We watch... so you don't have to.
Let's Talk About Sex
"Sex?"
"Talk Sex."
"What's that?" I cannot, you see, hear the italics indicating a television show title.
"Put it on, put it on!" she says, and I do.
And on my TV appears this woman, a woman who appears to be nearing a hundred. She is facing the camera and talking, as if to me, but actually she is speaking directly to some viewer at home who has called her with a question. And immediately I am captivated.
The woman is Sue Johanson, the show is Talk Sex, the time is way too late Sunday night, the network is Oxygen. Sue Johanson takes calls and offers advice in what the show's official Website calls "a funny, informative and non-judgmental manner."
We say Sue Johanson makes Dr. Ruth Westheimer look like Kate Winslet. There sits Sue -- we'll be informal, because how can we not, when we've seen her mime using ejaculate as face cream? -- with her odd William F. Buckley rictus and strange accent -- Canada? Louisiana? Tibet? -- trying to tease out the details of some stranger's sexual hang-ups. She doesn't like giving you oral sex? Does she like it when you give her oral sex? Wouldn't it be egalitarian here if she did both?
It never ceases to amaze me how wildly ignorant Americans -- the Americans who call in to TV and radio talk shows, anyway -- are about sex. And also how twistedly deranged they are. Who cares if your man wants to come on your face? What's so bad about oral sex? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!
So there's Sue, trying to work her way through someone's difficulties, and then... and then out come the dolls.
One red, one blue. Dolls.
Ineptly Sue manipulates them into the reverse cowgirl position to aid in visualizing one caller's conundrum. Alas, Sue apparently has not heard of the reverse cowgirl position and ends up calling it Kissy Toes. Also alas, the dolls are not anatomically correct. Perhaps there are budgetary constraints preventing Oxygen from getting good dolls, and also a host who's heard of reverse cowgirl. Maybe it's not the sort of thing they do in -- Canada? Louisiana? Tibet?
Fifteen minutes later I've had enough Sue. My sides hurt from laughing.
Not just at the show, either, but also at the commercials. Clearly Oxygen knows the target demographic for this show: Know-nothing, pathetic, sexually incompetent chuckleheads. And so the commercial for Vazoplex, the Intimate Feminine Moisturizer, which is -- for just $19.95 for 30 applications! -- the woman's answer to Viagra! Ladies, it will increase your sexual responsiveness and allow you to feel pleasure even if your man is an inattentive, overweight, hairy, smelly menace!
The commercial doesn't say that, but it should.
