How Do Critics Respond To On-Screen Gay Kissing Scenes?

I get unreasonably excited when music and queer moments line up perfectly on screen — yes, there absolutely are soundtracks for scenes that include gay kissing. Think of how a single guitar arpeggio or a tiny piano motif can turn an already tender moment into something that lingers. Films like 'Call Me by Your Name' are an obvious example: Sufjan Stevens’ songs float through the film and become inseparable from its intimacy. 'Brokeback Mountain' uses Gustavo Santaolalla’s sparse guitar work to underline affection and longing without ever being showy. Beyond features, a lot of modern TV and anime treat these beats with care: shows like 'Heartstopper' and anime such as 'Given' (where music is central to the story) pair licensed tracks or original cues with their romantic beats. Sometimes the exact song is on the official soundtrack, and sometimes it isn’t — licensing quirks happen. If you want to find these tracks, I usually start with Tunefind or WhatSong, check the film/series OST, and failproof it with Shazam while watching. Fan-made playlists on Spotify or YouTube compilations are gems too. It’s lovely when music helps a kiss feel like its own tiny world, and hunting down that exact song becomes half the fun.

Whenever I flip through a stack of BL manga on a slow Sunday, I keep a little mental list of volumes that actually show the leads kissing — the kind of honest, heart-on-sleeve moments that make me pause and smile. If you want direct, memorable kisses between main couples, start with 'Doukyuusei' (the original single-volume story) — it’s gentle, romantic, and the kiss is a core moment. 'Seven Days' (also collected as a single volume) gives that shy-first-kiss vibe between its two leads. 'Given' has some very tender scenes across the early volumes (around volumes 2–3 are where things get physically affectionate between the main pair). For a more overt romance, 'Hitorijime My Hero' shows affectionate kisses early in the series, and 'Love Stage!!' has kiss scenes sprinkled through the first few volumes. If you like more explicit content, check out works like 'Ten Count' and 'Koisuru Boukun' — they portray kisses as part of a wider, more mature relationship dynamic. I usually flag these books for friends depending on whether they want sweet or steamy, and I love recommending a calmer read first and saving the heavier stuff for later.

I've been thinking about this a lot while rewatching favorites late at night — mainstream cinema has more gay kissing scenes than people sometimes realize, and they run from tender to awkward to explicitly emotional. Big, obvious ones are 'Brokeback Mountain' (the film's central intimacy is built around its kisses), 'Call Me by Your Name' (that summer romance includes a number of very intimate moments), and 'Moonlight' (several key scenes hinge on closeness and a quiet, consequential kiss). On the lesbian/queer-women side there's 'Carol', 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire', and 'Blue Is the Warmest Colour', which are all built around romantic and sexual intimacy. I also think of lighter or more mainstream-aimed films: 'Love, Simon' gives a joyful, wholesome teen kiss that meant a lot to my slightly younger friends, while 'The Kids Are All Right' normalizes a same-sex household with affectionate moments. Other titles that pop up across conversations are 'But I'm a Cheerleader', 'Kissing Jessica Stein', 'Imagine Me & You', 'Bound', and internationally-known ones like 'The Handmaiden' and 'The Danish Girl'. If you want something contemporary and quieter, try 'Call Me by Your Name' and 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire'. If you're after something upbeat, 'Love, Simon' still feels like a warm introduction for many people I know.

I get excited every time someone asks this because I love hunting down queer love scenes. If you want books with gay kissing and romance, start where I do: filter sites by 'gay romance', 'm/m', or 'queer romance' tags. Big retailers like Amazon and Kobo let you search those tags, and Goodreads has dozens of lists and community-created shelves that point straight to kissing-heavy, swoony reads. I personally binge a few authors when I'm craving a kiss scene—try 'Red, White & Royal Blue', 'Boyfriend Material', or YA picks like 'Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe' and 'Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda' for tender first-kiss moments. If you prefer free or fan-driven work, Archive of Our Own is my go-to; use the tags (and the relationship/kink tags) to narrow down to explicit romantic moments. Wattpad has lots of original gay romance, and Tumblr/BookTok often highlight particular scenes in clips or quotes. Libraries and apps like Libby/OverDrive and Hoopla are surprisingly good too—search their LGBTQ+ or 'romance' sections and you’ll find both indie and mainstream titles. For curated options, check publishers like Dreamspinner Press, Riptide, and indie bookstores that specialize in queer lit. And a tiny habit that helps me: read a couple of reader reviews and search for 'first kiss' or 'kissing' in reviews to know you’re getting the moments you want. Happy reading — I’m always on the lookout for more recs if you want them!

