Bringing sexy back: 10+ risqué shows to stream

Are you in the mood for some sexy shows featuring the lonely wives, girlfriends and mistresses caught in an affair or two, or the young progressive millennials of the fashionable New York City? Then step right into Showmax where drama collides with fashion, power, feminism, love (or lust), sometimes even humour, and in among it all, steamy scenes you don’t want to miss out on.

Here are some of the hottest, sexiest series on Showmax, all ready for your next NSFW binge.

1. Laid S1

A surreal and quirky comedy with a fatal twist, Laid follows Ruby, a woman discovers her former lovers are dying in unusual ways. To figure out why and to stop it from happening again, she must go back through her sex timeline — with the help of her best friend — to confront her past in order to move forward.

Laid stars Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as Ruby, opposite Emmy nominee Michael Angarano (This Is Us, Oppenheimer) and Zosia Mamet (The Flight Attendant, Girls).

2. Soft Life

It’s not easy to live a dual life. In the bid to settle her mother’s rising medical bills, a beautiful township girl plunges into the secretive world of high-society companionship. Fearful of how her profession could shatter everything she holds dear, she must keep her dual life hidden.

Zizipho Buti (Generations: The Legacy) stars as Owami. National Film and Television Awards Best Newcomer winner Katlego Lebogang (Spinners, Yoh! Christmas) and Mampho Brescia (Isibiya) play Zinhle and Zam: the star employee and owner at the escort agency respectively.

3. Adulting

Adulting follows four male friends on their journey to find love and success in modern-day South Africa. As they navigate the treacherous currents of adulthood, they turn to each other for support.

In the third and final season of Adulting, the stakes are higher and the nights are wilder than ever. Bonga (Thembinkosi Mthembu) is newly married, Mpho (Thabiso Rammusi) is freshly divorced, Vuyani (Luthando BU Mthembu) is about to open his dream nightclub, and Eric (Nhlanhla Kunene) is trying to embrace a 9 to 5 car service centre job, with a boss.

4. Girls

This award-winning HBO drama takes a comic look at the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls in their early 20s living in New York. From filmmaker/actor Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow (Bridesmaids and Knocked Up).

Starring Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke.

5. The Idol

Co-created by Euphoria’s Sam Levinson, Reza Fahim, and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. This risqué drama series follows an aspiring pop idol on her journey to become the greatest and sexiest pop star in America.

After a nervous breakdown derailed her last tour, Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) is determined to claim her rightful status as the greatest and sexiest pop star in America. Her passions are reignited by self-help guru and cult leader Tedros (Tesfaye). Will her romantic awakening take her to glorious new heights or the deepest and darkest depths of her soul?

6. Younger S1-7

Younger is set in New York’s publishing industry, featuring empowered women who are not afraid to raise their voices about serious issues, plus, they’re both sweet, funny and pack a dramatic (and sexy) punch.

In Younger, we follow the 40-year-old divorced mom Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), who lies about her age to get a job at a top publishing house in New York. It turns out that she’s great at her job, really good at lying, and able to nurture real friendships with the likes of young, smart Kelsey Peters (Hilary Duff) and real romances with the free-spirited Josh and her charming boss Charles.

7. Sex and the City

Sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends navigate the pitfalls of love and dating in New York. Darren Star (Melrose Place) wrote this iconic HBO classic that is now a part of pop culture.

Sex and the City has won seven Emmys, eight Golden Globes and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

8. Sex in Afrikaans

Are Afrikaans people really conservative when it comes to sex? Through candid interviews with couples, singles and people in the sex industry, this show explores what’s acceptable and what’s taboo after dark.

Featuring interviews with sex workers, adult shop owners, a unicorn, swingers, dominatrixes, a crossdresser, a dungeon master, people who dress up like babies, and others who prefer full-body latex suits, Sex in Afrikaans will be an eye-opening tour of what your neighbours and co-workers get up to after dark. 

