Every Single Sex Scene on Girls, Ranked by How Girls It Was

This list originally ran at the beginning of Season 6. It has been updated to include the remainder of the final season.

Girls, which wrapped up its sixth and final season Sunday night, arrived on the scene in 2012 with a bang—if you can use that word to describe what Adam and Hannah did together on that dingy Brooklyn couch. From that cringingly unromantic encounter through the dozens of awkward hookups and one infamous rim job that followed, this show pioneered a certain kind of naturalistic, unsexy millennial sex scene. So to send off this show in the manner it so richly deserves, we’ve ranked every sex scene on the show according to how Girls it was. You’re welcome.

It was necessary to draw up some parameters to make this highly intensive, very scientific project feasible, so before we begin, a few notes on methodology: This list is limited to acts or attempted acts of manual stimulation and vaginal, oral, and anal sex. This means several makeouts, some of which included generous second-base action, did not make the cut. Apologies to the time Shoshanna made out with a doorman and Marnie, Jessa, and Thomas John’s almost-threesome.

Additional research by David Canfield.

53. Season 5, Episode 10, Desi and a groupie
Position or act: Fellatio
Circumstances of sex: Desi gets a blow job from a very young-looking groupie in his dressing room while Marnie and Ray angrily beg him to open the door.
Millennial awkwardness: Hardly awkward at all. What would pass for scandalous on another show barely registers on Girls. Nothing we haven’t seen in a thousand other storylines about male musicians with Peter Pan complexes.

52. Season 5, Episode 4, Elijah and Dill
Position or act: Missionary anal
Circumstances of sex: Elijah and Dill’s first time together—Elijah’s on top of him, and they face each other on a bed—comes with a lot of instructions from hunky Dill Harcourt (Corey Stoll), who has very specific thoughts on how fast Elijah should be going. Bossy!
Millennial awkwardness: Dill isn’t a millennial, and for Girls, speed instructions are not particularly awkward. Wait until one of the people tells the other to pretend he’s a prostitute junkie and we’ll talk.

51. Season 3, Episode 1, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Cowgirl/lotus
Circumstances of sex: After being broken up for most of Season 2, Hannah and Adam are back at it, complete with Adam’s grunts and Hannah’s flailing.
Millennial awkwardness: How can such a comprehensively nude scene (Hannah chats with Adam for a while topless after they finish) be ranked so low here? All we can say is you get used to the sight of Lena Dunham’s breasts. Also, both parties seemed to be enjoying the sex equally, which is also pretty un-Girls.

50. Season 4, Episode 2, Elijah and a random fellow house party guest
Position or act: Manual stimulation
Circumstances of sex: Elijah hits a college rager with Hannah while she’s at grad school. When he takes notice of a handsome fellow reveler on the dance floor, he leads him upstairs.
Millennial awkwardness: “I’m not gay,” the doe-eyed student tells Elijah. “I’m not either, brah,” Elijah shoots back. The kid asks, “Is this what happens at every party?” “Every party I’m at,” Elijah answers. Welcome to higher education, brah. This kind of thing happens all the time at college, right? Verdict: pretty millennial, not so awkward.
[Note: This scene was mistakenly left out of the first version of this list, which ran on Feb. 16. With so many sex scenes, can you blame us for missing one HJ?]

49. Season 3, Episode 11, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Hannah and Adam are temporarily living apart so Adam can focus on a play he’s acting in, but he still makes time for booty calls.
Millennial awkwardness: More of Hannah’s boobs, of course. In this scene, we also get to see Adam rolling off her and ripping off the condom, something of an Adam Driver signature move, and we sense the trouble ahead when Hannah asks afterward, “Wait, so you’re just gonna leave?”

48. Season 4, Episode 6, Marnie and Desi
Position or act: Standing against a wall
Circumstances of sex: Marnie and Desi, who are trying to make it as a singing duo together while being together-together, have sex in the narrow hallway of Marnie’s apartment, with her up against the wall.
Millennial awkwardness: The most awkward part is that they’re playing one of their own songs while they do it, which is surely the right backdrop for Marnie’s performative moans.

