After more than a decade away from film, Gregg Araki is back with I Want Your Sex, following a fresh-faced 23-year-old (Cooper Hoffman) who lands a job working for renowned artist and provocateur Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). Things quickly take a turn, though, as Erika chooses him to become her sexual muse.
The erotic comedy plays into a recent trend of projects depicting older women in relationships with younger men, including 2024’s Babygirl and a side plot in Marty Supreme. Co-writer Karley Sciortino recently wrote an op-ed about Hollywood’s love of the new age gap, and at the movie’s L.A. premiere on Tuesday, Araki explained, “In the patriarchy, that’s normal, for the pretty young thing to be with the old rich guy. As women gain more power and more income and wealth, I think that it’s great that the tables get evened out a little bit.”
Wilde — who has her own personal experience with age gap romances and the backlash that can surround them, from her time dating Harry Styles — celebrated “the fact that audiences are really open to a trend that for so long was dominated by the traditional older man, younger woman narrative. I think it’s exciting that people are breaking out of their boxes in different ways. I loved Babygirl; I think it’s exciting that people are open to different kinds of sexy love stories.”
