Sex in TV shows...

[TwoPintsOfAleAndABagOfPorkScratchings]

I'll start this by saying that I don't really watch TV. I have one and I'll sometimes watch a documentary on Netflix or something but I don't watch TV.

Shows that other people have watched over the years have completely passed me by. For example, last year, I watched the first season of Prison Break for the first time. I just find it boring. I don't get invested or care about the characters so I generally don't watch it.

Anyway, my partner is more of a TV watcher than I will ever be and, if he wants to watch something, I go and do something else.

But because of him, I've become more aware of what is out there. I still have no interest in watching any of it though!

One thing that has really come to my attention is how much violent and explicit sex is in just ordinary TV shows. I know he watched Game of Thrones before we got together and he talked about watching House of the Dragon although, as far as I know, he hasn't yet. He's also just finished watching the most recent seasons of The Boys.

I'm just really uncomfortable with the level of nudity and explicit sex in these shows. I haven't said anything to him about him watching it because we've only been together for 2 and a half years and these are things he started watching before we got together. But he does know I don't like it and doesn't suggest we watch anything like that together.

But he's now shown an interest in a new series on Prime called something like Those Who Are About to Die or something. I looked it up to see if it was something i could watch with him and again its full of explicit sex, nudity, prostitutes etc.

It just feels, I don't know, degrading to me as a woman that women are exploited in this way for entertainment? That entertainment has to include gratuitous sex and violence against women. And men too to be honest. I don't like that either. It just feels unnecessary And I don't like it.

It might sound extreme but I just can't get my head round being with someone who is so kind and loving towards me enjoying watching women being raped and brutalised. Or even just the explicit sex and nudity.

And I don't think I want to be in a relationship with someone who watches it week in and week out for entertainment.

But I also know that some women enjoy these shows too. I've tried telling myself that it isn't real but the nudity is real, the bodies are real and the sexual acts are either real or designed to appear very real.

What are other people's thoughts on this?

I'm old enough to remember Mary Whitehouse campaigning against sex scenes in the 1960's and 70's. TV shows were every bit as bad back then for gratuitous sex (althought here wasn't as much violence) and there wasn't even a watershed. At the time I thought she was a silly, censorious and evangelical old cow. Boy have I changed my views since I realised the whole world is one big "patriarchy". Free sex, love etc only benefits men in the long run.

Thank you OP for raising this. I thought it was just me. I hate that over the years it has got worse and tv and movies have sunk so low like porn. I refuse to watch it. I must prefer scenes alluding to it. We can get the idea. Wish I could properly protest.

The internet is largely to blame for changing what we accept in this country. It used to be illegal to show self-mutilation and now we see it all the time.

Something that also bothers me is the American values of weighting violence more lightly than sex, nudity or swearing.

If there is nudity, sex or saying the c word, it is 15, but 12 ratings can have so much unnecessary violence.

I agree. People can poo poo this and say it's only tv but just like violent porn it does have an impact on how women are treated in society. As if we need more violence towards girls and women ! This won't be helping atall. Something needs to be done. 3 thousand reported cases of sexual misconduct a day in uk. That's just the ones that are reported. It's out of control and such a worry for our daughters. I also would not want to be with a man who enjoys seeing women and girls raped and beaten. Either In tv or porn. Disgusting.

This is one of the nuttiest reasons for ending a relationship I’ve ever heard.

He’s not watching snuff films. He’s not watching scenes of animal cruelty or bestiality. He’s not watching extreme porn. Hell, he’s not even watching common-or-garden vanilla porn. He’s watching entirely mainstream television shows that have a few sexy and violent bits in them. This is a genre (the sexy, violent thriller). It’s not a genre you like. Fine. Don’t watch it. Splitting up with him because of this is as crazy as splitting up with someone because he likes science fiction

And anyone wishing for the return of Mary Whitehouse is a fool.

Whitehouse was an idiot who could t see the difference between a wank mag abd a Dennis Potter play.

I find sexually explicit scenes an uncomfortable watch. I’m uncomfortable watching what I think is young people being manipulated into activities because it’s such a competitive industry. I read that Emilia Clarke found the explicit work unsettling.

www.itv.com/news/2019-11-20/emilia-clarke-says-she-was-uncomfortable-with-game-of-thrones-nude-scenes

This made me laugh out loud, bond girls strutting about in bikinis, Charlie's angels, wonder woman... Dallas... are you kidding??

You're easily amused, which is nice.

I'll read the link a little later but, yes, I've read similar. And a lot from older actresses who've been in the industry for a long time about things they were required to do and how they felt in the 70s for example.

It's not right.

That doesn't make it ok though.

The sad thing is that, as a society, we've been told we've over on. That women's rights are better represented and yet they're not. Women have just been co-opted into the expoitation now. So that some women see it as empowering.

I agree it is pornification and what makes me sad is how unrealistic and male-orientated the sex is

I hate any sex or violent scenes on TV. I couldn’t watch Peaky Blinders. It’s just not entertaining for me.

If there’s romance and they leave it at the bedroom door, that’s fine by me. We all know what sex is.

