Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Why has TV gone sex-mad?
Do show bosses go too far or has our attitude to TV romps changed?
AFTER weeks of titillating foreplay, the BBC’S raunchy new relationship drama got off with a bang. Well, it actually started with sex therapist, Joy, giving herself an orgasm after hubby Alan proved a bedroom letdown 60 seconds in.
Minutes later, a female teacher caught a colleague fiddling with himself over a lingerie catalogue, then Joy re-appeared in a see-through nightie, stockings and suspenders trying to raise Alan’s spirits.
Before episode one was over we’d had 14 “f***s”, mucky movies, car sex, drug sex and a fantasy featuring training shoes. It’s little wonder BBC bosses were “bracing themselves” for a flood of complaints about Wanderlust.
They call the six-part series “the most frank drama about sex and relationships ever shown on BBC One”. But others, like campaign group Mediawatch-uk, call it “nothing more than soft porn dressed up as a mid-life crisis”.
Wanderlust stars Toni Collette, 45, as Joy and Steven Mackintosh, 51, as Alan – a loving couple exploring an open relationship to revive their lustless marriage.
“Someone told me I was the first woman to have an orgasm on the BBC,” said Collette. “And I’m happy to take the accolade.”
But while critics see it as “a searingly insightful and funny exploration of relationships” others think TV is now obsessed with sex. And that even our post-watershed shows are too near the knuckle.
We’ve had graphic hate sex in Doctor Foster, with Suranne Jones, bare bums in The Night Manager, starring Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Debicki and steamy romps with George Blagden in Versailles. Last year’s Apple Tree Yard featured a couple having sex in a broom cupboard, and on Sunday, in Bodyguard, a Home Secretary was seen masturbating in a hotel room.
In the thriller, Keeley Hawes is politician Julia Montague, who has an affair with her personal protection officer, DI David Budd, played by Richard Madden.
In the steamy second episode, viewers copped a look at DI Budd in the nud – after the pair had another romp.
Viewers have complained the sex is excessive and unnecessary to the plot.
But Bodyguard creator Jed Mercurio insists: “It’s very important to their relationship… it creates a complication.
“It’s not about the titillation of the sex scene. It’s the fact that it complicates their relationship in a way which creates intrigue and possible bluffs and double bluffs and raises questions about their honesty towards each other.”
The age difference is important too. He says: “Yes, the female is older than the male, but also she is a much more powerful person in society and that’s part of the tension in their relationship.”
So is all the fuss about Bodyguard and Wanderlust overplayed? What about “shockingly explicit” series from the past.
The 1976 drama Bouquet of Barbed Wire featured infidelity, sadomasochism and incestuous desire, but 26 million viewers tuned in to watch.
Samantha’s antics in Sex and the City got viewers hot under the collar back in 1998 – but now we barely bat an eyelid at her sex-swings and geriatric lovers.
Sean Bean and Joely Richardson went at it like rabbits as gamekeeper and
It’s not about the titillation of the sex scene JED MERCURIO THE CREATOR OF BODYGUARD
mistress in Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1993. In 1999, Channel 4 followed the love lives of three gay men in Queer As Folk. One scene showing a character teaching a teenager bedroom techniques drew 160 viewer complaints.
And in 2002, Tipping The Velvet caused a stir as it featured lesbian lovers and lots of sex toys.
Aren’t raunchy new series, such as Bodyguard, just a natural progression, reflecting changing attitudes to sex? A recent Ofcom survey even showed that viewers are far more offended by swearing on TV than sex scenes.
Wanderlust creator Nick Payne thinks it is sex as part of characters’ development, not gratuitous bonking.
He said: “As long as everyone could understand why an ‘explicit’ moment had to be in the story, there was never a problem with it. If we had stuff that felt like we were trying to be salacious or titillating – then we just cut it.
“Often in romantic dramas you see people meeting up and getting together and hanging out, then they kiss and you cut to the next morning. I’ve always wondered what happens if you make the sex the driver of the story, so you explore these romantic lives through all the sh*gging.”
Director Luke Snellin thinks viewers will feel “refreshed” by the “unique and different” drama. He said: “Hopefully there will be married couples watching this show and having conversations. It’s good, it’s healthy.”
Sex and relationship expert Dr Pam Spurr agrees that raunchy TV shows can start healthy conversations.
She said: “We have reached the stage where anything goes, as long as it’s not offensive or illegal.” She thinks hit movie 50 Shades of Grey changed the way sex is portrayed on screen.
She said “It was groundbreaking as it allowed more people to discuss fantasies they had always feared weird or odd. And they found out they were really perfectly normal.
“Now TV shows like Wanderlust are just taking things a step further. Women in their 40s, 50s and beyond love to see characters like themselves being sexually confident.
“Younger people aren’t that interested in sex on TV. They don’t want the same old ‘X-gets-off-with-y’ dramas. If TV shows want younger audiences, they will have to feature more diverse sex.”
So, Wanderlust may well be “the most frank drama about sex and relationships ever shown on BBC One”.
But not for long. Inevitably, even raunchier screen sex is coming soon.
Brace yourself, Auntie…