Lucy Carne: When everyone, even my mother, is talking about Sex/Life has smut on screen gone too far?

A giant schlong, horny breastfeeding housewife and explicit bonking — what on earth is happening on television and has subtle romance gone for good, asks Lucy Carne.

I had the distinct displeasure of being included in an email chain last week between my mother and her septuagenarian friends.

Were they sharing panna cotta recipes, neighbourhood gossip or their latest Spotlight fabric purchases?

No. They were demanding that I use my investigative journalist skills and please verify whether a male appendage that briefly appears in Netflix’s new drama Sex/Life was real or not.

“Stretched don’t you think?” one of the ladies (a grandmother of two) contributed to the discussion.

That Sex/Life scene everyone is talking about. Picture: Netflix

My usually refined British godmother added: “Honestly, what girl is going to want that. No fun at all.”

The now globally infamous shower schlong may be a digital animation or prosthetic (debate is still raging online and its owner, the actor Adam Demos from Wollongong, is staying schtum) but its brief appearance presents a revolutionary milestone for mainstream television.

To think, it was only a few months ago that we thought boobs and bums on Bridgerton were peak raunch.

Sarah Shahi and Adam Demos in Sex/Life which is currently the most watched show in the world. Picture: Netflix

Now we have a hugely popular series watched by everyone from teens to grannies featuring a horny stay-at-home mum engaging in porn.

What on earth is going on?

In terms of reality, and I obviously can’t speak for all women, but having had a toddler while breastfeeding babies, there was no way I was up for jumping on a train from Connecticut to Manhattan for a wild shag with an ex boyfriend.

And yet it is the most watched show on Netflix worldwide, followed by steamy celibacy competition Too Hot To Handle.

Bridgerton now seems a bit, well, prudish. Picture: Netflix

There is a reason Sex/Life has become a smash hit, despite it’s limp plot and cringe script, and it may have something to do with the full frontal willy and very specific sexual acts.

Sex has long been depicted on TV, film and literature, but it was usually inferred between the lines not thrust so explicitly in our faces.

Rose’s hand on a steamy car window in Titanic or entering “the peace on earth of her soft, quiescent body” in Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Browsing my local op shop I recently picked up Australian romance novelist Lucy Walker’s 1961 book Moonshiner. It’s been a refreshing read of subtle suggestiveness. The pressure of leaning against a firm shoulder, an extended gaze over a cigarette and a lot of fixation on milky white feet in dainty kitten heels.

Yet it is chastity-belt puritanical compared to Netflix’s carnal offerings including softcore Polish film 365 Days, which was the platform’s most watched international movie in 2020.

Even EL James has released yet another instalment of her 50 Shades series last month, an entire decade after her first bondage book whipped its way into literary history.

Can the Sex and the City reboot really cut it without Samantha? Picture: Supplied

I was a teenager at an all-girls’ school when Sex and the City was all the rage. It was an era where we received what would now be considered minimal sex education. I recall one earnest lesson where we (a gaggle of hysterical 16 year olds) were instructed to place condoms on carrots and which resulted in the class being kept back into the lunch break to “think about our behaviour”.

Carrie et al, provided for many of my generation a TV education on how to approach sex. But with the show set to be rebooted without its resident nymphomaniac Samantha and with a lot more pre-menopausal wokeness, let’s see how the ratings perform.

Post Me Too, our screens have become saturated with sex, and in particular naked men, thanks in part to the rise of on set intimacy coaches to ensure not just the portrayal of realistic sex but the consent and protection of actors.

Yes, sex sells, but it’s as though streaming execs are advocating for more smut than traditionally toning it down.

Perhaps this is the only way to now capture the attention of young viewers who have grown up with infinite porn online.

The more sex we watch, the more they will make.

Do we really need it? Who knows?

But it certainly makes sitting down to watch TV with your elderly parents more awkward than ever.