A month after Nicole Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, the trailer for Babygirl was released. Discourse stirred, as it does online, and there was a contingent of netizens upset once the premise was revealed. The film follows Romy (Nicole Kidman), the head honcho of a tech company, who engages in a torrid affair with Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a young intern interested in dominating her.

Of course, plenty were excited, but a deeper scroll through various comment sections showed a little less enthusiasm: “ever since I realized he’s not the titular Babygirl but she is, I’ve lost all interest in this film” or “I would watch this if the roles were reversed” or “I thought it was gonna be like, he is her babygirl” or “fumble of the century”, etc. Frankly, these comments were very annoying to me, but I understand the sentiment. Sure, there are definitely people who simply want to see a subby Harris Dickinson—may their wish be granted one day—but some of the backlash reads as irritation with a smidge of contempt.

Sex has always been portrayed in cinema, but the (male) portrayal of female sexuality was usually monolithic: depicted as objects, as muses, as table dressing; always in service to a man, an obedient woman decorating the great hero who was macho enough to tame her. Exceptions exist, but from the blockbusters and sci-fi films of the '70s, erotic thrillers of the '80s, action dramas of the '90s and everything else in between, it really feels like all we ever see in movies is sexually docile women.

I say feels like because it’s not as prevalent in cinema as people realize: there’s been endless commentary on how modern cinema is sexless, for one—and feature length narratives focused on women exploring the depths of their sexual desires are not as easy to come by. In the case of 21st century BDSM cinema, we have Secretary (2002), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) (which frankly did more harm than good), and recent films like Sanctuary (2023) which actually had reversed gender roles (dominatrix Margaret Qualley!) There are certainly more obscure indie examples, but if we’re talking Hollywood, the selection is truly sparse.

The adverse reaction is less about movies and more about our current culture. From the BookTok-induced obsession with smutty romance books starring borderline abusive male love interests, to girls online enforcing the gender binary through seemingly harmless jokes, infantilizing themselves with phrases like “I’m just a girl”, aspiring to be jobless “soft feminine” wives of rich men, the concerning rise of “trad wife” culture – all coinciding with a slow worldwide descent into facism, with real, damaging effects for all women and girls. In times like these, why would any self-proclaimed feminist welcome an erotic thriller where the female lead is being dominated by a man? Better yet, why would a feminist allow herself to be dominated by a man, period? How dare you advocate for female liberation if you’re going to be yielding in your personal life?

Enter Babygirl. Romy Mathis is a CEO of a robot shipping company, a capitalist success story: she’s girlbossed her way to the top of the corporate ladder, a millionaire with a theater director husband (Antonio Banderas) and two healthy daughters, multiple capacious properties and employees who put her on a pedestal. She has her botox appointments, EMDR therapy, everything she thinks she needs to show up as the spitting image of polished and poised femininity. Her achievements have brought her great respect, but has made her slightly desolate and guarded. Her husband of over two decades has never given her an orgasm, and her deep-rooted sexual suppression, coupled with a childhood in communes and cults that she is perhaps yet to unpack and the pressure of maintaining her perfect life, is causing something to slip through the cracks.

Samuel identifies this in her, and through testing her boundaries is able to unravel the tight ribbon she’s bound herself with. They enter an amateur Dominant/submissive relationship, both of them inexperienced in the dynamic and a bit awkward and unsure, but extremely wanting. Their relationship is not a romantic one—it’s deeply personal and intimate, yes, but they only bear to each other the sides of themselves they cannot bear to others. Samuel’s rule—I tell you what to do and you do it—may seem like coercion to the untrained eye, but it is an invitation for Romy to trust him with abandon, to relinquish all of her power and finally find release and freedom in submission.

And God, it’s just so hot. There's a certain thrill you experience when you’re about to live out a fantasy you’ve always wanted for the first time, and the excitement between them is palpable. Twenty minutes into the film I nearly jumped out of my seat to cheer for how unapologetically horny it was—imagine how I felt for the rest of the runtime. It’s not as explicit as one might expect (there’s no full frontal, for instance, go see Nosferatu for that) – but it’s the seduction, the play, that’s meant to get your gears going.

Nicole Kidman is, as everyone says, incredible and daring in this role, and Dickinson, too, brings life to Samuel, even when it’s not always on the page. Just as Romy performs her femininity, he is experimenting with his masculinity: he orders her to get on her knees then laughs at the absurdity of the request; he admits to her that sometimes he is afraid of himself. Self-discovery and vulnerability is core to BDSM relationships—trying things out, building a safe space for yourself to explore the facets of your mind that seem frightening or even silly.

Although the threat of what’s at stake fuels their power play, married or not, a CEO should not be sleeping with an intern. In moments of desperation the two will play mind games with each other, the power dynamic reverses, and a distance flickers between them. Romy’s husband Jacob is clearly the love of her life, and is not some “beta cuck” as they say—he’s Antonio Banderas, for god sake. But his chivalry hasn’t prevented him from being completely oblivious to his wife’s needs. He can’t fathom the fantasies that she craves, and she knows that. Through her fear of rejection and her deep shame, she has suppressed it, tried to ignore it, diminish it, to the detriment of their marriage.

Romy cries that she wishes she were normal, that she wishes she could be what he liked—a confession that stabbed me right in the gut. I am someone who worries a lot about the future of women. I care about feminism and female autonomy. I understand that something as small as a TikTok trend can affect the way we view ourselves. There is always an internal struggle of what we should be, and what we should reject. Desire is something so carnal, so personal, and so revealing, that when it doesn’t align with your image of yourself, or what you know to be true, what you think you should want, it feels like there’s something deeply wrong with you. There can be nothing more shameful, more petrifying, than your own sexuality.

That’s why by the end, when Romy is finally able to self-actualize, it felt like I was right there with her. She’s still an assertive, brilliant woman, a loving wife, and a responsible mother. But now, the once-sedated animal inside of her can exist and breathe, wielded at her will, without contradicting any of the other parts of herself. To me, that’s aspirational. A lot of people may see Babygirl as ultimately simple or plain, an adult erotic novel given a prestige sheen for the silver screen. But I felt myself come alive watching it, like it was a gift, a tall glass of milk ordered just for me.

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