47. Season 6, Episode 8, Hannah and Adam
Position: Cowgirl/lotus
Circumstances of sex: Even though he’s been dating Jessa all season, Adam decides he wants to get back together with Hannah and help her raise her baby. (He’s not the father.) He finds her in a bodega, informs her of his decision, and before long, they’re doing it in her pink bedroom just like old times.
Millennial awkwardness: It’s slow, and the two are careful around Hannah’s now-protruding belly, but they really do seem pretty comfortable around each other, with the ease of people who have done this a million times. It’s sweet. Too bad it can’t last.

46. Season 6, Episode 1, Marnie and Ray
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Marnie is divorcing Desi and back with Ray, officially this time.
Millennial awkwardness: The sex itself is tame for Girls—no nudity—and Marnie climbs right out of bed and heads into her kitchen, which is approximately two feet away. “Sorry, I just have a million things going on,” she says. Ray answers, “That’s OK, I’ve got a bunch of reading for pleasure to do,” before pulling out a copy of A Little Life. That part, at least, is very Girls.

45. Season 5, Episode 3, Hannah and Fran
Position or act: Cowgirl/lotus
Circumstances of sex: Fran is sitting on the couch with Hannah on top of him, you guessed it, shirtless. She’s mad at him but trying not to acknowledge it.
Millennial awkwardness: She won’t look at him, and he says, “I feel like you’re not really here right now.” She’s pissed that he keeps dirty pictures of his exes on his phone. They have sex anyway.

44. Season 4, Episode 9, Jessa and Ace
Position or act: Cowgirl/lotus
Circumstances of sex: This is the only time we see Jessa have sex with Zachary Quinto’s Ace, the guy who used to date Mimi-Rose (Gillian Jacobs), who is now dating Adam.
Millennial awkwardness: They’re in bed, Jessa is wearing a netted bra you can see her nipples through, and she tells him, “You look like a teacher I had in the fourth grade. I thought I wanted my mom to marry him, but I realize now I just wanted to fuck him.” Par for the course for this show and for Jessa in particular.

43. Season 4, Episode 1, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: The two have quiet, passionless, routine sex on their last night together before Hannah goes off to graduate school and an unknown future.
Millennial awkwardness: On Girls, where sex is usually full of noises and dialogue, quiet sex speaks volumes about the state of the relationship of the couple who’s having it.

42. Season 5, Episode 1, Hannah and Fran
Position or act: Cowgirl/lotus
Circumstances of sex: Hannah, bare-chested as ever, is on top of Fran in the front seat of a car at Marnie’s wedding.
Millennial awkwardness: The gag about Hannah having no idea how to put her bridesmaid dress halter top back on afterward is funny in a very Girls-ian way. But this scene is less about the sex than about using sex as an engine to drive the plot, so Hannah can demonstrate how frustrated she is with Marnie’s bridezilla behavior and Fran can reveal that Desi has been engaged seven other times.

41. Season 1, Episode 5, Jessa and her ex-boyfriend
Position or act: Doggy
Circumstances of sex: Jessa bursts into her apartment and has sex with her ex against a window, even though her ex was just telling her about his new partner. She refuses to kiss him afterward.
Millennial awkwardness: In all the rush to get it done, Jessa fails to notice that Shoshanna is home, and though she calls her a “batshit little perv” for watching, she treats it as a teachable moment: “That was me showing that I cannot be smoted. I am unsmoteable.”

40. Season 5, Episode 7, Elijah and Dill
Position or act: Fellatio
Circumstances of sex: Dill shows up drunk at Elijah’s place and starts to give him a blow job.
Millennial awkwardness: Dill falls asleep down there instead of finishing. A good lesson on the perils of drunk sex.

