What's the Buzz on The Curse's Surprising Vibrator Sex Scene?

Maybe prestige TV just has a thing for sex toys. From Sex and the City's "rabbit" episode to Jean Smart and that big blue Watchmen dildo, the synthetic phallus has become a shorthand for a TV show entering a frank and explicit space to explore sexuality. Or maybe it's just for shock value. Whatever the case, TV's pantheon of memorable vibrator scenes got a new entrant this week with the premiere episode of The Curse.

The vibrator sex scene near the end of The Curse's first episode, “Land of Enchantment,” is both shocking and character-defining. It reveals a lot about the dynamics between married house-flippers Asher (Nathan Fielder) and Whitney (Emma Stone) Siegel. We've already learned plenty about them by this point in the episode. They're filming the pilot for a TV show about their efforts to implement a series of energy-efficient homes in a poor town in New Mexico, hoping their revolutionary "passive homes" and showy philanthropy will help turn them into HGTV stars.

Whitney's clearly the one driving this particular marriage. After an interview for local TV veers too far into her slumlord family history, Whitney orders Asher to trade business information he knows in order to keep her family's story out of the news report.

Seeing a dominant Whitney and submissive Asher isn’t much of a surprise here. Nathan Fielder doesn't exactly present as an alpha in any context, and Emma Stone's energy in these scenes blows him off the screen. But The Curse wants to take this relationship dynamic further. It's not enough that Asher is awkward and weak enough that he tries to get a $100 bill back from a pair of girls selling loose soda cans in a parking lot (leading to the titular curse). Fielder (who directed the episode) and co-writer/star Benny Safdie take it a step further, showing a scene at a urinal that zooms in on Asher's unusually small penis.

As a character beat, it's sophomoric (even moreso if you interpret this sight gag as an alternative interpretation of the show's title). As a piece of the kind of comedic awkwardness that Fielder revels in, it's effective, especially when Whitney's father later tries to bond with Asher over his own micro-penis (which we also see).

This all leads up to the sex scene, which in itself is a surprise, considering Whitney hasn't shown even a speck of sexual interest in Asher up until this point. After making eyes at each other in their kitchen, the scene cuts to the bedroom, where Asher is pleasuring Whitney with a vibrator, and they're both indulging in a fantasy where she's having sex with "Steven" while Asher — kneeling on the floor and looking away — masturbates and begs to watch.

It's a classic tactic of prestige TV, using aberrant sex practices as a shorthand for dysfunction while at the same time advancing a show's reputation for edgy storytelling. The Curse is actually the second prestige TV show in a month, after The Fall of the House of Usher, to use marital cuckold play as a shorthand for either vice or weakness. So, no, this scene probably won't go on the "Positive Representation for Kink on TV 2023" reel.

That said, it's pretty clear that both Whitney and Asher seem to be getting a lot of pleasure out of their dalliance with Steven the vibrator. The sex scene also plants an intriguing seed for the rest of the series, given that their reality TV producer Dougie (Safdie) is an old friend of Asher's who seems to have some kind of friction with Whitney, and doesn't seem like the type to respect boundaries. If Whitney and Asher are so into cuckold play, Dougie becomes a very interesting option down the line.

For now, Whitney and Asher's relationship dynamic seems pretty clear: she's on the bed with "Steven," he's on the floor, begging to get to watch. What's true in the bedroom is true in the rest of their lives. Whitney's running this show; Asher doesn't know quite where to look.

New episodes of The Curse premiere Fridays on Paramount+ With Showtime and Sunday nights at 10:00 PM ET on Showtime. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.