Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas

Good sex scenes should be hot. Great sex scenes should be hot and reveal character. Thankfully for us, Supernatural has an abundance of great sex scenes — and this one is no exception.

Throughout the series, Dean has always been a particularly connected lover: With both Anna and Lisa, he is tactile, and with Cassie, the only thing more obvious than the skin was the eye contact. He caresses, he rolls around, he stares deeply into eyes, etc. He’s attentive to a fault, even — he tends to repress his own sexual response in order to cater better to those he’s with (consider when he kisses Jo, even though it’s stated several times in the series that he never sees her as anything other than a little sister). For Dean, sex is as close to comfort as he can get or offer, and he offers it like a balm to the lonely (remember how he once called Valentine’s Day “unattached drifter Christmas”?) and the dying (Anna, Jo) alike.

But watch how unengaged Dean is with Lydia here: He lets himself be pushed around, slammed into walls, shoved against the bed. The sex is violent, brief: After only a few cursory kisses, he takes his own clothes off, and then she mounts him. When he tries to touch her (GIF 4), she pushes his hands into the pillow; and when he tries to embrace her, she rides him (GIF 5), putting as much distance between their mouths and faces as possible. And he never questions it, never tries too hard to fight it, because in this case, Dean is clearly just along for the ride.

This is not the Dean we know – or, rather, it is; this is Season 7 Dean, confused and lost and brokenhearted, spiraling into a deep depression that none of his usual coping mechanisms can fix. Even sex offers him no comfort.

And even if it could, I’m not he’s not even sure he wants it. Look at his face in the final GIF – that little puff of air, the lack of eye contact. That’s the face of a man not quite there, trying to convince himself that this is what he wants, what he needs. That’s the face of a man who’s just trying to hold on. 

Season 7 convinced me of Destiel, and this is one of the scenes that did it. Because the acting choices Jensen made here, IMO, are those of a man struggling to cope with a break-up, trying to plug the hole in his life with someone, anyone – and finding it just isn’t what he wants, or needs.

Anyway, this was all just a long way of saying that this is a brilliantly written sex scene, entirely consistent with Dean’s character and what he’s going through, and I love how subtle it is, offering the most clues to those who’ve paid attention this whole time.

(via mageflower)