39. Season 5, Episode 6, Marnie and Charlie
Position or act: Cowgirl
Circumstances of sex: Marnie reunites with Charlie after running into him years after their breakup, even though she’s married now.
Millennial awkwardness: After a whirlwind adventure around the city, Charlie brings Marnie back to his scuzzy apartment (he doesn’t even have his own bathroom), and they do it in his bed. A scene more notable for its context than for the specifics of the sex itself.

38. Season 1, Episode 2, Jessa and a guy she meets at a bar
Position or act: Digital stimulation
Circumstances of sex: Avoiding going to the clinic for an abortion, Jessa needs something to take her mind off of it and picks up a stranger.
Millennial awkwardness: They make out, and she orders him, “put your hands down my pants.” “Is that OK?” he asks. “Don’t ask me that ever again in my life,” she answers. No sooner than that does he reveal to her that she’s bleeding—her period has arrived. Theoretically the awkwardness level is high, but Jessa is so blazingly confident that it all feels smoothly executed anyway.

37. Season 2, Episode 10, Marnie and Charlie
Position or act: Cunnilingus
Circumstances of sex: After being broken up for the better part of a season, Marnie and Charlie are back together, and Charlie is going down on her in his apartment.
Millennial awkwardness: “You have no idea how good this feels,” Marnie says. “When did you get so good at this? Seriously. When did you get so good at this. How many people have you slept with since we broke up?” Not the most comfortable discussion, nor the ideal time to raise it.

36. Season 3, Episode 5, Marnie and Ray
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Marnie visits Ray amid a moment of existential confusion and asks him to tell her what’s wrong with her. He explains to her that she is a “big, fat fucking phony.” Marnie appreciates the candor. They have sex on Ray’s table.
Millennial awkwardness: Marnie hastily tries to pull down his pants and asks, “How many pairs of underwear do you wear?” His shirt stays on, such is the rush they’re in. As Marie’s leaving afterward, Ray suggests that maybe they should keep their hookup on the DL, to which Marnie responds, “Go fuck yourself. Like I’d advertise this.” A hate-sex coupling for the ages is born.

35. Season 5, Episode 5, Jessa and Adam
Position or act: Spooning? Missionary? It’s a little hard to tell what’s going on here.
Circumstances of sex: After a painfully awkward first time together, Jessa and Adam start to find their groove.
Millennial awkwardness: This of course includes lots of smacking noises and dirty talk. Jessa confusingly requests, “After you come, pretend like you meant to pull out, and then you’re gonna freak out like you might have gotten me pregnant.” Adam does as directed, and Jessa play-acts, “What am I gonna tell my parents?” To which Adam one-ups her: “What the fuck am I gonna tell coach?”

34. Season 2, Episode 9, Marnie and Charlie
Position or act: Standing
Circumstances of sex: In the time since they broke up and now, Charlie has become a hot rich tech douche. After a memorable performance of “Stronger” at his office party, Marnie remarks on their change of fortunes and how lost she feels, and before long they’re doing it on a desk.
Millennial awkwardness: Marnie worries that his co-workers will see them. “Who gives a fuck?” he answers. This clearly isn’t the same Charlie Marnie broke up with last year for being a wuss.

33. Season 6, Episode 2, Marnie and Desi
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Marnie and Desi are getting divorced and Marnie’s officially with Ray, but she’s still banging Desi on the sly. And feeling horrible about it.
Millennial awkwardness: So guilty does Marnie feel about cheating that when she starts to enjoy the sex, she can’t keep herself from yelling, “I’m disgusting, I’m fucking disgusting!” Desi tries to make her stop, but she keeps going: “I’m worse than my father. I’m a fucking monster!” Still, she reaches orgasm and he doesn’t. “I didn’t come, I’m still hard,” he says. “I don’t feel as though I am going to.” Their issues are completely out in the open, so points for honesty, but it’s still a pretty bleak scene.

