The Movie Scenes That Sparked Our Sexual Awakenings

From Top Gun to American Pie to Hercules, these are the 19 films that first made us feel horny.

By Jezebel Staff | February 14, 2023 | 2:50pm

In Depth In Depth

Photo: Screenshot/WikiMedia/Everett Collection

Horniness, as sexpert Chelsea G. Summers explained in her 2o16 history of the term, is the “deep-seated, itchy, essentially unslakable bodily keening for sex.”

It happens to most people at some point in adolescence without any kind of external cue; but for many of us, it was also wildly accelerated by a particular movie scene we saw at a young-ish age that may or may not have featured Patrick Swayze. Tell me the movie that you remember first making you horny in life, and I will be able to guess your age within about two to three years.

There’s one that stands out for all of us: Maybe it was Baby seducing Johnny in the cabin to Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me” in Dirty Dancing. Maybe it was a shirtless Tom Cruise playing volleyball on the beach in Top Gun. Perhaps it was Denise Richards and Neve Campbell in a pool threesome in Wild Things. For two Jezebel staffers, it was the cartoon movie Hercules (this is a judgment-free zone!).

For our second annual Horny Week, we reminisced about the films and moments in films that may have singlehandedly launched us into puberty—whatever year in our lives that may have been. What was yours?

Top Gun (1986) - The Lecture Scene

My lifelong affinity for cocky men in tight clothing began, to the best of my recollection, with Top Gun. Before we get to the locker room scenes (hot), the volleyball scene (practically public sex), or any of the explicitly sexual hetero scenes featuring Tom Cruise, at his sexiest, ramming his tongue down Kelly McGillis’ throat in full view of the camera, there’s that early scene after Maverick and Goose arrive at Top Gun, and they sit in a lecture led by daddy Tom Skerritt. One of the attendees casually leans over to his buddy and says, “This gives me a hard-on,” and his buddy, with a little more lust in his eyes than what qualifies as “casual,” says, “Don’t tease me.”

This easy way of guys being sexual together? That sent me down a highway to the danger zone. I would, at my destination, come to realize that this conversation looks basically the same among men when it’s conducted without the sarcasm. Meanwhile, Maverick is scanning the room, making eye contact and holding gazes way longer than straight-dude protocol generally allows. “Just wondering who’s the best,” he says when Goose notices what he’s doing. Uh, same. I’d come to realize that what he was doing would look a lot like cruising. I still find that scene extremely erotically charged, so much so that the beloved Top Gun: Maverick disappointed me. It’s bereft of any kind of gay subtext or even jokes. Undoubtedly, 35 years of speculation regarding Cruise’s sexuality played a part in the de-queering of Top Gun, but no one, it seems, is ready to have that conversation. –Rich Juzwiak

10 Things I Hate About You (1999) - The Paintball Scene

Heath Ledger’s Patrick Verona, the misfit bad boy with a corny heart of gold, is what really kicked my libido into full drive. Specifically, the scene where Kat (Julia Stiles) and Patrick first kiss after an afternoon spent playing paintball. The two of them teasing one another while slamming each other with paint-filled balloons had the flirty sort of build-up that my still fairly innocent mind could fantasize over. Also, as a very Kat-reading-The-Bell-Jar type teen, I was very smitten with the idea of a brooding transfer student suddenly bursting my steely faux intellectual exterior with his coyness. The bridge of Semisonic’s “F.N.T” underscores the moment when Patrick tackles Kat into a pile of hay (aggressively hot), flings off his protective goggles (carelessly hot), kindly wipes paint from Kat’s face (thoughtfully hot), and gazes into her eyes before kissing her in such a way that a thousand pillows were eventually launched in between my legs as I watched that scene over and over.

“I’m surprised that you’ve never been told before/ That you’re lovely/ And you’re perfect/ And that somebody wants you,” Dan Wilson sings—words my romantic teen self was dying to hear from boys who’d never paid attention to me. In the meantime, while I was waiting to be noticed, this perfectly horny scene would do. —Kady Ruth Ashcraft

Fight Club (1999)

