A Valuable, Shot-by-Shot Description of Fifty Shades of Grey’s First Sex Scene

How much sex is there in the big-screen version of Fifty Shades of Grey? Some! There is some sex in this sex-obsessed movie, all of it very carefully portrayed, and none of it occurring until around the 40-minute mark, when billionaire dominant Christian Grey (played by Jamie Dornan, who is a very good actor for someone whose eyeballs are 100 percent pupil) and his submissive new girlfriend Anastasia Steele (played by champion lip-biter Dakota Johnson) finally have their first encounter. This sequence isn’t one of the movie’s big S&M scenes — those come later, and memorably involve Dornan stroking Johnson’s hush with a gigantic peacock feather (!!!) — but we have nevertheless endeavored to give you the gist of their first hookup with a shot-for-shot description of every kiss, thrust, and moan. What goes on when these two get down? You know you’re curious.

1. Together in the bedroom, Jamie Dornan pulls down Dakota Johnson’s pants in a shot that is weirdly backlit to emphasize her leg hair. There’s a lot of it! Who knew?
2. Dornan stands up and pulls off Johnson’s tank top. Her bra remains on, but is clearly as anxious to leave as Charlie Hunnam was.
3. Dornan mashes his face into her face in a move I’ve often seen described as a kiss.
4. He unhooks her bra straps. As the garment drifts down her shoulders, we get our first glimpse of Dakota Johnson’s nipples, which somehow receive more screen time in this movie than her co-star Rita Ora.
5. Dornan kisses Johnson’s neck and she throws back her head as if to say, Here is even more neck.
6. It’s time for Johnson to get on the bed for some basic missionary sex. Oh, the things this movie dares to portray!
7. Kissing down the length of her body, Dornan vigorously makes out with Johnson’s panties, then buries his face in her inner thigh, a go-to move for simulating oral sex that you might recognize from every Cinemax movie ever made (not that I’ve ever watched one of those movies, Mom).
8. Dornan unbuttons his shirt. While the movie literally stops in its tracks several times to give Jamie Dornan’s bare chest its due, be forewarned that his pecs are also studded with character-relevant scars that look like nothing so much as cat nipples. So every time he goes shirtless, it’s both sexy and confusing … which, let’s be honest, is sort of Fifty Shades of Grey in a nutshell.
9. Jamie Dornan takes off his pants. Cute ass!
10. As Dornan climbs on top of Johnson, you alllllmost get a Ben Affleck–in–Gone Girl moment, but don’t get your hopes up, kids: There’s a slim centimeter of upper todger later in the movie, but that’s about it on the male-full-frontal front.
11. Dornan extensively kisses Johnson between her breasts. Do straight men seriously prefer kissing a breastplate instead of the real, available breasts on either side of it, or is this just something that R-rated movies would have me believe? Are straight guys like, “It’s cool and all that you’re showing me your boobs, but I’d rather make out with the place the heart goes”? I’m asking for a friend.
12. Dornan reaches towards Johnson’s panty area with a curled hand gesture I can only describe as a scoop. He’s gonna scoop her! Is this a thing? I’m learning so much!
13. You literally see Dakota Johnson’s toes curl, LOL.
14. Those stubborn panties finally come off. I should note here that the women at my screening audibly gasped each and every time they got a glimpse of Dakota Johnson’s pubes. The movie could not have elicited bigger gasps from them if Christian Grey murdered a dog.
15. Dornan bites into a condom, foreshadowing a subplot where Christian asks Anastasia if she’s procured oral contraceptives from his doctor yet. I’m not kidding, that’s actually a scene in this movie.
16. Pinning Johnson to the bed with his hands over both her wrists, Dornan thrusts mercilessly into her merkin.
17. Johnson tries to touch Dornan, but he thwarts her caress. He is too dark and damaged (but in a sexy way) to allow any sort of physical contact aside from kissing, spanking, lip-biting, hair-pulling, and todger-in-vagina. A stray hand graze on his shoulder would really be too much!
18. THRUSTING!
19. NIPPLES!
20. In another move ganked from late-night Cinemax, the camera decorously pans away from our lovers and drifts up Christian’s bedroom wall … until we arrive at a mirrored ceiling window, which gives us one last, unexpected view of Jamie Dornan thrusting away at his willing captive. Truly, there is no ass like bonus ass.