32. Season 3, Episode 6, Marnie and Ray
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Marnie and Ray have more hate sex. Marnie asks him if he’s ever seen reality TV, to which he responds that he’s seen the Ken Burns jazz documentary about 17 times—a fitting metaphor for how different these two are.
Millennial awkwardness: In bed, the two are shown from above, Ray’s bare butt exposed to the camera, and Marnie can barely look at him. Peak awkwardness is achieved when Ray says, “Marnie, I think I slipped out.”

31. Season 5, Episode 4, Jessa and Adam
Position or act: Cowgirl; missionary
Circumstances of sex: Jessa and Adam have been trying really hard not to become a couple, but they finally give in.
Millennial awkwardness: It’s their first time doing it after lots of buildup, and it doesn’t go well. They keep stopping each other and switching positions, and eventually Adam says, “Is this what bad sex is like?” Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem all that different from a lot of the sex on the show.

30. Season 3, Episode 11, Marnie and Ray
Position or act: Cowgirl
Circumstances of sex: Hannah hears moans coming from Ray’s room, and despite Adam’s protests, opens the door and catches Marnie and Ray in flagrante, her boob only covered by his head. (The two had up till then managed to keep their hate-sex alliance a secret.)
Millennial awkwardness: We don’t know if the sex itself was awkward, but the fallout sure was. Hannah screams, and Ray says, “What the fuck are you doing?” Hannah commands him to “Put your dick away.” From the other side of Ray, Marnie half-heartedly yelps, “He made me.”

29. Season 3, Episode 10, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Worried that their sex life has grown stale, Hannah tries out role-play. Wearing a blond wig and using an old-timey accent, she brings Adam to Marnie’s apartment and declares, “This is where my husband puts me.”
Millennial awkwardness: Adam plays along, and she undresses to reveal some very complicated lingerie. He also has some very specific instructions for how she should eat strawberries. When they’re actually having intercourse, Hannah changes course and says, “I usually fuck football players, but now I’m fucking the school weirdo. And I’m a cheerleader, and you’ve thought so much about fucking me before.” Adam is thrown (“it doesn’t make any fuckin’ narrative sense”). It doesn’t go well.

28. Season 2, Episode 7, Hannah and Frank
Position: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Hannah is visiting Jessa’s family in the country, where she meets her strange stepbrother, Frank.
Millennial awkwardness: “Are you 18?” Hannah asks Frank when he suddenly kisses her. “No, I’m 19,” he responds, and they have sex in some grass. Afterward, Hannah tells Jessa, “I just had sex with Frank. It lasted for like eight seconds.” For the rest of the episode, she struggles with a urinary tract infection.

27. Season 2, Episode 10, Shoshanna and Ray
Position or act: Spooning
Circumstances of sex: Not all is well in Ray and Shoshanna–land after a season of stops and starts, as she worries that he doesn’t have enough ambition.
Millennial awkwardness: They’re both lying on their sides in bed so he can’t see how uncomfortable she looks as he gropes one of her boobs over her zip-up sweatshirt. She tells him he can finish, and he’s says he won’t finish unless she does. She says he’s being weird, he says she’s being weird, and finally she says, “Will you get out of me?” He does.

26. Season 1, Episode 2. Marnie and Charlie
Position or act: Missionary; doggy
Circumstances of sex: Marnie and Charlie’s long-term–relationship sex life doesn’t seem much better than Hannah and Adam’s new thing, mostly owing to the fact that Marnie can’t stand Charlie.
Millennial awkwardness: As a candle burns on the nightstand, Charlie tells Marnie he wants them to look at each other when they come. Marnie is bored and repulsed and suggests doggy instead, which Charlie thought she hated because it makes her feel like a piggy bank. “No, I said it makes me look like a piggy bank,” she clarifies, annoyed. Meanwhile, he is so enjoying himself that he says “foak!” with a long o instead of fuck.

