Even in 2024, there is one thing that can still be counted on to make headline news: a penis.
And so the pop culture news cycle was adorned Sunday night and Monday morning with social media posts and headlines buzzing about a full frontal scene on the most recent episode of HBO’s Industry.
Joel Kim Booster, who wrote and starred in Hulu’s queer romantic comedy Fire Island and currently is a comedy scene-stealer opposite Maya Rudolph in Apple TV+’s Loot, bares all in a steamy—quite literally—sauna scene. Aside from the attention-grabbing nudity, it is a pivotal moment in the episode.
He plays Frank, a gay and, it turns out, calculating analyst tasked with making a buy/sell recommendation for the Lumi stock. Pierpont banker Robert (Harry Lawtey) meets with Frank in a sauna to sway him in Lumi’s favor, resorting to the go-to tool for the show’s messily horny sad-sacks: psychosexual manipulation.
Robert flirts with Frank, who seems to readily engage, casually sitting with his towel open and his penis in full view as they chat. How far they might have taken their banter remains an open-ended question for the audience to debate and answer for themselves. But Industry’s viewers seemed unanimous about one thing: thrilled with the full-frontal moment—and celebrating Booster for being so game for it.
“Where were you when Joel Kim Booster showed full hog on Industry?” one viewer posted on X. “OH HELLO all of Joel Kim Booster,” posted another. Then there was my friend who texted our group chat promptly after the episode with the urgent news: “I don’t know who needs to hear this but Joel Kim Booster just showed full frontal dong on the latest episode of Industry.”
Discourse about sex and nudity on television has become a generational grenade war in recent years. Decades of pearl clutching over an increase in the salaciousness of sex on TV begat a celebration of the frank embracing of it—which now has tangled into an impenetrable conversation about whether sex and nudity is wholly unnecessary and even triggering when portrayed on television.
Industry, however, has pierced that conversation with its unapologetic depiction of how fascinatingly f—ed up sex can be, particularly when it comes to power dynamics. It’s also no stranger to male nudity, with the Season 3 premiere featuring an erect penis. But while that—following a trend when there are full frontal scenes in TV shows and movies—was a prosthetic, there’s no reason to suspect that the sauna wasn’t all Booster.
It’s been refreshing, too, that rather than play coy about the moment or contribute to a narrative that discussion about it would be tasteless, Booster actually went on a press tour to talk about the scene. It’s a welcome shift towards long overdue normalization and even pride over these kinds of moments.
“I was more nervous about stepping into a prestige HBO drama than I was about the nudity, because the nudity is pretty par for the course for me in my everyday life,” Booster told Vanity Fair, also saying that his nudes are on the internet for all to see, should you know where to look for them.
Still, he was surprised that people continue to, apparently, feel a weirdness about discussing nudity—particularly male nudity.
He said that during interviews about his guest spot, some journalists didn’t even mention it: “It’s like, ‘Guys, I’m a one-episode guest star. I have a one episode arc on this show where I’m in approximately three scenes and you are not going to ask me about the reason you really want to interview me about this episode?’ The reason it’s a big deal is because I’m doing full-frontal for the first time. Let’s be real.”
TV “moments” came in all forms, and it’s titillating that, based on the response, this is clearly one of them—from the standpoints of both horniness and what it could mean for the future discussion and visibility of sex on TV.
Booster’s willingness to shoot the scene is as important as his breeziness and humor about it has been after the fact. I am particularly obsessed with this perfect quote about the logistics of filming the scene: “One of the hardest things to do is look hot naked while sitting. It’s been a longstanding fitness goal of mine to look good without my shirt on while I’m sitting. It is such a difficult thing to achieve. That was a much bigger concern of mine than being full-frontal.”
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