The Sex Lives of College Girls Is Digging Deeper Into the Core Four's Full Lives

[Warning: The following contains spoilers from Season 2, Episodes 3 & 4 of The Sex Lives of College Girls. Read at your own risk!]

The first season of The Sex Lives of College Girls was lauded for giving a humorous and unabashed look at the sex lives of women in young adulthood. It's rare that we can see young women being horny and experimenting sexually without shame and the four roommates at the center of the show – Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet), Bella (Amrit Kaur), Leighton (Renee Rapp), and Whitney (Alyah Scott) – were all messy and relatable in their own way. The girls are still figuring themselves out in Season 2, but what has made the second season even more compelling is how the show is exploring the girls growing up both in and out of the bedroom. 

"When you have a conversation surrounding sex and women, it becomes this very kind of like 'Ooooh,' thing all the time. Sometimes when women are sexualized, or even want to sexualize themselves, there's this bulls—t thing where all of a sudden that becomes their identity," Rapp told TV Guide when discussing this season. "That is not it for these girls. Is being gay part of Leighton's identity? Yes, in a different sense. Their sex lives are not their identities, but it's an important part of who they are in a way that is accepted, just like their schooling and Whitney being super f—king smart. Leighton being super fun and smart. They have these aspects of them that are not just physical." 

The "smart" thing becomes apparent in the third and fourth episodes of the season, as both Whitney and Leighton find themselves sidelined sexually for very different reasons. Whitney has been dumped by her boyfriend after having a major insecure freakout and Leighton is temporarily persona non grata after spreading chlamydia to an undetermined number of sexual partners. Where they overlap is finding a new sense of confidence in the classroom. 

For Whitney, single life and no soccer pushes her to find a love of science, which is going to shape her arc for the rest of the season. "She has to deal with the idea of not being the most secure in herself and needing to know how to be the most secure in herself, what avenues she can take to find that," Scott said. "Weirdly enough, it's science that gives it to her, which I love. I think she is forced to kind of fall in love with science and herself because of science." 

Meanwhile, Leighton learns to embrace the fact that she's really good at math, like Lindsay-Lohan-in-Mean-Girls-queen-of-the-mathletes good at math. Rapp, for one, loves seeing Leighton being in charge of her sexuality and owning her gifts this season. "It's nice to see somebody's insides finally reflected on their outsides," the actress said. "I really, really, really like that. She is just much more in her body and much more grounded to me, even though she's dealing with things that she's never dealt with before. And I really like to watch her just go crazy." 

As for the chlamydia situation, don't expect that to keep Leighton on the sidelines for very long. It's a minor blip on her sexual radar. "I don't think she feels much shame," Rapp said. "She's literally only a little embarrassed and then she's got her god complex where it gets back to, 'I am really hot.' Then she falls in love a couple times. I really resonate with her deeply [this season]. She's just a wild woman." 

And we can't wait to see more. Sex Lives of College Girls continues Thursdays on HBO Max.