25. Season 2, Episode 1, Hannah and Sandy
Position or act: Cowgirl/lotus
Circumstances of sex: It’s a new season, and Hannah has a new boyfriend, Sandy, played by Donald Glover. He’s a black Republican and a breath of fresh air from a convalescing Adam.
Millennial awkwardness: She is shirtless as usual, and, in terms of Girls-ness, their dialogue feels like a message to the viewer and a provocation to critics as a new season of a much-discussed show was kicking off, now with a person of color finally on screen: “You wanted this,” Sandy says. “I wanted this so bad,” Hannah responds. “And now you’re getting it,” he says. “Now I’m finally getting it,” she agrees. “It’s about fucking time,” he says.

24. Season 6, Episode 4, Marnie and Ray
Position or act: Doggy
Circumstances of sex: Marnie is having sex over her sink once again—hey, it’s a small apartment. Ray doesn’t know that she’s been cheating on him with Desi.
Millennial awkwardness: Ray may not know about Desi, but he can tell that Marnie’s heart’s not in it as she goes through the motions of a perfunctory fake orgasm. Still, ever the drama queen, afterward she goes on and on about how she wants to “die inside the mouth of a lion” with him. (Also, cleaning herself up, she sticks a paper towel on her crotch and leaves it there.) “Couldn’t we just get dinner sometimes?” Ray responds, sheepishly. These people are on such different pages, they may not even be in the same book.

23. Season 1, Episode 5, Marnie and Charlie
Position or act: Cowgirl
Circumstances of sex: After a fight, Marnie visits Charlie, intending to win him back. All he asks is that she not abandon him.
Millennial awkwardness: The mid–sexual encounter breakup is a Girls specialty. She’s on top of him and their heads are close together, but when he says “I love you,” she pulls away and bumps her head on the top of the bed’s loft. “I wanna break up,” she says.

22. Season 1, Episode 2, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Missionary; masturbation
Circumstances of sex: Hannah and Adam’s second on-screen sexual encounter in the series.
Millennial awkwardness: Oddly specific dirty talk: Adam tells Hannah he knew she wanted it like this when he found her as an 11-year-old junkie in the street with a Cabbage Patch lunchbox. “You’re a dirty little whore, and I’m going to send you home to your parents covered in cum,” he continues, before telling her from then on she needs to ask his permission whenever she wants to come. “That was really good. That was so good. I almost came,” Hannah says. When this is all done, he offers her a Gatorade.

21. Season 1, Episode 10, Shoshanna and Ray
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Shosh’s deflowering. After Jessa’s wedding, Shosh is ready to lose it … she thinks.
Millennial awkwardness: “It doesn’t hurt,” she says, Ray on top of her in bed. “Good, ’cause I haven’t done anything yet,” he answers. “My aunt says it kinda feels like scratching a sunburn,” she offers, pretty nervous. Ray considers stopping because he’s not sure he deserves to have this much power. “But I probably do,” he decides.

20. Season 6, Episode 1, Hannah and Paul-Louis
Position or act: Missionary; doggy
Circumstances of sex: Hannah may have quit surf lessons after a dubious injury, but after a night of alcoholic slushie–fueled dancing at the bar with her surf instructor (Riz Ahmed), she winds up in his (bottom bunk) bed.
Millennial awkwardness: Interestingly, we haven’t seen a lot of drunk sex on this show, and drunk Hannah is even more rambly than usual. Part of what tripped Hannah up during surf lessons—lack of athletic ability—once again stands in her way when Paul-Louis tries to position her limbs in ways she’s not used to, including bending her leg up to her chest while he’s on top of her. They eventually settle into a pretty standard missionary. What saves the encounter from total awkwardness is Paul-Louis’ relentless chill. He is a surfer, after all.

19. Season 3, Episode 1, Jessa and Laura
Position or act: Cunnilingus
Circumstances of sex: After basically outing “fat, gay Laura” (Danielle Brooks) in group therapy at rehab, Jessa offers her an olive branch in the form of oral sex.
Millennial awkwardness: We don’t see much, but we do see rehab administrators walk in on them and pledge to write Jessa up.