I first watched Fight Club some time between the fifth and sixth grade in my friend Brooke’s basement. Her mom never watched us too closely, but we didn’t ever really try to get away with much more than watching her adult sister’s collection of R-rated movies. I had no idea Fight Club was such an integral part of bad male movie taste and ideologies when we put it on; I was just sucked in by how insanely hot it was to watch a bunch of sweaty, dirty guys beat the shit out of each other. For a repressed Catholic school kid like myself, watching Brad Pitt with a buzz cut embody Tyler Durden’s savage energy unleashed something feral in me. Soon after, I embarked on a journey through Pitt’s filmography in search of that same spark—but nothing hit quite like Fight Club. Seeing that film was the first time I truly understood what it meant to be horny. My entire idea of attraction until then was built around corny romcoms that merely satiated my inner hopeless romantic. Every time I go through a period of wondering if I should make liking hockey or watching WWE my personality, I think fondly of my first Fight Club viewing and the horny energy it unleashed. —Brittany Spanos

White Squall (1996)

If you haven’t seen this movie, you can pretty much just glance at the above poster and understand why Ridley Scott’s White Squall made me so unbearably horny at the age of 12. I was attending an all-girls school at the time. The cast included a who’s who of 90s heartthrobs—including Scott Wolf, Ryan Philippe, Ethan Embry, and a young Jeff Bridges (sweating just typing that)—sailing around the world together in white T-shirts and/or shirtless at all times and learning how to be “real men.” Bridges, as the boat’s captain, speaks very hot lines to the younger men like, “Nothing happens on this boat that I don’t know about. She speaks to me in the night, so don’t test me, not even a little.” And of course, a giant squall threatens their lives, and then—well, those T-shirts get pretty wet, and so does everyone watching.

What really did it for my nerdy little heart, though, were all the literary references—hot men quoting The Tempest and For Whom the Bell Tolls while scrubbing the deck of the boat and trying to save each other’s lives on the high seas (you really have to suspend disbelief, here). It’s basically Dead Poets Society but with more physical labor and visible abs. Did I mention that young Jeff Bridges is in it? —Laura Bassett

American Pie (1999) - Oz Chooses the Choir

I’m sure this movie was a horny awakening for 70 percent of kids born around 1990, but between the cunnilingus, band camp sex memories, and Nadia, there was one character who really made my 9-year-old self go, “Oh!” From the second Chris “Oz” Ostreicher (Chris Klein) saunters onto the screen, I was mesmerized by every single inch of his body (“inch” being the key word here, as I felt like a disgustingly tall kid, and seeing this hot high school man also be disgustingly tall gave me hope that I wasn’t doomed to a life of towering three feet above every boy in my grade).

When Oz runs off the field during the final lacrosse game of his high school career to go sing a cappella with Heather? That’s when my vagina activated. I would spend the rest of middle school fantasizing about the day when my own hot high school man would run off his sports field to be with me. —Lauren Tousignant

Hercules (1997)

Though I was only 4 when Disney’s magnum opus about the son of Zeus debuted in theaters, my memories of watching the cinematic and low-key sexual romp came much later. Perhaps unintentionally, Hercules taught me that sexuality—what I understood as just an enormous obsession at the time—knows no bounds. On the one hand, there was the bursting brawn of our cartoon hero, Hercules: I fixated on the sensual swirls drawn on his elbows, his cleft chin, and strong jawline. Yes, teenage Hercules had hulking calves, broad shoulders, and arms that I, to this day, would like to be buried in. He was the physical embodiment of masculinity, with none of the toxicity and all of the godly glory.

On the other hand, there was Megara, this feisty and cynical femme fatale who subverted all of the Disney “damsel in distress” tropes and was…also really hot. Disillusioned with the world (because she was, you know, enslaved by Hades), she was everything I wanted to be and also, maybe, fuck. Dear Baby Emily: Meet your first femme! And thank you Hercules for introducing a small-town suburbia girl to the concept of bisexuality. Way to plant those seeds. —Emily Leibert

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

This movie came out before I was born, and I don’t know how many times I watched it before being of Horny Age. But Indiana Jones with his wry smile, stubble, unbuttoned-just-a-bit-too-far shirt, and trusty whip definitely awakened something in me. Aside from being hot, he’s smart and a smart-ass (qualities I like to this day), but he also has a vulnerable side (fear of snakes). Harrison Ford’s turn as Han Solo in the early Star Wars movies also proved to be….enlightening, but he had poofier hair, which I did not like. No, the Indiana Jones series is practically an aphrodisiac for anyone who came of age in the ‘80s. (Movies 2 and 3? Also .) —Susan Rinkunas

The Notebook (2004)

I hate to be a basic bitch, but Ally and Noah’s first sex scene in The Notebook scandalized me as a young gal. The slowly stripping in front of each other, the doing it on the floor, the Ryan Gosling of it all—it really gave me some wildly unrealistic expectations about what my first time would be like (on a twin XL mattress in college, promptly interrupted by my roommate). Oh, and the lovemaking after the rainstorm years later…let’s just say Ally and Noah weren’t the only ones who were drenched. —Rodlyn-mae Banting

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

I had movie crushes—Char in Ella Enchanted, the blonde kid in Sandlot 2—but Prince Caspian firmly yanked me from kiddom into teenhood.

