Over the past few weeks I’ve been hearing about GMTV’s LK Today show’s forthcoming ‘sex week’, a series of morning programmes aimed at a mainly female audience to be run in the week before Valentines day.
It’s been an invaluable opportunity to observe how ‘sex’ is understood and constructed by programme makers, and how television journalists interact with sex educators, researchers and health practitioners. And ultimately what is chosen to count as content or ‘evidence’ for a programme.
It begins with a survey … During the introduction to hearing about the forthcoming series I was told the programmes were going to be pinned around a ‘sex survey’. This is a predictable approach used by TV companies to create content and drive publicity. Fine if said surveys were well designed, reliable or valid, but usually they aren’t. Unsurprisingly the planned version of the GMTV sex survey wasn’t very good, but interestingly the programme makers were willing to accept feedback even if the final version wasn’t all that accurate.
The problem with using surveys to underpin programmes is they’re usually thrown together without much reflection by staff with no knowledge of survey design or much of an awareness of sex. Meaning results are either misleading or reinforce stereotypes. There is no real sense that researchers/practitioners like myself and others already know about such materials and can easily translate it into television-ready formats which we’re happy to offer if we’re approached during the planning phase of programme making.
TV sex programmes are led by two things – a ‘news’ agenda and the opinions of the producer – and it’s hard to argue with either
We all know that the media, less like education or research, is closely directed by a news agenda. The creation of GMTV’s ‘sex week’ was no exception, so during preparations for the programme it seemed production staff were keen to find sex addicts and those who’d been cheated on, presumably to fit stories tagged around celebrity sex addicts and cheaters currently in the headlines.
This does two things. It fits sex into a fairly narrow framework, but also restricts discussions towards gossip rather than actual evidence. Now undoubtedly with celebrity sex scandals there will be public interest and opinion. But this won’t help inform relationships unless we can move away from the celebrity angle and focus on the issues at hand. Even then we’d need the ability to do so accurately. So in the case of ‘sex addiction’ we’d need to take a completely different stance than that offered by a standard production angle – that sex addiction is real, here’s a celebrity example, and here’s a ‘real life’ case study to further illustrate the problem. Instead we’d need to look at how sex addiction isn’t really the problem made out by the media, who is promoting the ‘sex addiction’ agenda, and what people really need to worry about in relation to relationships – and how to solve relationship problems without medicalising behaviour.
In phone conversations I had with staff working on ‘sex week’ I was asked if I could help them find a sex addict, someone who was celibate, someone who had an STI, and recommend other experts who could join in panel discussions about sex and relationships. While I was happy to recommend a number of colleagues who I rate (and know would do a great job in talking confidently about sex and relationships to the viewers) obviously I couldn’t recommend case studies (it’s unethical to refer someone you meet in education/research to journalists).
It is unclear exactly what will feature within ‘sex week’ but if it follows the format being worked on over the past few weeks ‘sex’ will be problematised. This can be seen in the way GMTV framed sex in their introduction to their sex survey: “Valentine’s Day is upon us, but are you fed up with your sex life? Is your partner inattentive and unadventurous? Or was the last sexual compulsion you experienced many, many moons ago? Maybe you’re lucky enough to enjoy a passionate relationship with your partner. Whatever you’re getting up to between the sheets, share your sex stories and thoughts with us in our sex survey”. Through to focusing on people who do it too much (addicts) or with the wrong people (cheaters) or those who aren’t doing it enough (celibates).
Sex programmes on television will consistently fail to reach their potential if…
- The focus of any programming is defined and limited by top down approaches where producers set agendas and instruct junior staff to find experts, ‘statistics’ and case studies to support the beliefs and values of the producer. In the case of GMTVs sex week the staff I talked to were charming but were seeking answers to questions set by their producer (who of course didn’t bother speaking directly to any experts). As a result you’ve a constant interrupted dialogue where a producer sets an agenda, a junior has to find someone who’ll support this, and anyone who has a different view will be ignored. No programme will work if you’ve got junior staff negotiating with numerous key players but no authority to green light their inclusion and pressure from an editor to find tame contributors.