Anyone seen True Detective: Night Country?
Written and directed by a woman, with two female leads and apparently lots of sex scenes from the female point of view? Not seen it myself but maybe this is the way things should be going?

One of the greatest tricks the patriarchy ever pulled was convincing women that sexual exploitation was empowering.

Agree, even the so-called normal, consensual sex is absolutely dire.
No foreplay, predominantly PIV, instant orgasms, and nowadays,somehow, knickers are left on - and bras.
In the olden days, it was annoying enough that women would be full frontal nude and men not.
There's no pleasing me, it seems.

@Bobbotgegrinch Buffy is an interesting example. So much of that show was beautifully written and yet iirc it turns out that Joss Whedon is problematic in his attitudes towards women.

Dollhouse was another favourite of mine that he made - due for a reshowing imo.

OP, I couldn't watch GOT - I agree that sexual violence (or any violence really) is not entertainment. I don't want to watch programmes where people are being degraded and hurt.

True, I've been rewatching it with my daughter and there's been a few bits this time round where I've thought "Your misogyny is showing Joss"

Apparently he had very little to do with that season though, he was off making Firefly and a woman named Marti Noxon was showrunning Buffy. Apparently she quite often uses rape as a plot point. I've not seen that much else of her work but remember her being accused of "ruining" a show called Private Practice, taking quite an upbeat show and adding very dark themes around sexual assault to it.

I guess you could try to come to an agreement about what and when to watch. I agree about the gratuitous sex and violence in some programmes - but of course it's a choice to watch them.

I hate horror and refuse to watch it. My OH loves it. I also hate programmes about parents searching for missing kids. Ditto manly action films - yawn. We just agree that any programmes like that he watches on his own. I like costume/historical dramas and he doesn't - so I watch those on my own. Luckily there are things we both like too 😂

I suppose the issue here is that you don't really enjoy TV at all. So it's not a hobby you can share. And what he does watch makes him seem like a bad person to you.
You need to talk about that issue - after 2 and a half years you ought to be able to do that.

I do have less of an issue where general violence involved. Usually because its the result of 'fighting'.

But sexual violence is difference because it's men having power over women and men hurting women and there are far too many men in the world who like that.

Even the narrative around the violence is different. When it's male on male violence, it's often a form of retribution. There might be a power imbalance but the male parties are often known to each other and neither is innocent. But women are seen being kidnapped, held hostage, raped and tortured for the crime of existing as a female person.

People have suggested it's to reflect what is happening in reality. Why are they not use it to change the narrative then? Why must it always be perpetuated?

I watched I Spit on your Grave many years ago. A probably rare at the time film when the woman seeks revenge. But even then, she's portrayed doing it in a sexualised way. It's like women don't even register on men' radar unless they're being sexually aroused by us.

I was at a fancy dress party a few years ago and I sat at a table where someone had left a toy gun which they'd taken as part of their costume. A man asked me if I had any idea how sexy I looked sitting next to a gun!

An ex boyfriend used to get out of the car to watch me filling it up with petrol when I was driving. To begin with, I thought it was because he was checking I was doing it correctly which just annoyed me but one day he told me it was because women look really sexy when they're filling up cars with petrol!

Another ex boyfriend told me that women objectify and sexualise ourselves and we only have ourselves to blame. When I probed a bit further, his examples were of women doing ordinary every day stuff but because women are sexualised in everything we do, he believed we did these things deliberately to be sexuallly provocative.

Fucking unbelievable.

We're just going about our own lives doing our own normal stuff and men will find any opportunity to reduce us to sex objects. Because that is all we are portrayed as.

Yes I agree. I don't like the violence or explicit sex scenes either. I'm only mid-30's so not like I'm an old prude.

My dh doesn't actually like overly violent scenes and thinks it's unnecessary and he has never liked horror so it's not much of an issue for us.

I actually much prefer older rom-coms and how they tackled sex scenes, it was all suggested that's what was going to be happening and then the next scene was them waking up in bed.

Don't imagine it can be good for young teens brains nowadays with all the explicit sex and sexual violence.

When I was young the popular teen programs were one tree Hill or the o.c. And there was nothing too shocking in those shows from what I can remember.

Now there is so much on demand choice and it seems normal for in your face sex or violence. 🤔

I'd forgotten about that! I did watch that because son was a baby when that was on and it did pass the time breastfeeding. But it was also 25 years ago and my thoughts weren't quite as developed as they are now.

I don't remember it well but it was also exploitative of the younger character IIRC?

Again though, I don't remember seeing much. There weren't endless close up of penises were there? And it was equal in terms of nudity. Not like it is with women where women are pointlessly naked and exposed and the men aren't.

The Spartacus TV show from 2010 - 2013 has LOADS of full frontal male nudity in it. Willies everywhere. Far more male than female flesh shown IIRC.

I often wonder about the actors who play these parts, because unless they are completely unknown actors, they could refuse to do certain scenes.
I think this is where the lines can get blurred between the character they play and the actor they are. If I was an actor there are some things I just wouldn’t be able to act out, and I wonder why some can.

*edited as posted too soon and my end paragraph was very jumbled. Still not sure I’ve explained myself properly 😂.