Why Heated Rivalry Works—and Why Its Popularity Isn’t Actually Surprising

The Bothered Blog

By Allison Whaley, CEO & Founder, Bothered Stories

If you’ve spent any time online lately, you’ve probably encountered Heated Rivalry—through memes, recommendations, or everyone in your orbit suddenly discovering they care deeply about a pair of fictional men who absolutely should not want each other and very much do. Shortly after its U.S. debut in late November 2025, Heated Rivalry ascended to No. 2 on HBO Max’s Top 10 most-watched series chart. The story has vaulted into the pop culture zeitgeist.

On the surface, Heated Rivalry looks niche. It’s about professional hockey. It centers a gay male romance. It’s unapologetically smutty. Taken all together, it might seem surprising that the story broke out of these niche spaces and lodged itself so firmly in the broader cultural conversation.

But the frenzy actually makes sense—and the surprise surrounding it reveals outdated assumptions about queer stories, a dismissal of romance as serious craft, and an underestimation of how much people want these stories. 

Much of the early commentary around Heated Rivalry focused on how baffling it is that so many women love it. Straight women and lesbians alike have openly declared their obsession—gay singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile told Anderson Cooper on CNN, “It’s all I can think about. I can’t even sleep at night without thinking about Heated Rivalry.” The commentary goes: Why would women be so invested in a story about two men? To me, this confusion is itself confusing.

For one thing, women are trained from an early age to understand male points of view in order to navigate the world, succeed at work, and participate in a culture long centered on men. Male experience has been treated as the default, and women have been expected to meet it where it is. For many women, this kind of perspective-taking is second nature.

But this isn’t just about women. Readers and viewers of all genders routinely step into perspectives far removed from their own. We love fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, romance. No one is shocked when readers become deeply invested in stories about time travelers, dragons, or aliens. Good storytelling invites identification across difference.

So why, then, does it still surprise people that women—or straight men—might be deeply moved by a gay male romance?

The surprise doesn’t come from storytelling logic; it comes from lingering homophobia. From the outdated belief that queer stories are somehow not universal, that they require special justification, or that they are meant only for people who share that identity. The question “why would they like this?” exposes the assumption that straight audiences shouldn’t—as if queerness were a barrier to empathy rather than simply another lens through which human desire, rivalry, tenderness, and joy can be explored.

Heated Rivalry answers that question clearly. The show resonated because people want queer joy—stories where queer desire is not tragic or sidelined, but central and celebrated.

Structurally, Heated Rivalry works because it is, quite simply, a well-crafted smutty romance.

Strip away the supposedly “niche” elements and what remains is a familiar—and highly effective—story engine: two characters with a powerful connection and real obstacles to being together. Escalating tension. Character arcs that unfold over the course of the story and feature clear emotional growth (Rosonov’s evolution toward authenticity and vulnerability is a clear example of this).

Good romance relies on character development, pacing, conflict, and payoff. Hollander’s injury, Rosanov’s father’s death, Rose as the ill-fated girlfriend, Kip and Scott as foils– these are crucial narrative building blocks that force both men to confront what they want and what they’re willing to risk. The climax—that scene where Hollander’s mother exclaims, “But you hate him!”, Hollander responds “I love him”, and viewers everywhere exhale—is classic romance storytelling, and it all combines to create a deeply meaningful story that keeps us captivated from start to finish.

Good romance also understands that sex scenes matter most when they are embedded in story—when they reveal something, change something, or raise the stakes. Heated Rivalry delivers all of this. Moreover, its graphic, unapologetically hot scenes feature sex that feels real (unlike many heterosexual TV scenes, where sex is often dark, slow, moody, performative—and unrelatable).

The romance genre is enormous—by book sales, it’s the highest-grossing fiction genre, generating over $1.4 billion annually—and yet it continues to be relegated to the literary margins: not taken seriously, dismissed as lesser than. 

Heated Rivalry reminds us why that relegation is misguided. Viewers who don’t consider themselves romance fans found themselves invested, emotionally wrecked, and hungry for more. Its popularity is proof that the audience for well-crafted smut is far larger than conventional wisdom admits.

Which brings us back to “niche.”

Yes, hockey is niche. Yes, gay male romance is considered niche. But strong storytelling dissolves those boundaries. When a story centers desire honestly (and yes, graphically), builds tension skillfully, and offers joy without apology, people respond.

That’s the space Bothered Stories exists in. We publish bold, thoughtful, genuinely hot fiction. Stories that center pleasure—including queer joy—because those stories have always been worth telling, and because audiences want them.

If you’re hungry for more male-male romance, you might start with I’m Not Touching You, which keeps the sweaty sports energy in a near-future world of human–robot competition; Teach Me, where a one-night stand leaves one man quietly unraveling; or Suspended in Amber, where busy but devoted husbands finally claim a long-awaited night together.

Heated Rivalry didn’t succeed despite what it is. It succeeded because people love a well-crafted, meaningful, and hot-as-hell romance. Thanks, Heated Rivalry, for paving the way. We need more stories like yours (enter Bothered Stories!) and people willing to claim them without apology.

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About the Author

Allison Whaley is the CEO and Founder of Bothered Stories, a subscription platform publishing smart, smutty stories. If you liked what you read here, consider joining us.