This article is published in The Australian and is republished with permission.
“Scripts like Pillion don’t come around very often,” says Alexander Skarsgard. He’s not wrong. Gone are the days of the paisley-clad gay best friends limited to providing the laughs in romantic comedies. In their place are new heart-throbs taking the lead, as are their relationships: sense-igniting yearning, hulking when required, and unapologetic about their sexuality.
The Swedish actor, known for his roles in True Blood, Succession and Big Little Lies, and the eldest son of the Skarsgard acting dynasty (his father is Stellan), is playing a leather-clad biker in the independent British film about a romance between two men that is unconventional (to put it mildly).
“I went in blind, sat down to read this sub-dom story with no expectations really, but was surprised by how sweet and tender it was – how invested I felt in this relationship,” Skarsgard says via Zoom from Los Angeles.
It is a unique love story teasingly billed as the “most romantic film ever made” but taps into something broader shifting in the entertainment industry: gay love stories are becoming gold standards of desire. And surprisingly, it is women who can’t get enough.
Pillion follows the global cultural phenomenon that is Heated Rivalry, a low-budget Canadian television series about two gay hockey players, that exploded in popularity since it was released without much fanfare in November. Bought by HBO and adapted from queer romance books written by Rachel Reid, it amassed 324 million streaming minutes in its finale week – becoming the network’s most-watched acquired series since their launch.
Lead actors Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, who were waiting tables not long ago, became so popular around the world, they presented an award at the Golden Globes and were torch bearers in the lead-up to Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. Meanwhile, 2025’s world’s sexiest man Johnathan Bailey – muscular physique on display and pouring a cup of tea in his People Magazine cover shoot – is openly gay.
So why are heterosexual women so interested in watching stories about gay love and sex on screen?What does that say about the state of relationships between men and women?
It comes amid what writer Asa Seresin terms “heteropessimism” or what others dub “heterofatalism”: a growing disappointment and emotional exhaustion about the inequality in dating and marriages. Gen Z is also purported to be in a sex recession, while the Institute for Family Studies in the US found weekly sexual activity for adults aged 18 to 64 dropped from 55 per cent in 1990 to 37 per cent in 2024. Lockdowns, dating apps, life staring at our phones, isolation – none of it has helped.
Zena Burgess, chief executive of the Australian Psychological Society, says recent peer-reviewed research papers show an increase in women’s interest in films, television and books that do not feature heterosexual relationships and instead focus on gay male narratives. Such a shift is motivated by a “push back” against traditional gendered roles.
“There is a heightened perception of threat from heterosexual men, derived from greater identification and reporting of interpersonal and systemic misogyny and ‘manosphere’ rhetoric, including backlash in media towards important discussions of consent,” Dr Burgess says.
“The absence of the heterosexual male gaze [in these TV shows and films] may reduce objectification and performance pressure, allowing attention to shift toward desire and relational issues with less activating of shame or anger. They feel safer because they remove gendered power inequities, enabling observation of intimacy without personal threat or obligation.
“Emotional distance lowers self-comparison, supporting empathetic engagement and imaginative projection without activating personal identity or ego threat.”
Jessica Brown, a psychosexual therapist at The Discovery Space, says that in recent years she has observed a growing “difficulty around vulnerability” among women.
“A lot of women tolerate discomfort,” she explains, “or struggle with sexual self-esteem and not feeling confident enough to communicate those wants.”
Brown suggests that this quiet distress fosters isolation, in which fantasy – like queer romance – affords a symbolic, “emotional refuge” for female viewers, one “removed from the gendered power dynamic”.
“We’re witnessing masculinity without the domination of women – physical strength alongside an emotional arc that centres softness and intimate affection.”
The writer and director of Pillion, Harry Lighton, also speaking from LA, says he simply has “no answer” to why women are drawn to the narratives, including his movie.
“It definitely is something I think about,” he muses, “maybe it’s hotter sometimes to imagine two people you fancy f..king than just one.”
