Let's talk about sex

Sex sells. Ask anyone involved in advertising, entertainment or the media. Certainly ask RTE, who have flagged their new six part series Love Bites as a ground-breaking examination of sex and the attitudes that exist towards it in Ireland.

When it comes to the reality however, Love Bites is actually rather subtle and tame compared to the more blatant exposés on the subject so readily available to anyone with access to a satellite dish or cable box. Indeed, at the very time that the first programme in the series was being aired, Channel 4 was broadcasting a documentary on the growing trend for vaginal plastic surgery. In comparison, the Love Bites examination of virginity was decidedly… well… virginal.

It is this non-sensational approach to its subject matter that ultimately proves to be the series’ strongest asset. Eschewing both the tabloid approach of British television and the perhaps traditional ‘damn you all to hell’ Irish version, the six shows (made by a variety of producers and directors) tackle the subject in a relaxed, almost practical manner. As commissioning editor Kevin Dawson has pointed out, this is about sex as an experience, rather than as controversy.

Not that the series is able to resist a little bit of mischief, evident by its most explicit chapter, Two To Tango, Three To Swing. Presented by Wanderlust’s Brendan Courtney, the investigation into swinging (or ‘the lifestyle’ as it is now known) is likely to create the most column inches and most letters of disgust – but is also one of Love Bites’ less rewarding moments.

The only programme to really present its subjects as inhabiting a radically different world to its viewers, it has far more in common with the Sky One approach to sex than the other programmes, but inevitably lacking in genuinely radical content (it emerges that a swinging scene is a bit tricky in Ireland because everyone knows everyone else in the first place).

Far more interesting are the examinations of relationships between partners of different ages, the culture of the beauty salon and those who choose to live their lives without a partner.

Although a range of different styles are evident in the programmes, all are largely devoid of narration, allowing the subjects to speak for themselves and tell their own stories. If it all sounds frighteningly ordinary then that is probably the point, an attempt to reclaim the subject from the voyeurs and return it to the hands of those for whom sex is a beautiful, everyday occurrence.

While that in itself may be quite a revolutionary concept in today’s media world, is Love Bites really going to shake the foundations of Irish broadcasting? Anything outside the heterosexual ‘norm’ is notably absent (although in second programme Loving & Able, Fiona Gough handles the largely taboo subject of sex and physical disability with intelligence and sensitivity) and this measured and studied approach to the topic may appear slightly farcical compared to the goings on in any Saturday night club anywhere in the country.

Where Love Bites succeeds, however, is illustrating a world where sex and love are a positive force, not something to gawp at or feel guilty about – in many ways a giant leap forward.