It was eighth grade. I was reading a lot of books featuring men riding dragons but hiding that fact from my friends, because middle school sux. Narnia had no dragons, but it did have shirtless centaurs and a sad-boy prince with long, wavy hair who yearned to right wrongs. I could be way less embarrassed about this infatuation, what with Narnia being a massive Disney franchise laced with Christian themes. Caspian helped the fantastical creatures of Narnia and those four wardrobe-exploring kids expel the colonizers on their land. He also eye-fucked (basically—this movie was rated PG) the older sister Susan until the end, when she kissed him and then abandoned him by walking through a tree into the real world. Their farewell was set to the tune of Regina Spektor’s “The Call.” The heartbreak, my god—a young man with a beautiful face and such sadness in his eyes, got me going. I rewatched this dumb movie about 300 times. —Sarah Rense

Hook (1991) - Rufio

The Lost Boys throwing gobs of delicious, colorful goo-food at each other is the best scene ever committed to film. It also centers on one of the hottest characters I ever laid eyes on as a child: Rufio (Dante Basco). I could never put my finger on what drew me to Rufio—maybe it was how much the other Lost Boys looked up to him; maybe it was his bad boy insouciance. (“Everybody say grace” met by a chorus of “GRACE” was delightfully transgressive to 9-year-old me, whose family said a good old Presbyterian blessing before dinner every night.) I wanted to know Rufio; I wanted to casually say hi to Rufio at the playground and then turn that interaction over and over in my mind for days. I wanted Rufio to teach me how to wield a sword against the pirates. He was the boy of my dreams. (However I must add a note of warning: If you also learned something about yourself watching Hook at some point in the 1990s and are now in your 30s, there is a strong chance that you will feel an alarming degree of maternal or protective feelings for the Lost Boys should you choose to rewatch Hook today. Never grow up, indeed.) —Nora Biette-Timmons

Hercules (1997) - Megara

(Editor’s note: I allowed two staffers to choose Disney’s animated Hercules because you can’t really police what movie first made a person horny.)

Obviously, the most correct answer to what movie provided a horny awakening for a young child is Hercules (1997). I would go so far as to say it is the horniest of all the Disney animated movies, but that’s not the point of this slide. The point is that watching Susan Egan sing “I Won’t Say I’m In Love,” while the Muses drool over our titular hunk, was a horny awakening for me. The song is filled with a longing and sexiness that I couldn’t quite explain because I hadn’t yet seen that scene in Titanic. But the combo of Megara and the Muses going back and forth about how much she looooooves Hercules, but nooooo she can’t admit it, is just the best lead-up to the actual kiss. It’s horniness, girls, not love. —Caitlin Cruz

The Virgin Queen (2005) - Tom Hardy as Robert Dudley

Like most middle schoolers, when I was 12 or 13, I too went through my Renaissance Faire phase, devouring Royal Diaries installments, convincing myself I was the reincarnated spirit of Anne Boleyn—all the typical tween girl stuff. At some point, I voraciously consumed PBS’ The Virgin Queen, starring Tom Hardy as a young Elizabeth I’s lifelong lover, Robert Dudley—as I quite related to the three-part short series’ title at age 13. I can’t say that Hardy as the scheming, audacious, almost disgustingly hot earl is the first person who made my adolescent self think about sex; that honor, regrettably, goes to someone else. But he did make me feel things…a lot of things. All the love scenes in fields of grass, the forbidden nature of it all, since Elizabeth was expected to marry a foreign prince—let’s just say, by the end of it all, I would also have cast my “Virgin Queen” status to the wind for Mr. Hardy, and preferably in a wind-swept field of grass, too. —Kylie Cheung

