Channel 4
So you’ll be familiar with Sex Box, part of Channel 4‘s Campaign for Real Sex season where real couples bang on TV then talk to sexperts about it immediately afterwards. Everyone thinks they are familiar at least. Many expected Dick in a Box and it’s not quite that. The box is real enough – an ugly sterile cube plonked incongruously in the middle of the studio floor. The experts are real too. There’s Mariella Frostrup hosting who, despite Half Man Half Biscuit‘s assertion that she does nothing but voice-overs, writes a good agony aunt column. Then relationshit guru Tracey Cox who, while a bit of a nause, was part of the superior Would like to Meet team and Dan Savage, whose excellent Savage Love podcast is required listening for anyone curious about This Sort of Thing. Finally, Philip Hodson is a sane and compassionate sex and relationshit counsellor. Shall we get the first couple willing to prostitute themselves for science out?
If you insist. Meet Rachel and Dean. They met on an Internet hookup site and progressed to a loving relationship. Rachel wants to get rid of the awkwardness around sex in society and figures that humping in a solid geometrical object on telly will do the trick. When they emerge from Sex Box the pair are voluble on their experience. “Different” says Dean; “close afterwards” says Rachel. There’s nothing in the ensuring discussion that strictly requires the box or the recency of the sex but that’s not fatal at this stage.
Rachel wants to get rid of the awkwardness around sex in society and figures that humping in a solid geometrical object on telly will do the trick.
Next up are Matt and John, a gay couple played by Jockey Wilson and Bobby Ball. When they come out of the box everybody wants to know “how do you let that fat tub of shit get at you without being crushed to death?” Matt and John laugh heartily. “No really” says Hodson “I’m amazed he’s still breathing, never mind sexually active”. After the experts prime the audience with the knowledge that gay men don’t just have anal all the time Matt and John confirm that, yes, they did have anal. “It’s like chocolate cake – you don’t want it every day” says John, a man who has chocolate cake every day.
“It’s like chocolate cake – you don’t want it every day” says John, a man who has chocolate cake every day.
Then come Des and Lynette a couple from England’s frozen north who appear in the face of it to be very up for it. And yet when they come out they will admit to only “Kissing. Touching. Intercourse”. There are other things they did that they’d like to keep private. *slow handclap* Great work guys. Maybe next time not sign up to a show whose premise is the exact opposite of that?
The final couple to spill out of the ShitBox are Dave and Vicky. Vicky wipes cum out of her hair, hopping on one stiletto as Dave canters out with trousers and pants below his knees doing up his shirt, trying desperately and failing to conceal his fast shrivelling cock and balls. Dave falls dragging Vicky down with him. A chilling high-pitched screech is heard as Vicky, propelled by lubricant slides across the studio floor, out the doors and into the path of a passing steamroller which flattens her in a matter of seconds.
A chilling high-pitched screech is heard as Vicky, propelled by lubricant slides across the studio floor, out the doors and into the path of a passing steamroller which flattens her in a matter of seconds.
It’s a terrible tragic end to what was actually an instructional program. I hope they learn the lesson. Stay safe.
The verdict: The Great British Bone Off.
Marks out of 10: 7