EastEnders has rushed to defend a recent gay sex scene in which Ben Mitchell and Paul Coker stripped off next to a dead body in a funeral parlour.
Nearly 50 viewers complained to Ofcom after the episode last Friday, with the TV regulator clarifying that the main cause of concern was the setting rather than the characters’ sexualities.
“We had 48 complaints about the scene where a couple had sex in a funeral parlour, when there was an open casket in the room,” a spokesperson said.
“We’ll assess these complaints before deciding whether to investigate or not.”
While many EastEnders fans took to social media to voice their disapproval at scenes that “made them feel ill”, the long-running BBC soap released a statement arguing that sex was “implied and not explicit”.
“The millions of regular EastEnders fans who tune in each week know and expect dramatic storylines,” it read. “We are always mindful of our time slot in which we are shown and the scenes in question were implied and not explicit.”
Gay sex in the Funeral Parlour by the coffin is a new low for #Eastenders. It would still have been if it had been heterosexual. A disgrace!
— Graham in Grimsby (@GrahamsPlaice) July 17, 2015
Think Eastenders have gone a tad too far with the whole funeral parlour thing, made me feel ill
— Søph (@greenall_sophie) July 16, 2015
Has Ben Mitchell seriously arranged a Grindr hookup in a funeral home? #Eastenders
— Fagulous (@the_fagulous) July 16, 2015
Last month, Ben and Paul’s first kiss sparked a deluge of homophobic comments, which greatly "upset" actors Harry Reid and Jonny Labey who play the characters.
Ben and Paul's gay kiss was by no means the first on EastEnders- it became the first soap to air one in 1989 between Colin and Guido.
