Gone Surfing
As an impressionable school boy in Cape Town, I remember seeing a poster for the play “ No sex please, we’re British”. It featured, in black-and-white so as to preserve some sense of modesty, the rather fantabulous breasts of a naughty nurse type character, I think. She was only half-dressed anyway. There was also some guy in the picture, but I can’t seem to recall him.
Even by today’s standards, the image was quite risque. This was the era of Scope magazine and Giggles & Gags, where carefully positioned stars protected us from the nipples that threatened to tear the very moral fabric of our society. That “ No sex please” poster was very much in keeping with the “Carry On” tradition, where Brits flashed their naughty bits, and a nudge and a wink kept the Victorian sensibilities placated, for the most part.
READ: Let’s balk about sex
Fast forward a (good) few years, and it’s not only Europe those amourous Anglo-Saxons are keen to step out of. Reality TV has, as it were, pulled back the covers on modern England and revealed a multitude of bonking Brits.
A few weeks ago, Miss Great Britain was stripped of her crown for doing the bump-and-grind with a builder, live on TV. Meanwhile, each successive cast of Big Brother UK seems intent on outdoing the sexploits of their predecessors. This year, the son of cooking legend Marco Pierre White, nursed on the implants of a newfound friend during a diary session.
With just a cursory look at programming like The Valleys and Geordie Shore, it’s evident that the action revolves around show and tell: they tell you they’re going to shag, and then they do. But first, they drink.
Someone who probably needed a drink or two is 62-year-old Jackie Murray, a retired police officer and soon-to-be reality TV star.
Murray is set to star in a new TLC show called Undressed, in which complete strangers strip each other’s clothes off and get acquainted. If you’re somewhat squeamish about viewing the great un-Photoshopped in their natural state, you can rest easy. Contestants only disrobe to their underwear, then lie down on a bed and answer intimate questions. At the end of their “session”, they get to choose whether they will start a relationship or not.
“I think it is one of the best things that has ever happened. Initially you have got that fear and worry, but it is such a good way to meet somebody honestly and genuinely,” Murray told The Daily Mail.
“I did try Plenty of Fish and Tinder, but there are only so many pictures of men revealing their private parts that I can take. I found it quite boring, and it's not for me.”
Quite why Murray, tired of men flaunting their wobbly-jobblies, then signed up for a show called Undressed is beyond me, but then logic and reality TV were never the best of bedfellows. How else does one explain another show called Life Stripped Bare, where contestants lose all of their possessions, including their clothes? Or that other TLC pearler Buying Naked, where the realtors remain clothed, but the clients aren’t. Most of the tension revolves around whether someone’s nuts will get caught in the kitchen drawer. It’s not as sexy as it sounds.
All of these shows are simply an excuse to walk about in the pixelated buff. Sex more than sells. It can make you into a bona fide star. There is a long line of wannabe Kim Kardashians out there. Last year, she raked in over $60 million. Just for being who she is. You can understand the attraction. And, like seemingly every female celeb these days, it goes both ways.