I've had so many late-night TV arguments about representation that this question feels personal. Back when I was still figuring out how to talk about sexuality without stumbling, shows like 'Ellen' shook things up — the coming-out storyline in the mid-'90s and the on-screen kiss were huge cultural moments and drew massive backlash from conservative viewers and advertisers. It was messy, but it also opened doors for other stories. Around the same era, 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' threw its own grenade with a same-sex kiss that some fans praised for being bold and others criticized or confused by the framing. Fast-forward and you get shows like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' where Willow and Tara's relationship felt revolutionary to younger fans, and 'Glee' which leaned into same-sex relationships and faced blowback from parents and pundits. More recently, 'The 100' had a kiss and a character arc that sparked furious debate over representation and the so-called "bury your gays" trope. If you want specific scenes, those series are good places to start. They each handled on-screen queer affection differently, and the controversies around them tell you as much about the times they aired as they do about the shows themselves — I still love rewatching these moments and noticing which parts still land and which feel dated.

When I browse fanfic late at night I get picky about tags because I hate getting surprised by explicit stuff I didn't want to read. The clearest flags for explicit gay kissing are straightforward: 'M/M', 'male/male', 'slash', 'boyxboy', 'gay', 'gay kiss' or even '#gaykiss' on social platforms. Those tell me the pairing is male/male, and when they're paired with sexual-content tags it's a strong signal. Beyond pairing tags, the kiss itself is often signposted with words like 'kissing', 'making out', 'necking', or 'heavy petting'. If an author uses 'lemon', 'smut', 'explicit', 'NC-17', 'Mature', or 'graphic sexual content', I treat the fic as explicitly sexual — lemons are practically shorthand for erotica on many fan sites. Additions like 'tongue', 'mouth', or 'oral' obviously point to more graphic scenes. I also check the summary and the notes at the top of the fic; many writers kindly list 'contains kissing/smut' or warn with 'M/M, smut'. If you want to avoid explicit kisses, search with filters: pick teen or general ratings when possible, avoid 'lemon'/'smut' tags, and look for intimacy tags like 'first kiss' that might be tame. Personally, I love how granular tags can be — they're a lifesaver when I'm in the mood for something sweet versus something steamy.

Whenever I watch old Hollywood thrillers I get this little thrill spotting the queer ink between the lines. One of the classic examples that always jumps out at me is 'The Maltese Falcon' — Peter Lorre’s Joel Cairo is coded as effeminate and clearly queer by today’s reading, but the film never lets him cross into physical affection with Sam Spade. The Hays Code and the studio system simply wouldn’t allow it, so filmmakers used body language, costuming, and campy dialogue instead. Another film that nags at me is 'Rope'. Hitchcock loaded the movie with implication: Brandon and Phillip’s intimacy is written all over their interactions, the way they share space and look at each other. Still, no kiss, no explicit declaration. The camera lingers, the tension builds, and you feel the absence as much as the presence — it’s almost a cinematic sleight of hand, showing how censorship shaped style. Watching these now, I find myself admiring both the restraint and the ways queer viewers reclaimed those glances as proof of representation.

I used to rewind the TV as a kid when two characters would kiss—especially if it felt like a big deal to the show. Back then, studios treated gay kisses like they were walking a tightrope: they talked to standards and practices, tested reactions from advertisers, and often staged the shot to be brief or framed in a way that felt less provocative to conservative audiences. I remember seeing a lot of ‘fade to black’ moments and quick camera cuts rather than lingering embraces. That wasn’t always because creatives wanted it that way; sometimes the network demanded it to avoid backlash or losing sponsors. Over the years I noticed a change: creators pushed back, social conversations grew louder, and streaming services started shrugging off some of the old rules. Shows on subscription platforms could show more natural, longer kisses without worrying about affiliate stations or the same kinds of advertiser pressure. Meanwhile, network shows often compromised by moving those scenes to later time slots or adding a content warning. It felt like watching a slow but steady normalization—what used to be a scandal became, more and more, a normal part of teen storytelling. I still think the most interesting part is how behind-the-scenes decisions shaped what we saw on screen. Writers would film several takes (a chaste one, a full one) hoping a network would pick the more honest version. And when fans rallied—tweetstorms, petitions—studios sometimes changed course. It’s been a messy, human process, but seeing more genuine queer teen moments now makes me glad I stuck around to notice the evolution.