Channel 4 has a history of exploitation-driven programming. From the racist-baiting ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ to the freak-show spectacle of ‘The Undateables’ – no group is safe when it comes to the pandering of public interest.
Now, in the network’s latest scheme, the audience itself stars as the prime tableau for ridicule and scorn. It is Channel 4’s ‘campaign for real sex’ – a series about us, and why we need some “frank discussions” about what goes on in our bedrooms.
I always find it unnerving when broadcasters attempt these kinds of social engineering projects. Of course, many people must know that ‘telly campaigns’ are little more than cynical ratings ploys, but what gets me is that one of these days they might just change something. I am scared of what they will change.
The premise of this campaign plays on some of the more notorious fears about our sex lives. With three programmes in the series so far, they have covered the usual suspects of hysteria, including online pornography, teenage virginity, and the value of having sex in a box live on television.
Its motif is a “need to start talking about sex.” Channel 4 claims that online pornography has damaged young people’s sex lives so thoroughly that they are no longer able to engage in healthy, sustainable relationships. Now is the time for our doting parents to intervene.
Social Paranoiac 