“I was told there would be strap-ons here,” Karley Sciortino said to a “random lawyer” at the I Want Your Sex Sundance after-party. The former Vogue sex columnist and host of Vice’s Slutever is the co-writer of Gregg Araki’s highly anticipated new film, a dom-sub comedy starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman. “Their performances add humanity to something that in the hands of the wrong actors could have felt a little stupid,” Sciortino tells The Cut. “Not that stupid is always bad, but less relatable, less moving, less complicated, less nuanced.”
Inspired by a relationship Sciortino had when she was 25, I Want Your Sex premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival after spending over 12 years in development. “There is something very exciting and deep to explore about a sexual coming-of-age story and having your mind blown and your world opened up to a new sexual dynamic,” she says. “Even if that relationship ends up being totally wrong for you and blows up your life — it’s ultimately worth it and changes your life for the better.”
Flying into Park City, Sciortino opted to leave the sweatpants at home and wore a “real outfit” to the airport — a vintage red tartan J.Crew men’s sweater, Uniqlo slacks, and sensible flat loafers — in the hopes of a meet-cute. “My new travel hack is not to look like total shit at the airport,” she says. The last time she was here, it was for the premiere of Now Apocalypse, the 2019 television series she co-wrote with Araki. On her first night in Park City, she checked in at the chic Pendry Hotel before grabbing drinks and celebratory cigarettes with I Want Your Sex stars Hoffman and Chase Sui Wonders. “There’s something really nice about being around young people who haven’t been jaded yet,” Sciortino says. “They ooze excitement and possibility; it’s really infectious.”
A sold-out premiere at the Eccles Theater included the Apatow family, but Sciortino was most titillated by an Alexander Skarsgård sighting elsewhere during the festival — his BDSM film, Pillion, is high on her watchlist. After four vodka-sodas and some networking at the after-party, Sciortino retired to her hotel room without experiencing too much debauchery and sent off a “lovey drunk text” to a group chat with Wilde and Hoffman to thank them for bringing her and Araki’s vision to life before passing out. “I hope that people go see this movie and make an insane sexual decision afterward,” she says. “To be a bit more sexually adventurous … that’s the central message of the movie, underneath all the colorful, camp, ridiculous pegging.”
Below, Sciortino shares the snapshots that defined her time at the final Sundance Film Festival hosted in Park City.
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