#xmalec

Okay, I haven’t seen the episode yet, I just saw a few clips and read some commentary and I want to talk about patterns again:

It’s not awesome that Alec and Magnus experienced and at least partially addressed, if not completely resolved, a major issue in their relationship, kissed and then got panned away from so that Jace could get fucked in an alley. 

But last time I reviewed an episode, I mentioned that a lot of the sex scenes we’ve seen are set in fling type relationships?

There is one relationship on this show built on love, mutual respect, growing trust between naturally distrustful people, and just generally being competent adults in a committed relationship... and every time those two characters kiss more than three times in a row, either the plot interrupts them, or there is a fade to black. 

Meanwhile, we watch:

-Isabelle strip down to lingerie and climb into bed in heels because she is manipulating/buying information from the Melionr with sex. 

-Jace obviously in middle of foreplay with a completely nude woman, in a scene making a point about how he’s a self destructive mess who doesn’t know how to cope with being punished by the Clave, and isn’t getting help for what he just went through with Valentine

-Jace making what looks like (again, haven’t seen the whole ep yet) the absolute bare minimum in terms of amends, with a woman he has a very antagonistic relationship with, to the point where they have been in several serious physical fights, who is making it clear that this is not a serious thing, and he should not expect any of the emotioal support he needs to be getting from somewhere.

-Maia seeming to get off on the reversal of power a little as she shoves him around, and fucking the enemy in an alleyway... after he killed most of her pack and tried to follow the order to chip them all like dogs. 

And, just to add a little more to the pot, there are less extreme examples

-Simon fucks Maureen and we see them the morning after only so a very poorly acted dream sequence can drive home the point that he doesn’t actually like maureen

-Clary and Simon waking up in bed together so that they can have a scene where Simon doesn’t come clean to her about the dangers of being a daylighter, and Clary sets up a lie by omission about the big Jace reveal. 

-Isabelle and Raphael in heated kissing in a blissed out drug haze, who would have boned all night long if Raphael wasn’t asexual. And Raphael really truly caring about Isabelle is written as a bad thing, with a mutually destructive end point, and while they don’t actually have sex, everyhing about the yin fen addiction story line is crazy sexualized, to the point where Isabelle forcing Raphael to bite her reads as a rape. 

Like... to me the very clear message here is that sex is bad? 

People actually losing clothes, deep kissing and heading toward the smushing of booties is always written as self destructive. 

People waking up in the morning together, booties thusly smushed, have done a bad thing, and prove it to the audience by going on to lie or embarrass the person whose bootie they hath smushed. 

So... that’s fucked up enough... but then it gives this weird other flavor to the refusal to show Magnus and Alec do more than kiss standing upright and fully clothed, only theoretically booty adjacent  It’s almost like the logic of the writing is that Magnus and Alec not having sex is proof of love. 

But the flip side of that is that, in order to be written and filmed as a loving they have to maintain this ‘purity’. 

Obvious this is a huge slap in the face to an LGBT audience, this sort of coded slithery “just don’t shove it in our face” thing

But I also feel like this is super irresponsible for a show aimed at a young, predominantly female demographic. Like... love and sex do not necessarily have to be one and the same, and there’s nothing wrong with Isabelle having a casual thing with Meliorn, or Maia deciding the chemistry she has with Jace is worth taking him for a spin, or Dot not having the whole story about Magnus and Alec and leaning into a moment she misread...

...but like... giving Alec and Magnus a scene to move forward in Magnus’s process of forgiving Alec, and Alec’s process of unlearning toxic Shadowhunter shit, and letting them acknowledge issues they are going to need to continue to comfront during a relationship they are both clearly in for the long haul

and then lovingly, happily, romantically, consensually, respectfully, playfully smushing booties