- Where ‘news’ (aka ‘gossip’) underpins all stories. Particularly when directly pinned on celebrity cases (with the emphasis on speculating about the celeb not wider issues). Ethically it is inappropriate for practitioners to judge celebrities or any case study and pinning stories so closely to celebrity cases will make it difficult for any ethical practitioner to contribute.
- Where poorly designed surveys are conducted as part of a programme but don’t inform it due to quality issues (or because the survey is conducted to generate publicity not content).
- Where searches for scientific evidence to inform a programme are only carried out on google and ‘evidence’ is understood in terms of some statistics to help stack up a story. A particular problem when staff are pressed for time, don’t understand evidence, and probably aren’t aware that there is a wider body of extensive information about sex they could be drawing on.
- When experts are used to inform content but where staff struggle to identify who is adequately qualified to contribute.
- Journalists (and particularly senior production staff) lack basic sex education so are unable to understand core critical issues about sex. Meaning the ‘sex week’ staff were unaware of any critical discussions of ‘sex addiction’ – they assumed it was real and accepted as a medical condition until told otherwise, and even then continued to work with it as a key contemporary sex issue. There was also the problem of staff accepting ideas that should seem nonsensical – for example one researcher called me asking if I could confirm whether celibacy was harmful to your health since one expert they’d talked to told them if you don’t have sex it could cause physical harm. As with many media encounters a large part of my discussions with staff for ‘sex week’ was about basic sex education (ie how sex won’t get rid of wrinkles or how not having sex won’t harm your body, and that celibacy and asexuality are not the same thing). No reputable sex educator will object to providing this service, but it demonstrates how programmes can’t be made accurately if staff are working from a position of ignorance and misinformation to begin with.
All of which raises serious ethical and practical dilemmas for anyone thinking about being involved in TV sex programmes Reputable sex educators are always happy to give time to create accurate sex coverage for television. Sadly the approach taken by many production teams often creates barriers for those wanting to be involved. There is the general assumption that you will be willing to provide background information for free, very often to also contribute your time to the show/series for nothing, and the appearance on television is a privilege so you must unquestioningly fit in with the show’s agenda.
Given that many ‘sexperts’ working within the media do so as a means to advertise their products and services they’ll obviously say whatever’s asked for to get their time on television. However, genuine experts won’t be motivated in the same way. We will want to share accurate, sex positive information in an engaging way, not repeat what the producer wants to hear. For many of us schedules need reorganising if we’re going to be on TV (for ‘sex week’ we were asked to set aside two days for filming). That means patients, clients, colleagues and students timetables will also need restructuring. This is only worth it if you’re actually going to be able to share sex positive information.
Once you become aware there’s a show in development you want it to be as accurate as possible – regardless of whether you appear on the final edit. However, that in turn raises issues of how much you should be involved given you can provide lots of time and effort for nothing, have no record of your contribution, and ultimately not see any of your efforts inform the programming. (Which is sadly the case with ‘sex week’ where contributors including myself who’d been booked to appear were told at the last minute we weren’t needed as they’d be sticking with their resident TV doc and sexpert).
Because of these issues the end result of most TV sex shows currently means sex is always constructed in particular ways – usually limited, negative, problem-based with judgemental case studies pinned on celebrities. Expertise may well have been consulted, but may well not be understood or applied. And contributors may not end up on any programming leading to time being wasted and a lot of lost opportunities and bad feeling created.
Very often journalists complain they can’t put together decent programmes because they are up against limits of time or resources. Yet this case study and countless others like it indicate that’s just not true. There’s stacks of evidence, loads of qualified people who can talk about it in engaging ways, and a lot to be said that’s currently not talked about. The key problem is producers make specific decisions to frame sex and ‘sexpertise’ in particular ways. Meaning you get poor to average sex coverage when you could have had GREAT sex.
