Why Would You Do It To Yourself?

I watched a horror movie on Halloween. But it was nowhere near as horrific as this.

The premise is simple – a maladjusted, socially inept newspaper delivery man believes a lot of his problems stem from the fact that he has reached a certain age (26, fact fans) and not got laid. Therefore, he heads to a "virgin school" in Amsterdam, where a succession of mature women attempt to coax him into acts of intimacy, then of a sexual nature, before he finally gets the chance to have a fuck. It is as excruciating as it sounds. The scene where our misfit gets tugged off by one of his “teachers” is toe-curling not just for the viewer, but quite literally for the recipient as well.

Personally, I’ve always though that sex is something you learn through doing. I guess the point here is that the chap concerned hasn’t been able to adopt that approach, so now he needs to be taught. But the painful, debilitating shyness he feels is surely at odds with his decision to play out his sexual education on national TV. Seriously, why humiliate yourself in this way? I’m assuming money must have played a part, but if you are already struggling with self-esteem issues it seems counter-intuitive to me to humiliate yourself on national TV. But then again, this sort of television is becoming increasingly common – it accounts for the success of the fuck awful Jeremy Kyle. TV isn’t so much smashing taboos as demeaning anyone willing appear on the screen. And this becomes entertainment for us – watching and laughing at the freaks.

Nigel Kneale saw a dystopian vision of the future, where we would all ignore reality in return for being able to watch the sex Olympics on TV. He was too optimistic about human nature. We don’t want to watch the sex Olypmics – watching people excel at fucking is not what we want on our national TV. No, we want to watch an emotionally stunted man humiliating himself through shagging instead. We don’t want the best; we’d rather have someone humiliating themselves for our enjoyment. We don't even meet the basic standards of a dystopian vision of the future...