Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Supersex’ is one of the raunchiest shows on the streaming service right now. Following the life and career of a porn star, the show makes use of many sex scenes throughout its eight-episode run. Considering how deeply Rocco Siffredi’s sexual journey is embedded in the rest of his story, it feels impossible to tell his tale without sex at every turn. Sure enough, the show features a bunch of sex scenes, each being meaningful in Rocco’s journey one way or another. Eight scenes, however, take the cake when it comes to exploring Rocco’s headspace and revealing his state of mind to the audience. SPOILERS AHEAD
8. Rocco at the Sex Convention (Episode 1)
The first sex scene in the show, Rocco’s experience at the sex convention, offers the audience an insight into his state of mind at that moment. This is him, at the peak of his career, famous and rich, and yet dissatisfied with life in some ways. He is grieving his brother and is also two-minded about his relationship with Rosza, still convinced that a porn star cannot have a normal relationship.
In the scene, Rocco is asked by a woman not to retire at this point because she has just started working in porn and dreams of working with him. Frustrated by his own life, Rocco has sex with the woman on the spot while the audience of the convention watches them. In this moment, which is tinged with violence, he shows the woman how different the life of a porn star is and why she shouldn’t fantasize about it. This is him reflecting on his own thought process.
7. Rocco Grieves His Mother (Episode 7)
Grief can take many forms for people, and for Rocco, it takes the form of sex. When Rocco was young, his brother died, and at that moment, he came across Supersex magazine, which opened new doors for him. He found an escape, a refuge in sex, and years later when his mother died, he found himself falling back on sex again to comfort himself.
The scene takes place in the graveyard, shortly after his mother’s funeral, where an older woman hugs him while trying to comfort him. The situation escalates and becomes weirdly sexual, which hits Rocco later. What makes this scene even more jarring is that according to real-life Rocco Siffredi, this actually happened to him, though the timeline was a bit different. In the show, the scene takes place on the day of the funeral, but in real life, it happened a couple of days after the funeral. In both cases, the experience showed Rocco how much of his life was intertwined with sex, even if he didn’t want it to.
6. Rocco’s Audition (Episode 3)
Rocco’s introduction to porn was Supersex magazine, in which he saw Gabriel Pontello having sex with different girls on one page after another. Years later, when Rocco moves to Paris, he crosses paths with Pontello in a sex club. Their first encounter is a turning point for Rocco, and he gets his first shot at working in a movie with Pontello. But that chance is ruined by another jealous actor who doesn’t understand why Pontello is wasting his time on a 20-year-old guy.
It is after Rocco loses his chance and wonders if he is even cut out for the life he desperately wants that a change occurs. By now, he has tasted betrayal and failure and has a sense of what his path forward is going to look like. Once again, when he goes back to the sex club and starts having sex with the woman who runs the place, Pontello notices him again. The difference is that the last time Rocco saw Pontello in the crowd, he performed for him. This time, Rocco is either unaware of Pontello and the crowd or doesn’t care about them. He is too engrossed in the act to think about anything else, and this is what removes all shreds of doubt in Pontello’s mind about Rocco’s career in porn.
5. Rocco, Sex, Violence (Episode 6)
One of the things that Rocco Siffredi became famous for was the rough nature of sex in his adult films. Things tend to get a little too hardcore sometimes as the boundary between sex and violence is blurred, making one wonder what lens Rocco sees sex through. In one of his more infamous videos, while having sex with a woman, he shoves her head into a toilet bowl. Even the description of the scene is unnerving and makes one cringe to think about how and why this scene came to be. In its sixth episode, ‘Supersex’ gives us an idea of it.
At that point in the story, Rocco has established that he cannot have a stable relationship due to the nature of his career. He has also lost his mother, which has fractured his view of sex while also distancing him from his brother. In this scene, Lucia comes looking for him and watches him film the toilet bowl scene. Her being appalled and asking Rocco why he would do such a thing echoes the sentiment of the audience, making their interaction even more meaningful.
4. Rocco Enjoys a Vacation With Tina (Episode 5)
There are only a few times in Rocco’s life when he feels completely free, and his short-lived vacation with his girlfriend, Tina, is one of those times. The couple had been dating for some time, and while Tina wanted more from their relationship, Rocco hesitated from the commitment. Eventually, he decides to dedicate himself to Tina, believing that he has finally found the one person he can live for. It seems like they have their happy ending, and for a while, they do.
Rocco and Tina spend the summer at a seaside house, away from the rest of the world. It is their perfect hideout, and they don’t need anyone else. Their days and nights are spent in each other’s arms, and that’s enough for them. Until it’s not. Rocco starts to feel unfulfilled pretty soon, and this causes a fight that they never recover from. It also becomes the turning point in Rocco’s life because this is when he convinces himself that a relationship is not for him.
3. Rocco and Rosza (Episode 8)
Just when Rocco has given up on love, he finds hope again when he meets Rosza. He doesn’t expect things to be any different this time around, but they are. After being besotted with her, Rocco works with her on a film, and the chemistry between them is crackling. They soon get into a relationship, but again, problems start to arise. What concerns them both is Rocco’s inability to perform during sex.
Rocco believes that this might have to do with his work, which requires him to have sex repeatedly, leaving him utterly exhausted to have the same thing with Rosza. But then, she reveals that the problem is that Rocco comes home with the same mindset he has on the film set. He is performing for Rosza, too, but that’s not what a relationship is about. It is about intimacy and knowing each other. This is, in a way, a revelation to Rocco and changes the way he had been thinking about sex in a relationship vs. having sex for the screen.
2. Rocco Tano Disappears into Rocco Siffredi (Episode 4)
Before he became Rocco Siffredi, he was Rocco Tano, a boy from a small town in Italy who dreamed of being the same guy he saw in the pages of Supersex. When he finds his break in the porn industry, he remains the same guy for a while, still trying to figure out things, making mistakes, and losing the opportunities that are literally brought to him on a silver platter. By the end of Episode 4, he has learned from his mistakes and received some valuable lessons.
It is now that he sees himself truly transformed. He is ready to leave behind Rocco Tano, and he never wishes to go back there again. All he wants is to be Rocco Siffredi now, and that step he takes by going back to the sex club where his sexual awakening began. The scene has Rocco entering an orgy where he completely loses himself between a bunch of people. This scene is one of the most important in the show because it marks the transformation that Rocco and the audience have been waiting for.
1. Rocco Discovers the Power of Sex (Episode 2)
While Rocco dreamed of sex and a career in porn since he came across Supersex, he still remains out of touch with the actual act of sex until he comes to Paris. Here, he meets Sylvie and gets into a relationship. This is also the first time that Rocco has sex, but it is not romantic or tender or even fun, for that matter. Rocco struggles to get on with the act, but then, remembering the farm animals having sex, he uses the same strategy, and it makes things very awkward between him and Sylvie.
This is the first time Rocco has sex and the first time he realizes that sex is more than just an act. It is also about power, especially for men. As soon as he is done, he realizes how off the balance had been between him and Sylvie, and this turns him off from her. But it leads him down the path where he explores more of this dynamic and starts to enjoy this power imbalance, sometimes taking the lead and sometimes surrendering to someone else. This is his sexual awakening and sets the path for his journey forward.
