Offred, one the few fertile women known as Handmaids in the oppressive Republic of Gilead, struggles to survive as a reproductive surrogate. Photo / Supplied
Several of the most acclaimed new TV shows of 2017 have also drawn widespread attention due to the confronting nature of their sex scenes.
What was shown on screen shocked viewers - so what must these scenes have been like for the actors to film?
Leads in two of this year's most talked about shows, Big Little Lies star Nicole Kidman and The Handmaid's Tale's Elisabeth Moss, open up about the specific challenges of these scenes as part of an illuminating new roundtable interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Kidman's character in Big Little Lies, Celeste, is trapped in a complex, abusive relationship with her controlling husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgard). What start out as racy sex scenes between the pair often turn violent in an instant - and vice versa.
Kidman's brave and revealing performance during these scenes garnered much acclaim - and she credits director Jean-Marc Vallée with helping to create the right atmosphere on set.
"A lot of it was just the way Jean-Marc shoots, which I love. There was no rehearsal, there was just, walk into the room and do the scene, and he would shoot it. It's a fantastic way to do a performance like this because you're just in it, particularly for the sex scenes," she told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kidman said this blurring of the lines between sex and violence took a toll, both physically and emotionally.
"I remember lying on the floor in the last episode, being in my underwear and having just been really thrown around. I just lay on the floor. I couldn't get up. I didn't want to get up. And I remember Jean-Marc coming over and putting a towel over me in between the takes because I was just like ... I just felt completely humiliated and devastated. And angry inside.
"I went home and I threw a rock through a glass door. I was obviously holding all that rage at what had been done."
Kidman's Big Little Lies co-star Reese Witherspoon said she remembered fielding a call from her shaken colleague.
"We were staying at a hotel and she called me and she says, 'I've just done the craziest thing.' She got home from work and she had one of these horrible scenes and she goes, 'I couldn't get into my hotel room so I threw a rock through the window.' And she goes, 'I don't do stuff like that'."
Elisabeth Moss stars in another of the most acclaimed shows on TV at the moment, The Handmaid's Tale, playing 'Offred' - one of a select few female slaves trying to survive in the US after the fall of democracy.
In this horrifying new version of America - now called 'Gilead' - birthrates have dropped so low that the few fertile women are held captive as 'Handmaids', to be used by their masters for procreation.
What follows are some of the most distressing rape scenes ever seen on screen: When she is ovulating, Offred must go to her master's (Joseph Fiennes') chambers, and lay on his bed as he rapes her. To complete the 'ceremony', the master's wife sits behind her on the bed, holding her hands.
The scenes are deathly silent and tortuously long, as Offred stares at the ceiling, waiting for her ordeal to be over for another month.
Moss said it took her some time to figure out what how her character would behave in these scenes.
"I just thought, 'What would one do in this situation?' Which sounds so oversimple, perhaps, but I was just like, 'If you were being sexually assaulted on a regular basis and you knew there was nothing you could do about it, what would you do?' There's no escape and you can't fight back. And so I thought, 'Well, she would probably try not to be there - try to go somewhere else'," she said.
"In the shooting of it, it was really important for us to have it be extremely clinical, mechanical; there's nothing remotely sexual about it. It was really important to show it exactly for what it should be. That no one is enjoying this. That all three parties are in a terrible place."
Moss said the true awkwardness would come whenever the director yelled 'cut' and the three actors locked in this bizarre tableau would have to make small talk.
"Everyone's in an awkward position. There's usually, 'Am I hurting you?'
That kind of thing. And then you do it again. And there are 65 people watching and so it's not as dramatic as anyone thinks it might be."