; even young star Wonders told audiences at the post-screening Q&A that she typically doesn’t love seeing sex scenes onscreen.

Sitting down along with his cast in the IndieWire Studio, presented by Dropbox, Araki said, “My one-liner for this movie is that it’s a sex positive love letter for Gen Z. As a person and as an artist, sex and sexuality have been a huge part of my life and my evolution and my art and everything. It’s really like what’s made me the person I am today, and the idea that there’s a generation that’s not experiencing that was something that I really wanted to explore.”

When asked if shooting the graphic intimate scenes in “I Want Your Sex” changed her attitude about sex scenes overall, she joked, “Yes, now I’m addicted to pornography. It’s awesome for my life.”

Later, when asked why sex has been pushed so far off-screen and how artists should be rising to the challenge of representation, Araki said, “We’re living in obviously very scary and very conservative and retrogressive times, so I feel like it’s great that the pendulum’s kind of swinging the other way because there was that period where sex on screen was very kind of, ‘Oh no one wants to see that.’ Or it’s like, it was very kind of being repressed and oppressed. And honestly for me, things that Erica Tracy says in the movie are actually things that I’ve said in interviews before… I make indie movies, and I have more freedom than if you’re making a Marvel movie. So that’s why I don’t make Marvel movies. So I love the ability to just continue exploring these themes. And I do think the pendulum’s swinging the other way because I think people are tired of, I dunno, the same old thing.”

He continued, “There has been a resurgence of sex onscreen, ‘Babygirl,’ ‘Heated Rivalry,’ all this stuff that’s happening right now. So, thank god….There’s so much pornography now. You can see any kind of kink you have [on your phone]. It’s not about titillation. It’s not about voyeurism. It’s how sex is used to tell a story and illuminate this relationship between characters. It’s not about the sex. If you just want to be titillated, why bother with a movie, an R-rated movie?”

Watch the full conversation in the video above.

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