Lighton adapted the novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones for the screen and Pillion centres on a relationship fostered in the subculture of gay bikers – “leather daddies” for those unfamiliar. It’s an independent film, shot about £814,000 ($1.5m) that could assume cult classic status. In fact, it has scored a Gotham for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best British Independent Film at the British Film Institute Awards, where co-leads Skarsgard and Harry Melling (of the Harry Potter series’ Dudley Dursley fame) also earned nods for their performances. Currently, it’s pending three BAFTA nominations: Outstanding British Film, Best Adapted Screenplay and Outstanding Debut for Lighton.
The story centres around Colin (Melling), a listless man with a passion for a cappella singing, employed in the universally hated role of a parking ticket officer. His parents, Pete and Peggy, are loving, but so bored with him that they’re arranging dates on his behalf.
We meet him with curly locks tucked beneath a boater hat, singing to a near-empty pub, when a sultry stare introduces us to Ray (Skarsgard). Tall, blonde, mysterious – wearing a body-hugging white leather biking suit. Their love affair begins with sex, flourishes in the bootlicking world of bondage, and evolves from there in an honest way that could be the envy of many relationships. “I’m happy,” says Colin at one point. “But I could be happier.”
Ray presents with domineering sexual confidence and brooding, ice-chip glances, a stereotype that’s continually subverted by his benevolence, finely attuned to his partner’s rhythms and needs. Colin, by contrast, is drawn toward the colour and community that rupture his mundane world, and each act of subservience – shaving his head, sporting a necklace with a lock only Ray has the key to – ultimately fuels his own self-actualisation. Their relationship unfolds as a romantic dance in which power is fluid, negotiated, and shared, a space where neither party remains trapped in an ingrained imbalance for long.
Lighton’s primary goal for Pillion was to “appeal to the community it’s representing”, a task he prepared for by spending time with members of the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club, many of whom served as advisers and appeared as extras in the production. “But (I also wanted the film to be) hard for my mum to resist, even though she might be confronted by some of the scenes,” he adds. “That’s how I arrived at the tone – having explicit scenes set alongside lighthearted, warm, funny, more typically romantic/comedic scenes,” he explains. “So your average 60-year-old woman who’s not into BDSM wouldn’t run out of the cinema because there’d be enough in there for her to delight in.”
Such a shift has been coming for decades, senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, Natalie Krikowa, says. Documented origins of women engaging with male single-sex relationships started in the 60s, with the evolution of “slash fiction” taking common shows like Star Trek and rewriting them into homoerotic alternatives. Ditto “Yaoi” also known as and Boys Love (BL) narratives, which emerged in 80s-Japan, exploring male erotica through the female gaze. Dr Brown says “access to these stories” has fundamentally changed too. “There’s been a huge shift where permission has opened for broader audiences to enjoy it.”
It’s a “social pendulum effect”, in which “fatigue around heterosexual dating dynamics and heightened awareness of the imbalances” resulted in media depicting alternatives that were both entertaining and a “regulation space” of sorts.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Lighton says. He too researched the matter, “intrigued by the incredible popularity”, particularly in Japan. “I wondered why is it that women are gravitating towards those narratives rather than a straight one?”
In Pillion, although the dynamic between Colin and Ray initially appears to align along dominant and submissive lines, the film reveals something more elastic. Devoid of the Fifty Shades of Grey whips and red rooms, instead we witness instructions and (at times) gentleness. Even amid themes that might otherwise feel confrontational, the love remains propulsive, encapsulated in the film’s recurring phrase “an aptitude for devotion”. This culminates in moments that are both absurd and profound – a wrestling match in open-back singlets, Colin suspended mid-air, shrieking with abandon, hoisted up by Ray’s feet. Sex is present, but so is vulnerability. In its inversion of traditional masculinity, Pillion becomes both a critique and an ideal: strength fused with sensitivity.
“It was so refreshing to read a script that was skirting all those tropes and felt so authentic on every page,” Skarsgard says, explaining his enthusiasm for the project. He says the film’s avoidance of “contrived” characterisations caught his eye, and it’s apt in a career spanning four decades, gravitating towards figures who are not what they seem. The conniving but charismatic Lukas Matsson in Succession, the hulking but gentle Tarzan in the titular jungle classic, to name a couple.