9. Wyfie

Wyfie follows four mismatched first-year roommates, played by Beáta Bena Green, Celeste Loots, Kristen Raath and Mienke Ehlers. As S2 starts, it’s the dawn of a new era in Pantera res, as Natasha (Elzet Nel from Trompoppie) steps into power as prim. Parties abound, but not everyone is having a jol …

This season, look out for 2024 Naledi winner Cintaine Schutte (Fynskrif) as Maggie, Shay’s older crush, and Zandelle Meyer (Trompoppie) as Jessie, the girls’ new “house daughter”.  At the kykNET Silwerskerm Awards 2024, Wyfie won Best Newcomer (Mienke Ehlers as Mia) and Best Supporting Actor (Marguerite van Eeden as Wilmien), as well as an Inclusive Lens Award for LGBTQIA Representation at MIPAfrica in 2024.

Wyfie was also up for Outstanding Use of Locations at the Global Production Awards, presented by Screen International, against two Netflix productions shot in Norway: Troll and Ragnarok, plus as Best Soap or Telenovela, against the likes of EastEnders, at the 63rd Rose d’Or Awards.

10. Koek

When Cape Town housewife Christelle Smit discovers evidence her husband is having an affair with a stripper named Candy Floss, her investigation takes her to a world poles apart from the suburban utopia she knows.

Cindy Swanepoel, who won SAFTA and Silwerskerm awards last year as Annelize in Binnelanders, stars in Koek as Christelle, with screen legend Sandra Prinsloo as the brandy-drinking, cigar-smoking, leopard-print loving, kidney-stealing mob boss she’s soon in debt to.

11. Sex and Pleasure

Hosted by writer Kim Windvogel and journalist Romantha Botha, Sex & Pleasure will take a broader view of what South Africans get up to behind closed doors, and, well, everywhere else too.

Each episode will explore tlof tlof in relation to a different topic: sex work, parenting, love, drugs, orgasm, disability, age, and spirituality.  Kim and Romantha co-wrote and conceptualised Sex & Pleasure with director Ayanda Duma, who was also a producer on the South African leg of Planet Sex with Cara Delevigne, which you can binge on Showmax now.

12. The White Lotus

Winner of 15 Emmys, The White Lotus returns for a third instalment following a new group of guests at another White Lotus hotel, this time in Thailand.

Once again written and directed by Mike White, this season’s star-studded cast includes Emmy nominees Carrie Coon, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, and Walton Goggins, Teen Choice nominees Leslie Bibb and Patrick Schwarzenegger, Critics Choice nominee Michelle Monaghan, and BAFTA winner Aimee Lou Wood (Sex Education), one of IMDb’s Top Stars To Watch in 2025. Natasha Rothwell also returns to her Emmy-nominated Season 1 role as Belinda. 

The White Lotus S3 will be coming to both M-Net and Showmax from 17 February, express from the US. While you wait, binge the first two seasons on Showmax now.

13. Industry

Industry was one of Rotten Tomatoes’ Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2024, drawing Succession comparisons from them as “HBO’s other whip-smart and acid-tongued drama that’s really a comedy.”

New cast this season include Emmy nominees Kit Harington (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) and Sarah Goldberg (Sally Reed in Barry) as the CEO of a green tech energy company and a portfolio manager respectively. In Season 3, Pierpoint looks to the future and takes a big bet on ethical investing. Yasmin (Marisa Abela), Robert (Harry Lawtey), and Eric (Ken Leung) find themselves front and centre dealing with Lumi, a green tech energy company led by Sir Henry Muck (Harington). 

Since leaving Pierpoint, Harper (Myha’la) is eager to get back into the addictive thrill of finance and finds an unlikely partner in FutureDawn portfolio manager Petra Koenig (Goldberg). 

14. The Deuce

In this adults-only HBO drama twin brothers Vincent and Frankie (Oscar-nominee James Franco) navigate their way through the rough-and-tumble world of the pornography industry in Times Square in 1971. From the creator of ‘The Wire.’

 The Emmy-winning show, set in the 70s and 80s stars Franco as twins Vince and Frankie, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as former sex worker Eileen, also known as Candy, who becomes a successful adult film director.

15. Rome

Every city has its secrets. HBO presents this epic series about the furious historical events that saw the birth of the Roman Empire.

This series is famous for its larger-than-life characters – and this two-season drama zooms in on the likes of soldiers Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo (Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson), who’re based on warriors mentioned in Julius Caesar’s war document Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries On The Gallic War).