Who’s who in The Sex Lives of College Girls

HBO Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls uses its four main characters to draw a colourful and diverse portrait of sexual experiences.

Created by The Office’s Mindy Kaling and Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Justin Noble, the 10-episode series flings together four freshman roommates who could not be more mismatched – but, despite the drama and their differences, they end up bonding as they navigate the challenges that come with their newfound freedom.

Kimberly, played by Pauline Chalamet

Pauline Chalamet (Timothée’s sister) plays Kimberly, who is from Gilbert, Arizona. She’s quite prudish, naive and immature (to begin with). She and her roommates have just started at the fictional Essex College, a Vermont cookie-cutter perfect university campus, on a scholarship, which means she also has to hold down a part time job at the campus coffee shop.

When she arrives, Kim is a virgin and an easy mark for teasing by other students. Her boyfriend from back home comes to visit her, and then dumps her: what a jerk. Struggling to keep up with her classes and clearly out of her academic depth, Kim accepts the offer by Leighton’s suave older brother, Nico (Gavin Leatherwood), to tutor her. Not only will he help with her homework but he’s easy on the eye and, naturally, massive crush material.

Leighton, played by Reneé Rapp

New Yorker Leighton is the roommate we’re all familiar with – designer clothes, perfect hair and makeup, attitude for days. All the guys want her, all the girls want to be her. She ends up in this particular dorm with strangers because of what she thinks is an admin error, but it turns out her high school friends specifically asked not to be roomed with her, which is a devastating blow.

To her credit, Leighton steps up and makes the best of her unexpected living arrangements, but she still keeps her distance and hold everyone at arm’s length. She has her reasons…

Not only do some girls want to be Leighton, but others want to be with her – and she wants to be with them, too. College jocks with six-packs hold no appeal. She’s deep in the dark closet though, and resistant to coming out because she thinks that will be the only thing that defines her. Her struggle comes to the fore when she levels up from hook-up apps to starting a real relationship.

Bela, played by Amrit Kaur

Number three is Bela (Amrit Kaur), an Indian girl who is thirsty. Positively parched, as it happens. She lies to her ambitious parents about what she’s studying while she pursues a comedy writing path. Hey, Mindy, we see you.

Bela is right out there in the sex game, and is not afraid to use it to her advantage. Even so, unwelcome harassment is not okay, whether you give multiple handjobs at a party or not.

Bela is bubbly and a solid friend. She also has the most amazing wardrobe.

Whitney, played by Alyah Chanelle Scott

Whitney is the daughter of a senator, and she’s having an affair with her assistant soccer coach (who you will later find out is a total jerk, too). If this scandal got out, it would not only tarnish Whitney’s reputation but it would cast a shadow on her mom, who is already a mostly absent power parent who turns up mainly to yell at Whitney.

Are secrets revealed? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say so, because if they didn’t, there’d be no drama and no point to any of this.

Watch the trailer for The Sex Lives of College Girls

Speaking about the cast and the main characters, Variety says, “…importantly to the show’s success, the actors are also great together, immediately settling into the kind of fast intimacy that defines so many early college friendships.”

While these four college girls have sex lives of varying degrees, the series is surprisingly restrained. It’s not like Girls girls. It’s actually quite tame. Yes, there’s a “naked party”, which is exactly what it sounds like: everyone is naked, but showing barely a nipple to the camera. There are lots of parties – elaborate, impressive parties.

The sex scenes that you’ll see are mostly pre- or post-coital, underwear on, dressing and undressing. The most graphic scenes are in episode 7, when two characters get it on. And on, and on, and on. Resulting in a UTI.

It’s this sort of thing that sets the show apart as it depicts the real-life challenges that girls deal with in their sex lives while they’re at college: not just UTIs, but also inappropriate coach/student affairs, the predator dynamic, being gay and coming out (or not), sexual harassment, cheating.

What the critics say about The Sex Lives of College Girls

“The four leads have spoken about their work with an intimacy coordinator, now thankfully becoming standard in productions, and it shows; direction by Kabir Akhtar, Zoe Cassavetes, and David Gordon Green includes oblique nudity – bare backs, side boobs, butts – that never feels exploitative or undue,” says The Guardian.

“The cheekiest joke in The Sex Lives of College Girls is that title: It’s one that seems to promise sleaze and scandal, only for the show to deliver little of either. But that, more or less, seems to be the point. In the show’s telling, the actual sex lives of its college girls aren’t all that interesting — when they do get laid, the scenes are tame, PG-13 stuff. The real excitement of campus life lies in the unprecedented freedom it offers young adults to discover or reinvent themselves amid a sea of other young adults doing exactly the same,” comments The Hollywood Reporter.

Mindy Kaling on The Sex Lives of College Girls

“In this first season … there’s obviously so much fun stuff that happens to them, but there are really a lot of trials that they have to go through, each of them. We wanted them to go through serious s—t and traumatizing s—t, and seeing how they deal with it,” Kaling told Collider about the main four characters.

“By putting those characters through the ringer like that, it helped us have them depend on each other a little bit more. They really don’t want to. They’re randomly assigned roommates, and some of them say, ‘I don’t wanna be living with you.’ Life can be really hard on campuses for young women and we wanted to show all of that, and not just the fun, sexy part, but the parts that were a little uglier, to be honest.”

This is not Euphoria by a long shot; there’s a lot more innocence and fumbling (physically and emotionally) and awkwardness. The Sex Lives of College Girls is ultimately sweet and endearing, even if you’re not pigeon-holed in the exact audience demographic (and it won’t freak you out if you are parents).

The series has been renewed for a second season, shooting as we read and write. That’s good, because the last episode ends on a couple of steep and scary cliff hangers.