18. Season 3, Episode 6, Shoshanna and Parker
Position or act: Standing; doggy
Circumstances of sex: After fellow NYU student and potential boyfriend Parker passes Shosh’s vetting process at the library, they have sex while standing up in her apartment.
Millennial awkwardness: As she’s making plans for their relationship, he’s taking her from behind and asks if they can talk about it later. Bent over a couch, she says, “Honest and open communication about mutual needs is like the cornerstone to any healthy relationship.” “Do you want me to stop?” he asks. “No. There’s no need to terminate sex just ’cause we’re not meant for each other. God, you’re so dumb, Parker.”

17. Season 1, Episode 4, Shoshanna and Matt
Position or act: Cunnilingus
Circumstances of sex: One of Shoshanna’s doomed attempts to lose her virginity in Season 1. Her old camp friend Matt comes over and gets a boner on the couch (“you could touch it if you want”).
Millennial awkwardness: Matt remarks on how chill it is that their hangout has taken a turn for the sexy, compliments Shosh’s “hot rod little bod,” muses on city girls vs. Long Island girls, and starts to go down on her. Then Shosh makes the fatal mistake of revealing her V-card status. Matt pauses, remarking that virgins are “really not my thing.” Shosh protests, “I so don’t get attached when I bleed. You know It’s like amazing, I’m like totally not an attached bleeder,” but the die is cast, and her hymen will remain intact for another few episodes.

16. Season 5, Episode 8, Hannah and Ray
Position or act: Fellatio
Circumstances of sex: Hannah is so thankful that Ray has come to save her when she’s stranded in the middle of nowhere after breaking up with Fran that she decides to reward him with some road head.
Millennial awkwardness: Despite Hannah’s invitation to relax, Ray is initially uncomfortable (“I don’t think this is good for our friendship”). But then he gets into it, closes his eyes … and promptly crashes the van he’s driving into a speed-limit sign. The van then tips over. For those counting, that’s three out of four Girls that Ray has hooked up with throughout the show.

15. Season 1, Episode 6, Hannah and Eric
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Hannah visits her hometown and goes out with a pharmacist she went to high school with.
Millennial awkwardness: A hat trick of awkwardness: First she asks him what his favorite part of “fucking” her is, before they’ve even started; next she slips a finger in his butt (“What are you doing? Please don’t put your finger in my asshole”); and then she whispers to him, “I’m tight like a baby, right?” This Midwestern boy is just not prepared for Hannah’s big-city ways.

14. Season 2, Episode 10, Natalia and Adam
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: After the last time didn’t go so well (see No. 3), Natalia and Adam give it another go.
Millennial awkwardness: Adam keeps veering into overly aggressive territory, which is not what Natalia is looking for. He turns her affirmations that she likes what he’s doing into, “You like my cock? … You’re a dirty little whore, and you love my cock.” She stops and says, “No. I can like your cock and not be a whore.”

13. Season 5, Episode 2, Jessa and Adam
Position or act: Simultaneous masturbation
Circumstances of sex: Jessa and Adam are trying really hard not to get involved with each other, on account of Hannah’s feelings.
Millennial awkwardness: They decide they’re not gonna have sex, no way. “Can we be together but not touch each other?” “Yeah. That’s the whole point. We’re not gonna touch each other.” Cut to them sitting on opposite sides of a couch masturbating. “Don’t look,” Jessa says.

12. Season 6, Episode 10, Marnie and Delvin
Position or act: Virtual sex over video chat
Circumstances of sex: Stuck upstate with Hannah raising Grover, Marnie is starved for male contact and has retreated to her bedroom with her iPhone to take matters into her own hands.
Millennial awkwardness: Marnie’s guiding Delvin though some sort of flight attendant/pilot fantasy—”Do you think I should use the oxygen mask on his dick?”—when Loreen walks in on her, and she throws the phone aside. Loreen later apologizes for having caught Marnie masturbating, but Marnie reveals that actually, she’s talking to a very nice personal trainer from Weehawken, New Jersey. It’s heartwarming, almost, and only as deeply mortifying as you let it be.

