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Home / Entertainment

Alex Casey: Why we need more shows like Sex Box

Alex Casey
By Alex Casey
Staff writer for New Zealand pop culture-obsessed website The Spinoff and columnist for the NZ Herald.·Herald online·
8 Jul, 2016 04:00 AM4 mins to read

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Sex Box host Goedele Liekens has been a sex therapist for 20 years. Photo / Supplied

Sex Box host Goedele Liekens has been a sex therapist for 20 years. Photo / Supplied

The Spinoff's Alex Casey watched the controversial reality series Sex Box and realised we need more - not less - shows like it.

It's not everyday one is blessed with the opportunity to turn a deep shade of purple at their desk and hurriedly belch, "It's not porn, it's just Sex Box!!!" to any colleague walking within a two kilometre radius of their laptop screen.

But that's exactly what I did this week, on a mission to uncover the mysteries of Sex Box, the UK reality show that TV2 picked up tentatively and then dropped last week faster than you can say "but who cleans the sheets?" after an online petition circulated.

Prepare to clutch some major pearls, affect a stiff upper lip and a distant gaze, because the show certainly does what is says on the tin. There is sex. And it does happen in a box. In front of a live studio audience.

Read more: TVNZ pulls controversial Sex Box show

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But before you go screaming for the hills, or watch your disembodied hands sign the 10,000 strong petition that got the show thrown in the TVNZ toilet, hear me out: Sex Box is actually kind of good.

On paper, Sex Box reads like something lifted straight out of a Black Mirror-style dystopian nightmare, an absurd premise reflected most closely elsewhere in the genius comedy Nathan For You.

Parodying terrible inventions and start-up culture, the host Nathan Fielder constructs a soundproof box to place children in so parents can have sex in a family hotel room. It's ridiculous, a massive joke. Nobody would ever make that. Nothing like that would ever exist.

But it does. Hosted by Goedele Liekens, a sex therapist of 20 years, and Steve Jones, a funny Ant and Dec-type in a suit, Sex Box invites couples old and new to air out their sexual laundry, and work on new techniques, all in the comfort of a television studio.

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Sex Box welcomes all types of people: in the few episodes I saw there were couples of varying age, ethnicity, size, sexuality, and confidence all looking to spice up their lives in the bedroom.

Goedle is the heart of the show, a Belgian professor who won't go a moment without imitating a penis with her fingers, or imitating a vagina - also with her fingers. She speaks openly and insightfully, probing partners with questions about their preferred positions as casually as someone asking them if they want fries with that.

As someone who strictly referred to genitals as "front bums" until older than I'm proud of, it was an alleviating experience to hear another women throw around her P's and V's so unapologetically.

It's the sincerity and honesty that makes Sex Box such compelling viewing.

Discover more

Entertainment

Would you watch real couples have sex on TV?

17 Jun 06:30 AM
Entertainment

TV2 dumps controversial Sex Box

02 Jul 08:02 AM

However hesitant and shy, couples have the safety of the experts, and the knowledge that nothing they do inside the box will be broadcast to the wide eyes of the audience - much to the dismay of many.

Whilst the deed is being done, Jones takes us through the latest in sexual statistics and technology. When they are ready, they exit the booth (fully clothed) and talk about what they just experienced. The oxytocin levels apparently make discussing intimate details all the easier.

And this is where I wonder if the show is as bad as the Christian organisation Citizen Go, the people behind the petition, might think. After watching it, I can't see much wrong with promoting healthy, frank, discussions about sexuality in a suitable time slot. The petition included accusations that the show is "a new low" and "might contribute to the normalisation of sexual violence."

I would argue that normalising sexuality doesn't immediately equal objectification or violence, instead it opens up the conversation and creates a space where men and women are able to talk about their sex lives freely and without judgement.

It's built on sex positivity, and if you ignore a few nudey graphics and a man in a penis costume, Sex Box takes sex very seriously.

After a few episodes and a lot of new insights I never knew I needed, I realised that we probably need more, not less of shows like Sex Box.

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Because where else can we engage with this exposure to sexuality outside of pornography, a medium which has been proven to literally alter the shape of the brain and actively promote sexual violence against women?

It's a disappointing outcome to peek a glimmer of progressiveness from TV2, only to have the loud voices of an outraged few shut the lid firmly on a huge part of social life which remains trapped in the dark.

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