The tracking of GMTV’s sex week from programme outline to broadcast allows us to think about how sex programmes are constructed for mainstream prime time audiences. You’ve had the background from me, but you can explore this further by watching the programmes (run on ITV1 every morning this week from 9am GMT)
What will they discuss? Consider what they may have talked about and reflect on how much of the programme is linked to their sex survey (the results of which can be found here). You can also question what other evidence is used to underpin programme (and where might that have come from) and what other evidence could have been used. How much of ‘sex week’ will frame sex in a language of hormones, evolution, body language, and gender stereotypes (and how much of that coverage seems accurate or understood). You may want to reflect on who is and isn’t included in discussions (for example in terms of ability, age, ethnicity or sexuality) and how much of the series will be pinned around product placement (lingerie, sex toys etc). Finally you may want to consider how much of the series provides actionable information people can put into practice (rather than instructions on what we should be doing sexually).
As a sex educator my wish is always that quality sex information is provided to the public, so if GMTV manage to do this during ‘sex week’ then this is good news. My anxiety is the programmes won’t be as good as they could be (for reasons set out above) and this is common to most television shows about sex/relationships.
The questions remain about how we address this problem? Practitioners are keen to get involved and share good information but are restricted by many practical and financial barriers set up by television companies. Television companies are keen to continue to include sex content but are unwilling to improve content, particularly because they need to talk about sex but fear losing advertising revenue or viewing figures.
Perhaps the key to the puzzle is not to be found with journalists or practitioners, but lies with the public who can demand better programming (presuming they’re aware what’s currently on offer is inadequate). After all, no matter how eager or well meaning us practitioners can be, or how much evidence we can share, this is never going to be possible unless producers have a reason to provide it. If viewers want this – or if viewers will switch off if it’s not provided – then maybe our sex programming will get better.
How television constructs sex – an evolving case study of a prime time sex series
Over the past few weeks I’ve been hearing about GMTV’s LK Today show’s forthcoming ‘sex week’, a series of morning programmes aimed at a mainly female audience to be run in the week before Valentines day.
It’s been an invaluable opportunity to observe how ‘sex’ is understood and constructed by programme makers, and how television journalists interact with sex educators, researchers and health practitioners. And ultimately what is chosen to count as content or ‘evidence’ for a programme.
It begins with a survey …
During the introduction to hearing about the forthcoming series I was told the programmes were going to be pinned around a ‘sex survey’. This is a predictable approach used by TV companies to create content and drive publicity. Fine if said surveys were well designed, reliable or valid, but usually they aren’t. Unsurprisingly the planned version of the GMTV sex survey wasn’t very good, but interestingly the programme makers were willing to accept feedback even if the final version wasn’t all that accurate.
The problem with using surveys to underpin programmes is they’re usually thrown together without much reflection by staff with no knowledge of survey design or much of an awareness of sex. Meaning results are either misleading or reinforce stereotypes. There is no real sense that researchers/practitioners like myself and others already know about such materials and can easily translate it into television-ready formats which we’re happy to offer if we’re approached during the planning phase of programme making.
TV sex programmes are led by two things – a ‘news’ agenda and the opinions of the producer – and it’s hard to argue with either
We all know that the media, less like education or research, is closely directed by a news agenda. The creation of GMTV’s ‘sex week’ was no exception, so during preparations for the programme it seemed production staff were keen to find sex addicts and those who’d been cheated on, presumably to fit stories tagged around celebrity sex addicts and cheaters currently in the headlines.