She’s All That (1999) - Paul Walker as Dean Sampson

More often than not, I am turned on by truly terrible men–IRL and on screen. I’ve spent years of my life railing against the urge, but before polite (read: oppressive) society ever indicated it was frowned upon, I just accepted it. What can I say? From the time I was young, I found villains far more interesting than heroes, and absolutely no one did a more okay job at portraying one than Paul Walker (RIP) in the 1999 classic, She’s All That. That the late, great Mr. Walker stood out amidst a cast of eye-candy (Freddie Prinze Jr.! Gabrielle Union! Milo Ventimiglia in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo!) is impressive, but it’s not rocket science. Spoiler alert: He’s just a textbook asshole with blue eyes and a boyish grin. The audience doesn’t learn much else about Dean Sampson, but Walker–in all of his two-strap-backpack-wearing glory–brought a BDE to the role that no one in Hollywood, or my personal life for that matter, has ever been able to replicate.

While Prinze Jr.’s Zack Siler worked overtime to prove that he was a “good guy,” Sampson always knew that he wasn’t. Self-awareness! So what if Walker’s acting (God rest his soul) wasn’t great; the locker room scene…well, it changed me. —Audra Heinrichs

The Lion King (1994) - Teen Simba

There is a blink-and-you-miss-it moment during The Lion King’s feel-good song “Hakuna Matata” in which Timon, Pumbaa, and Simba are strutting across a fallen log. Behind them, the background morphs from the depths of the jungle to a misty waterfall to a moonlit evening, conveying the gradual march of time. Between the latter two settings, we are briefly introduced to and whisked away from TEEN SIMBA. He’s a bit huskier than the lion cub we’d known and not yet the full-grown adult Lion King to which we are about to be introduced. His appearance might have been all but two seconds long, but readers: It made me horny. Teen Simba’s hair was unkempt and his jawline beginning to fully form. (Yes, I feel insane writing this.) There was something enchantingly flirtatious about his energy that I rewound my VHS so many times in horny earnestness wondering, “Who IS he?”

I suspect I’m not the only one, because when I watched the song on YouTube, the viewing data showed the highest number of views for that five-second sequence. If that was you: I see you, I feel you, Hakuna Matata. —KR

Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

It feels obvious that a French lesbian love story would make any of its viewers horny as fuck, but try watching it in your family basement with your best female friend at the tender age of 15. My friend and I sat through the entire 20-minute sex scene in utter silence and were fed some myths about scissoring along the way. When the movie was over, they told me that the fact that we’d endured such a feat together was a testament to the strength of our friendship. Looking back on it, I don’t think that was the only reason we were stunned into complete and utter silence. —RB

The Thirteenth Year (1999)

God, what is it with my oddly sexual relationship to Disney movies? I truly found myself hot n’ bothered by a teen merman played by actor Chez Starbuck, who unfortunately has no claim to the Starbucks fortune (I checked). Something about the process of watching Cody sprout slick, shiny scales and morph into the sea creature of my dreams—I am a water sign, after all—was sexy before I even knew what the word “sexy” meant. If I had the vocabulary at the time that I have now, I’d probably be like, “Cody makes me wet,” or “I’d let Cody smack me around with that mer-tail of his.” Probably. —EL

Peter Pan (2003)

“Petah, I’m sorry, I must grow up,” Wendy Darling whispers into Peter Pan’s ear in the 2003 live-action film. “But…this is yours.”

Pan is lying flat on the pirate ship’s deck, seconds away from dying at the non-hand of Captain Hook, who’s allowed Wendy a final farewell while mocking her for wishing to give him “a thimble.” But the thimble is NOT a thimble! She leans over Petah and unfists her hand to place it gently on his cheek, whispering once more: “This belongs to you and always will.” (This shit was rated PG!) Then she plants the most tender, most dream-like first kiss imaginable on his lips.

I was 14 at the time and already harboring massive crushes on Heath Ledger and Matthew Lillard, so it wasn’t quite a sexual awakening. But this kiss?! This fucking KISS????? And the SONG?!?!? Which, to this day, still makes my skin tingle. Pan starts to glow—he turns pink. Wendy and the Lost Boys take cover, as he lets out a euphoric scream so powerful that its glittering sound waves blow Hook and his pirates into the water and propel Pan high into the air, like one of those Barbie Sky Dancers. He’s revitalized, he’s reborn, he remained a recurring feature of my young teenage fantasies. —LT