WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Eternals, playing exclusively in theaters now. 

There has been a lot of conversation and controversy concerning a scene in Eternals where Sersi and Ikaris make love on screen, something that has never happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though there was a time when some of the Marvel television shows were very comfortable in this realm, it has been an area that the films have noticeably avoided, which begs many questions surrounding its inclusion in this most recent entry and the hyper-connected web of stories it may influence considering its critical and commercial success.

Does the intimacy displayed in Eternals suggest a new openness to depicting sex as a part of the human, and therefore superhuman, experience or was the choice simply a one-off specific to the story goals of Earth's oldest protectors? There are solid reasons that support that instead of shying away from this most natural part of human existence, there are productive narrative elements to harness by taking a more hands-on approach to sexual intimacy on screen.

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Deleted Scene of intimate moment between Ikaris and Sersi from Eternals

The Eternals are not human, nor are they biologically accountable in the sense that they exist outside of what the MCU considers "life." The moment that Sersi finds out from Arishem that none of them were born, but were made for a precise purpose, her world shatters. Although they look like they're composed of organic matter, they are missing a crucial spark that naturally occurring sentient life possesses. Once that aspect of their origins is known, it tests all of the audience's assumptions about what the nature of the Eternals' relationship is to Earth and humanity. It is fair to ask how much of their affection for people is a component of programming and how much of it is emotionally authentic.

In that light, the sex scene between Sersi and Ikaris may serve as a retroactive consideration when confronting those questions. The film makes it clear that these characters care for one another deeply, as there are semi-romantic relationships in abundance amongst the Eternals. These include Sprite's unrequited love for Ikaris, Druig and Makkari's infinite slow burn and perhaps the purest example of unconditional love in a superhero film through the fealty demonstrated between Thena and Gilgamesh. Outside of their group, Phastos loves his human husband and his child with deep sincerity, Druig is clearly uncomfortable with allowing mankind to harm itself without intervening and Sersi is the first to speak to her love for the people of Earth.

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All of those examples, however, can be reasoned away as preordained neural subroutines to engender the team to one another and to foster optimum growth among the indigenous population by tethering the Eternals to easily manipulated emotional stakes. That argument is somewhat less compelling in the case of sex as a means of pleasure or token of intimacy for its own sake. Most organic species have an inherent primal urge to reproduce and all manner of environmental and behavioral adaptations support that one function, but in the case of sex between Eternals, that compulsion is not persuasive since they are incapable of producing offspring. Consequently, if it serves no biological purpose then it is more likely born out of a desire to touch and be touched, which would speak to a mature emotional core that lives outside of pre-packaged instincts or instructions.

After the movie steals the Eternals' fraternity with mankind, it in some ways re-establishes it by making it clear that despite their nature, they are beings capable of love and affection for their own sake and relinquishes the responsibility of second-guessing their motivations. If that is true, then this departure in the MCU's discomfort with displaying their heroes as explicitly sexual may not indicate any long-lasting policy decisions about films or shows moving forward, but may simply have served a purpose in Eternals that might not be necessary for other properties.

The Marvel shows that existed on ABC and especially Netflix were much more candid in their approach to sexual encounters even in the long-ago times when they were considered canonical. Steamy sex scenes between Daredevil and Elektra with bloody sparrings as foreplay, healthy and destructive powerful sex involving Luke Cage and Jessica Jones where the physicality is athletically competitive and the fumbling awkward sex between Iron Fist and Colleen Wing all served as markers for their respective personalities and drove the story. In some cases, they were one night stands that lingered on into unclear boundaries, and in other cases, they were the result of a season's worth of flirtation and innuendo that resulted in an attempt at monogamy and commitment, and for some blind Catholic attorneys, it served as a source of guilt.

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Daredevil and Elektra Netflix

However, the lines were always clear in that the MCU films might mention sex or directly imply it but the act itself always occurred off-screen. This could be for purely commercial reasons, ensuring the coveted PG or PG-13 rating so that theaters can accommodate as many paying consumers as possible. After all, American cinema has always considered rampant violence to be more palatable to general audiences than consensual sexual conduct. It could also be about the branding that the Disney company has worked so hard to cultivate over several generations as a studio, where expectations for content mean something very specific. Considering, though, that Chloé Zhao, the Oscar-winning director of Eternals, said in an interview that the scene existed on the page before she ever came on board with the project and that there was never any pushback from the studio about its inclusion, perhaps the executives making these decisions were waiting for the appropriate set of circumstances to supply a test case.

Embracing a delineated sexual identity can help communicate character traits and narrative engine without dialogue and clarify otherwise ambiguous relationships. One of Shang-Chi's weaknesses was that Katy and Shang-Chi's interactions were muddied by what seemed at times to be a deliberate attempt to obfuscate their connection. In contrast, Gilgamesh and Thena did not appear to be romantically involved but their love for one another was clearly communicated and juxtaposed against other on-screen examples. Both films' tones are very different, and one could argue that Katy and Shang-Chi's relationship was meant to be more cartoonish in comparison. Nevertheless, removing the healthy sexual expression of adult characters creates an obstacle in crafting relatable, powerful and grounded impacts in a universe of gods, synthezoids and superhumans accessing their humanity.

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