This does two things. It fits sex into a fairly narrow framework, but also restricts discussions towards gossip rather than actual evidence. Now undoubtedly with celebrity sex scandals there will be public interest and opinion. But this won’t help inform relationships unless we can move away from the celebrity angle and focus on the issues at hand. Even then we’d need the ability to do so accurately. So in the case of ‘sex addiction’ we’d need to take a completely different stance than that offered by a standard production angle – that sex addiction is real, here’s a celebrity example, and here’s a ‘real life’ case study to further illustrate the problem. Instead we’d need to look at how sex addiction isn’t really the problem made out by the media, who is promoting the ‘sex addiction’ agenda, and what people really need to worry about in relation to relationships – and how to solve relationship problems without medicalising behaviour.
In phone conversations I had with staff working on ‘sex week’ I was asked if I could help them find a sex addict, someone who was celibate, someone who had an STI, and recommend other experts who could join in panel discussions about sex and relationships. While I was happy to recommend a number of colleagues who I rate (and know would do a great job in talking confidently about sex and relationships to the viewers) obviously I couldn’t recommend case studies (it’s unethical to refer someone you meet in education/research to journalists).
It is unclear exactly what will feature within ‘sex week’ but if it follows the format being worked on over the past few weeks ‘sex’ will be problematised. This can be seen in the way GMTV framed sex in their introduction to their sex survey: “Valentine’s Day is upon us, but are you fed up with your sex life? Is your partner inattentive and unadventurous? Or was the last sexual compulsion you experienced many, many moons ago? Maybe you’re lucky enough to enjoy a passionate relationship with your partner. Whatever you’re getting up to between the sheets, share your sex stories and thoughts with us in our sex survey”. Through to focusing on people who do it too much (addicts) or with the wrong people (cheaters) or those who aren’t doing it enough (celibates).
Sex programmes on television will consistently fail to reach their potential if…
- The focus of any programming is defined and limited by top down approaches where producers set agendas and instruct junior staff to find experts, ‘statistics’ and case studies to support the beliefs and values of the producer. In the case of GMTVs sex week the staff I talked to were charming but were seeking answers to questions set by their producer (who of course didn’t bother speaking directly to any experts). As a result you’ve a constant interrupted dialogue where a producer sets an agenda, a junior has to find someone who’ll support this, and anyone who has a different view will be ignored. No programme will work if you’ve got junior staff negotiating with numerous key players but no authority to green light their inclusion and pressure from an editor to find tame contributors.
- Where ‘news’ (aka ‘gossip’) underpins all stories. Particularly when directly pinned on celebrity cases (with the emphasis on speculating about the celeb not wider issues). Ethically it is inappropriate for practitioners to judge celebrities or any case study and pinning stories so closely to celebrity cases will make it difficult for any ethical practitioner to contribute.
- Where poorly designed surveys are conducted as part of a programme but don’t inform it due to quality issues (or because the survey is conducted to generate publicity not content).
- Where searches for scientific evidence to inform a programme are only carried out on google and ‘evidence’ is understood in terms of some statistics to help stack up a story. A particular problem when staff are pressed for time, don’t understand evidence, and probably aren’t aware that there is a wider body of extensive information about sex they could be drawing on.
- When experts are used to inform content but where staff struggle to identify who is adequately qualified to contribute.
- Journalists (and particularly senior production staff) lack basic sex education so are unable to understand core critical issues about sex. Meaning the ‘sex week’ staff were unaware of any critical discussions of ‘sex addiction’ – they assumed it was real and accepted as a medical condition until told otherwise, and even then continued to work with it as a key contemporary sex issue. There was also the problem of staff accepting ideas that should seem nonsensical – for example one researcher called me asking if I could confirm whether celibacy was harmful to your health since one expert they’d talked to told them if you don’t have sex it could cause physical harm. As with many media encounters a large part of my discussions with staff for ‘sex week’ was about basic sex education (ie how sex won’t get rid of wrinkles or how not having sex won’t harm your body, and that celibacy and asexuality are not the same thing). No reputable sex educator will object to providing this service, but it demonstrates how programmes can’t be made accurately if staff are working from a position of ignorance and misinformation to begin with.
