Friday, December 11, 2015

Phallic Friday - sex on TV

I'm really excited by this that I just saw on news.com.au (here) - it's about Channel 9 in Australia, planning on a new Sex Ed show for 2016.

After reading the article, my excitement has waned because it's saying that advertiser backlash might mean the end of the show - even before it begins. That is so incredibly disheartening.

The article says the show will be done by the people who did Married At First Sight. Now maybe the show was a bit dorky, and maybe the couples weren't all raging successes... but the show was good. The people who matched the couples were insightful and took risks. They were calm, professional, focussed and sensible. They used logic and rationale to arrange 'blind dates' and then could explain the couples' reactions at each stage of the process. It was fascinating to watch. I wrote a post on the Naughty Ninjas about the show - you can find it here.

So...back to the Sex Ed show. If it's an educational show...why would advertisers not support it? God, all the shit that's on TV where murder, violence, and all sorts of 'bad' sex is brought into your lounge room in the form of movies and news reports, the show that's going to make advertisers balk is an educational show about sex. Heaven forbid we tell people what sex really is about!

The article talks about the 1992 show called Sex (and seriously, there's no way it was THAT long ago!) where advertisers refused to be associated with the show, and after the first season, the presenter quit (it doesn't say why; but I wonder if being the host of the show caused a backlash for Sophie Lee?) and after another season the show was dropped because of the backlash.

I used to watch Sex, avidly. I think I've mentioned it in posts on here before. It wasn't a sensationalised show, it was informative and educational. We used to discuss it in the office at work, and I know sometimes we were educated by the segments that had been on.

As a society, we're hopeless at discussing sex in a matter-of-fact way. We treat it as something to be hidden, ashamed of, embarrassed by. When we're becoming so brave and starting to discuss domestic violence, and mental health, and other formerly taboo subjects, it's about time someone took a leading role and began to talk about sex openly.

Sex education needs to be freely available, especially for teens today. Porn is so readily available, yet often doesn't give positive sexual messages. I hope Channel 9 and Sex Ed does that. I hope they pave the way for Australian society to became more accepting and more open to sex discussions.

I for one will be avidly watching Sex Ed, and hopefully discussing the show with others - or at the very least I'll discuss it on here!

2 comments:

  1. Funny. Advertisers will support 'embarrassing bodies' which while not about sex shows some pretty explicit stuff on prime time TV and I think that show rates its socks off. Reality TV is all the rage, but not with a sex show? (I bet it would work if they did a reality show on a porn set). Maybe people like to see the horror stories, but don't want the factual nitty gritty. No idea. I agree with you - it is like a last taboo.

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    1. Good points, Lily. Embarrassing Bodies does rate it's socks off and it is explicit and it has advertising. Excellent point. I hope that means times have changed and sex ed will be more accepted and rate well.

      There's a reality show on Channel 11 I think, called Dating Nude or Nude dating or something. I see the shorts when I watch something else, and I always think I should have a look at it but haven't remembered to yet. I wonder how that rates?

      Thanks for your thoughts :)

      Cate xo

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