In 1965, Mary Whitehouse handed to MP James Dance, a petition 'praying that the BBC be asked to make a radical change of policy and produce programmes which build character instead of destroying it ... ' . Photograph: PA
Deep in the nether regions of the Freeview schedule, late at night on Virgin 1, is a programme I keep stumbling across as I channel-surf ahead of going to bed: Sexcetera.
It's a cheery American magazine show that runs for an hour every night covering, as the title suggests, a magnificent gamut of human sexual activity. Recent items I've caught have included a piece on foot fetishism, the swinging clubs of Atlanta and the casting of women's genitalia.
It's presented by a roster of good-looking (in a plastic kind of way) and enthusiastic reporters, who seem quite happy to get involved in whatever they're covering, whether it's judging naked beauty contests or even having their bits cast.
I rather like this series, despite the fact that it would doubtless upset quite a lot of the post-Mary Whitehouse brigade for its explicitness. It's honest, unabashed and not masquerading as po-faced information (like, for example, the similarly explicit but much more cod-earnest Five series A Girl's Guide To 21st Century Sex).
Sure, it's unrealistic. All the women who take part, either as reporters or as subjects of features, seem to have fake breasts of the big-round-globes variety. And they generally pander to a male fantasy of being always up for (usually kinky) sex, often with similarly blonde, pneumatic women. It clearly does very well out of people's general desire to be on telly.
The only surprise that there hasn't been more of a fuss made about how naughty and explicit it is. But, reservations aside, it is upfront, open and honest. British TV could learn something from this.