All of which raises serious ethical and practical dilemmas for anyone thinking about being involved in TV sex programmes
Reputable sex educators are always happy to give time to create accurate sex coverage for television. Sadly the approach taken by many production teams often creates barriers for those wanting to be involved. There is the general assumption that you will be willing to provide background information for free, very often to also contribute your time to the show/series for nothing, and the appearance on television is a privilege so you must unquestioningly fit in with the show’s agenda.
Given that many ‘sexperts’ working within the media do so as a means to advertise their products and services they’ll obviously say whatever’s asked for to get their time on television. However, genuine experts won’t be motivated in the same way. We will want to share accurate, sex positive information in an engaging way, not repeat what the producer wants to hear. For many of us schedules need reorganising if we’re going to be on TV (for ‘sex week’ we were asked to set aside two days for filming). That means patients, clients, colleagues and students timetables will also need restructuring. This is only worth it if you’re actually going to be able to share sex positive information.
Once you become aware there’s a show in development you want it to be as accurate as possible – regardless of whether you appear on the final edit. However, that in turn raises issues of how much you should be involved given you can provide lots of time and effort for nothing, have no record of your contribution, and ultimately not see any of your efforts inform the programming. (Which is sadly the case with ‘sex week’ where contributors including myself who’d been booked to appear were told at the last minute we weren’t needed as they’d be sticking with their resident TV doc and sexpert).
Because of these issues the end result of most TV sex shows currently means sex is always constructed in particular ways – usually limited, negative, problem-based with judgemental case studies pinned on celebrities. Expertise may well have been consulted, but may well not be understood or applied. And contributors may not end up on any programming leading to time being wasted and a lot of lost opportunities and bad feeling created.
Very often journalists complain they can’t put together decent programmes because they are up against limits of time or resources. Yet this case study and countless others like it indicate that’s just not true. There’s stacks of evidence, loads of qualified people who can talk about it in engaging ways, and a lot to be said that’s currently not talked about. The key problem is producers make specific decisions to frame sex and ‘sexpertise’ in particular ways. Meaning you get poor to average sex coverage when you could have had GREAT sex.
The tracking of GMTV’s sex week from programme outline to broadcast allows us to think about how sex programmes are constructed for mainstream prime time audiences. You’ve had the background from me, but you can explore this further by watching the programmes (run on ITV1 every morning this week from 9am GMT)
What will they discuss? Consider what they may have talked about and reflect on how much of the programme is linked to their sex survey (the results of which can be found here). You can also question what other evidence is used to underpin programme (and where might that have come from) and what other evidence could have been used. How much of ‘sex week’ will frame sex in a language of hormones, evolution, body language, and gender stereotypes (and how much of that coverage seems accurate or understood). You may want to reflect on who is and isn’t included in discussions (for example in terms of ability, age, ethnicity or sexuality) and how much of the series will be pinned around product placement (lingerie, sex toys etc). Finally you may want to consider how much of the series provides actionable information people can put into practice (rather than instructions on what we should be doing sexually).
As a sex educator my wish is always that quality sex information is provided to the public, so if GMTV manage to do this during ‘sex week’ then this is good news. My anxiety is the programmes won’t be as good as they could be (for reasons set out above) and this is common to most television shows about sex/relationships.
The questions remain about how we address this problem? Practitioners are keen to get involved and share good information but are restricted by many practical and financial barriers set up by television companies. Television companies are keen to continue to include sex content but are unwilling to improve content, particularly because they need to talk about sex but fear losing advertising revenue or viewing figures.
Perhaps the key to the puzzle is not to be found with journalists or practitioners, but lies with the public who can demand better programming (presuming they’re aware what’s currently on offer is inadequate). After all, no matter how eager or well meaning us practitioners can be, or how much evidence we can share, this is never going to be possible unless producers have a reason to provide it. If viewers want this – or if viewers will switch off if it’s not provided – then maybe our sex programming will get better.
How television constructs sex – an evolving case study of a prime time sex seriesRelated posts