One thing Bridgerton has unquestionably mastered is the depiction of sex. This season, women’s pleasure once again takes centre stage with several conversations about orgasms, or “pinnacles” and several references to past steamy scenes, including last season’s infamous carriage exchange.

Sex is everywhere. It spills out of every image, from every surface. The glistening chandeliers, colourful flower arrangements, lights and decoration all contribute to the horny mise-en-scene. The combination of framing, lighting, colour, performance and production design combine to create a sexy vibe.

Within such excess, small gestures take on a new erotic significance – a gentle kiss on the wrist, a touch of fingertips, a glance across the room. All of this contributes to a feminine model of desire that is multi-orgasmic, expanding pleasure across the screen rather than containing it to an individual sex scene. The fourth season of Bridgerton does not disappoint on this front.

This season’s central romance is inspired by the Cinderella trope, where class and social division are the main obstacles for the lovers. It raises a timely discussion of power, particularly pertinent to depictions of sex in a post #MeToo era.

This season focuses on the second eldest son, Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson), and is so far adapted quite closely from Julia Quinn’s third Bridgerton novel An Offer from a Gentleman. Benedict is a self-proclaimed “lover of pleasure, a free spirit, untrammelled by mere convention”.

Pursuing a career as an artist, Benedict has come to be known as........

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