11. Season 6, Episode 8, Jessa and a barfly
Position: All we see is some kissing and disrobing, it remains unclear what else happens
Circumstances of sex: Adam has just left Jessa, maybe forever, to be with Hannah and her baby. She falls back on old habits, going to a bar in the middle of the day to pick up a middle-aged and not-particularly-wholesome-looking reg. She lures him into the bathroom with a come-hither stare, and off comes her furry bikini top shortly thereafter, to the soundtrack of Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman.”
Millennial awkwardness: Jessa starts weeping almost immediately. Random sex doesn’t hold the same thrill it once did for this six-seasons-older-and-wiser millennial.

10. Season 5, Episode 5, Hannah and a yoga instructor
Position or act: Cunnilingus
Circumstances of sex: Hannah is at a spa with her mother, in a terrible mood, and starts chatting with Holly, a yoga instructor, even though Hannah is still with Fran at this point. One thing leads to another and …
Millennial awkwardness: Hannah goes down on the yoga instructor but gets uncomfortable midway through. She says she’s too hot (and has a serious case of bed head), and even though Holly begs her to keep going, she stops. It’s no secret that Hannah is selfish, but this is profoundly uncomfortable. Holly finishes on her own and starts to cry/laugh, and Hannah looks on in horror.

9. Season 2, Episode 3, Marnie and Booth Jonathan
Position or act: Doggy, or “prone bone,” which is when a woman is lying flat on her belly
Circumstances of sex: Marnie’s had a crush on Booth since she first met him in Season 1. After she runs into him at work, he brings her back to his place, where he locks her inside one of his art installations for a while.
Millennial awkwardness: Booth is splayed out like a starfish on top of Marnie in his bed, and at one point he commands her to “look at the doll” in the room. “Describe her.” This is what happens when you sleep with an artist, Marnie.

8. Season 1, Episode 6, Loreen and Tad
Position or act: Doggy
Circumstances of sex: While Hannah is out on a date, her parents take part in the ageless pastime of shower sex.
Millennial awkwardness: How does sex between two nonmillennials end up being so millennially awkward? Things start off well enough—“Fuck, that feels good! Wet and wild!,” Hannah’s dad Tad says. But he soon falls (showers being slippery places), and Hannah comes into the house while he’s still naked on the floor. She and her mom help him up.

7. Season 2, Episode 1, Marnie and Elijah
Position or act: Missionary
Circumstances of sex: Hannah and Elijah, now roommates, just had a party at their place, and Elijah and Marnie are reconnecting afterward once everyone’s gone home. It gets flirty.
Millennial awkwardness: Elijah, musing on whether he might be bi, tells Marnie she’s hot. “You know how hot you are, that’s why you’re such a little bitch.” He kisses her, she smacks him, then she reconsiders. But the mood in the room quickly shifts when Elijah has trouble sustaining his erection. “How am I supposed to get hard if you’re rolling your eyes?” This was less a sex scene than two egomaniacs almost getting off on mutual flattery.

6. Season 1, Episode 5, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Masturbation
Circumstances of sex: Adam is confused when Hannah shows up at his place, because he thought they broke up. A little later, he starts to masturbate, and then Hannah is confused—she’s still there, what’s happening? She announces that she’s leaving, at which point Adam asks, “You wanna stay till I finish? You know, for the story?”
Millennial awkwardness: Hannah starts to neg Adam, insulting him for masturbating while she’s standing right there. She goes to start touching herself, and he stops her; it’s a pretty confusing situation. He finishes and says, “shake my hand.” It feels like Hannah has made it to the freaky next level of whatever game Adam is playing.