“I’ve never been drawn to the kind of straight up protagonist, action hero, leading men type roles,” he says. “It’s always more fun when you have a character that when you first meet him, you think, ‘all right, I’ve seen this before’, but then it surprises the audience by throwing in a different flavour.”
Same-sex partnerships appeared on screen as early as 1895 (The Dickson Experimental Sound Film), yet unlike popular films that often lean toward restraint or tragedy, such as Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, or Luca Guadagnino’s aching Call Me By Your Name, Pillion travels in a new lane. Its appeal lies not only in the main plot, exploring the nuances of falling in love but the elements of the story that are framed through Colin’s parents Pete and Peggy. Played perfectly by Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp, the doting duo offer both comic relief and dramatic tension.
While they support their son unequivocally – an awkward exchange of a father embracing Ray’s motorcycle love here, a mum’s inquisition into whether they “kissed” there – they recognise the uncomfortable shifts that happen when things appear to veer off course.
“I wanted to start from a point of unrelenting acceptance, so much so that it’s kind of suffocating, where the mum’s kicking him towards the shag,” Lighton laughs.
After Colin and Ray’s first encounter, Sharp’s terminally ill, eternally jovial Peggy, entranced by the burgeoning love affair, asks her son “did you get yourself a boyfriend?” She delights in the excitement, swoons at the statuesque Ray, then begins to distrust a man whose allure primarily relies on knowing very little about him.
In one scene, over a family lunch, Peggy voices the issue that is no doubt on the minds of the audience: “You don’t know if he’s a hairdresser or a serial killer!,” and, “our son is going out with a good-looking CREEP!”
Lighton says: “When that shag isn’t palatable to her, she withdraws that acceptance. I thought that was a kind of more interesting trajectory.”
Development is the key to Pillion’s broad appeal – cinematographer Nick Morris’ framing charts the characters’ intricate growth, capturing facial expressions that range from unfiltered desire to familiar frustration. The shades of love are visible and the exploration of consent is subtle but powerful.
Lighton and Skarsgard acknowledge that at face value a BDSM relationship may appear challenging to general audiences, but the preparation that went into Pillion brings it safely to the forefront. In the first instance, Colin and Ray connect in a dark alley. Skarsgard says it “could easily feel a bit too dangerous, or scary”.
“We felt this scene should be exhilarating, but it’s important to leave it the way it ends now with a close-up of Colin’s face smiling,” he explains, adding “we want the audience to be with Colin in that moment and not feel ‘get the hell out’.”
Skarsgard has played abusive characters before, most notably in his award-winning performance as Perry Wright, the cruel counterpart to Nicole Kidman’s Celeste in Big Little Lies. He describes “quite a tricky scene” in Pillion that was carefully choreographed, alongside Lighton and intimacy co-ordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt.
“It was important to have a moment with Colin – even though they don’t have a written contract – where he verbalises consent,” Skarsgard explains. “(We’d discuss if) it feels a bit too forceful – how do we make it more playful? It’s still very clearly a sub-dom relationship, but it’s important that it feels consensual and that Colin is excited about this.”
It’s another aspect that’s drawing in female viewers. Dr Krikowa says ultimately, it boils down to female viewers feeling “safe” and “risk-free” in engaging with sexualised narratives. “Stories traditionally have always held women in a very submissive role, but often without consent. Now we don’t want to see the exploitation of power in that way – we want to see consent played out in a way where it can be celebrated and enjoyed,” she explains.
“It’s less loaded, less personally threatening,” Brown adds, “and just becomes the experience of romance and longing.”
For Lighton, the ideal audience for Pillion is one that brings a “sense of liveliness” – crowds who cry and laugh in equal measure. “That’s the north star for me,” he says.
For Skarsgard, it’s the kind of role he would have leapt at a decade ago, had it existed. “It’s always fun to play with the stereotype of masculinity, or a cliched version of the alpha male,” he smiles. As cinema evolves and audiences broaden, the old saying shifts: if it takes a confident man to wear pink, perhaps it takes a bold one to wear leather.
Pillion is in cinemas from February 19.