Friday, January 13, 2012

popping your cherry!

(image via bbc)
Last night I settled down in front of the TV to watch Cherry Healey’s Like a Virgin on BBC 3. I’ve always like Healey’s documentaries; she’s warm, inviting and down to earth. It’s like having a chat with a really good friend. Getting all your questions answered, knowing that so many others have wanted to know or are going through the exact same thing!

Earlier in the week, while finding the listing for Like a Virgin, I stumbled across an article urging the documentary to be cancelled and never shown. Bearing in mind I had watched other documentaries presented by Cherry Healey I had no idea what she had, supposedly, done wrong. I proceeded to read it and found my answer; it was a product of the Daily Mail and, yet again, they had taken one scene completely out of context and without explaining the full situation. So when seventeen year old Beth decides to go for a bikini wax, the show should be banned as it is encouraging promiscuous behaviour and it is Cherry who should be explaining the birds and the bees to Beth! If only the DM had watch 5-minutes more; Healey sits with Beth’s parents and the truth that they have an open and honest relationship with their daughter and she knows all about sex and protection comes to light. Well done to the Daily Mail for their overreaction!

After this element of amusement just shows to me how the issue of sex is so taboo for the general public. It is programmes like Healey’s that need to be aired in order for us to feel more confident about discussing sex and all that goes along with it. Maybe then people wouldn’t be trying to ban the show but embracing it. There are plenty of programmes to discuss sex education (take Channel 4 for example) but this is surely designed for younger viewers who need to know about sex without the embarrassment of teachers and parents. Cherry Healey is able to take it one step further; to move past the teaching side of things and to embrace discussion, laughter and reflection on past experiences and able to look forward to the rest. I, for one, am able to enjoy Cherry Healey’s shows at it incorporates all elements on subjects which could potentially be awkward; sex, body image, breast-feeding. I say we need more people to stand up and unabashedly approach the more difficult subjects with a pinch of salt and a few laughs along the way!

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