5. Season 6, Episode 3, Hannah and Chuck Palmer
Position or act: Hmm. What’s it called when a man puts his flaccid penis on a woman’s leg and she grabs it for a second before thinking better of it? That.
Circumstances of sex: A famous novelist invites Hannah to his Central Park West pad to discuss a blog post she’s written criticizing him for using his reputation to take advantage sexually of his younger female fans. Over the course of an episode, he makes her see his side of things, and they come to something like a truce. Then he asks her to lie down with him and whips it out. She grabs it ever so briefly before jumping up and commencing freaking out.
Millennial awkwardness: I know what you’re thinking: Does this even count as a sex scene? But any encounter that so artfully turns the discussion about consent on its head, while involving a flaccid penis and a Tumblr post, deserves a spot on this list.

4. Season 2, Episode 5, Hannah and Joshua
Position or act: Missionary; digital stimulation
Circumstances of sex: After Joshua (Patrick Wilson) comes into the coffee shop where Hannah works to complain that Grumpy’s garbage is ending up in his trash cans, Hannah goes to his house to ’fess up to being the one who put it there. He is beautiful and has a beautiful home, and Hannah kisses him. Before you know it: sex.
Millennial awkwardness: Hannah is at first surprised that a man like Joshua wants to be with her, even apologizing for kissing him, but she eventually gives in to her impulses. She spends a whole day with him, living a life of leisure and luxury, including the famous topless ping-pong game, and it all feels like a weird dream. A guy like Joshua is a lot to take in when one is used to the vicissitudes of twentysomething Brooklyn boys. You’re never more of an awkward millennial than when you’re engaging in cross-generational sex with a storybook-handsome nonmillennial.

3. Season 2, Episode 9, Natalia and Adam
Position or act: Analingus; doggy; masturbation
Circumstances of sex: After an unusually sweet first time together (most of which happens off screen), Natalia sees Adam’s apartment for the first time and calls it depressing. Something’s gotten into Adam, maybe the alcohol he had that night, and he’s back to being the creepy guy we knew in Season 1.
Millennial awkwardness: Awkward would be one word for it; semi-consensual might be another one. Adam tells Natalia to get on all fours and crawl to his room, and she plays along despite being uncomfortable. After he picks her up and puts her on his bed, her distress is compounded; he starts going for her butt and doesn’t seem to care when she protests that she didn’t shower that day. After some doggy-style sex, he pulls out and starts masturbating, and she cries out, “No, no, not on my dress!” He comes on her chest and takes off his shirt to wipe it up, completely silent. She says quietly, “I don’t think I liked that.”

2. Season 4, Episode 1, Marnie and Desi
Position or act: Analingus, otherwise known as butt-motorboating
Circumstances of sex: As Season 4 begins, Desi and Marnie are trying to make it as a singing duo now; also, unbeknownst to Desi’s girlfriend, Desi is seeing Marnie on the side. They can’t be together in public, but in private, anything goes.
Millennial awkwardness: This was the butt motorboat heard ‘round the world. As Marnie stands against the kitchen sink, Desi mashes his face into her butt. “I love that,” Desi says. “I love you, too,” Marnie answers. In terms of awkwardness, Marnie and Desi seem fairly comfortable with each other, but you, the viewer, sure aren’t. It is classic Girls: outrageous, explicit, at once cringey and riveting, and also a great vehicle for character development.

1. Season 1, Episode 1, Hannah and Adam
Position or act: Anal, briefly; doggy
Circumstances of sex: We’ve just met Hannah, an aimless twentysomething who’s about to be cut off financially by her parents. She calls Adam to tell him she is in his neighborhood coincidentally, a bald-faced lie.
Millennial awkwardness: Where would we be without this scene from the pilot, which set the template for all Girls sex scenes to follow? It’s the measure against which all future millennial sex scenes would be judged, and with each line of dialogue, a thousand think pieces bloomed. Hapless Hannah has trouble getting her tights off, and Adam isn’t super-responsive to her requests. (“Will you get a condom?” “I’ll consider it.”) Hannah’s attempts to be both hot and conscientious at the same time result in a constant stream of chatter, which eventually leads Adam to say, “let’s play the quiet game.” This was the trailblazing scene that took two naked twentysomething bodies and dared to show us that they could have sex and it didn’t have to be sexy at all.