Depraved modern comedy.

A 15 year old can easily be sexually active

Just putting this fact out there

Chestnut

But just because they have witnessed explicit sexual practices online does not mean these should be played out by characters in TV dramas as part of entertainment. Seeing it on main TV channels normalises it and I find it disturbing that grans would think this is okay and acceptable

Everyone is different in how they perceive "explicit" and what their boundaries are regarding "healthy, sexual relationships". So long as NOBODY is being harmed and it is entirely consensual, then it is nobody else's business. As for it being on television? If you don't like it, don't watch it. Appropriate and relevant sexual relationships on television are fine with me.

And to add another angle, what of the themes in programmes such as EastEnders or Coronation Street? Storylines of rape, domestic violence and under aged sex. Whilst not necessarily appropriate (and before the 9pm watershed) surely highlighting that these things do happen may help people in real life who are involved in such issues may be able to come forward to tell someone what is going on behind closed doors.

What a sheltered life I lead! GN is the only social media I ‘do’.😇

Germanshepherdsmum

I find it so funny that you type’s3x’ SW. The word is permitted on GN! 🤣

🤣🤣

It's just habit. A few forums and platforms won't allow it and you'll get reported or your post taken down!

Cossy Most 15 year olds are very familiar with sexual practices both within heterosexual and homosexual communities. I doubt whether any mid teens are likely to be corrupted.

Presumably because they already are corrupted. If they are familiar with a variety of sexual practices by 15 years then they have been seeing things at a very young age, well before the age of consent. The introduction of Smartphones is what this is all about. Youngsters should never have been given access to the internet.

But just because they have witnessed explicit sexual practices online does not mean these should be played out by characters in TV dramas as part of entertainment. Seeing it on main TV channels normalises it and I find it disturbing that grans would think this is okay and acceptable.

I’m 65 and I can still remember underage pregnancies and many girls wanting to have sex and not being pressurised. I also knew girls feeling pressurised into sex, some caved in, others said no.

I had the whole consent and not feeling, or pressuring, anyone to have sex, and how to have safe sex with all 4 of our children. When they all entered into their first serious relationships I bought the two boys condoms and the only reason the girls didn’t get bought them is because both of them are gay. All of them at some point have had themselves checked out at STD clinics, not because they thought they had anything, but because they felt once you’ve had more than one sexual partner it’s the responsible thing to do.

It would have been nice to think they’d settle down with their first relationship, but maybe a bit unrealistic. All of them have long term partners and don’t change them every other month.

Sex, so long as it is consensual and legal, is a natural thing which most adults enjoy. I’d would have rather my 15 year olds watched films with sexual scenes than anything very violent.

Films labelled as 15 are extremely unlikely to have “pornagraphic” content.

My parents were very open about nudity, sex and mostly pretty liberal about many things, this meant I could ask questions (as an only child I had no older siblings to ask), so I knew the facts of life, in a very age appropriate way and I had the chat about when I should become sexually active.

Each to their own.

The scene where a man is giving oral sex to another man watched by his girlfriend is perverted. Not the act itself but the viewing.
Personally I would rather not watch others having either straight or gay sex in a film or anywhere else and it's time children aren't able to view these things on their phones.

I find it so funny that you type’s3x’ SW. The word is permitted on GN! 🤣

On ITV there is a new series called G'Wed

I've only seen a clip but the contempt with which ypthe boy talks about his grandmother was enough to put me off watching.

NOT blamed
autocorrect - it should be named

Maybe I'm just too liberal for my own good?!

Whilst I'm not a huge fan of long, strung out s3x scenes and ones which can come across as degrading or not relevant to the "plot", I also accept that sometimes they are in keeping with the storyline. You can keep Fifty Shades of Grey and Magic Mike etc. It doesn't interest me one bit.
Does it worry me about impressionable, young people watching them? I don't know.
When I was at school as a teen (late 80s, early 90s) we watched horror films to scare ourselves, "rude" films for a giggle and read magazines which, for their time, were raunchy, a bit rude had pullouts of "50 of the best s3xual positions" and advice pages on how to deal with pushy boyfriends.
Whilst times have changed and this stuff seems much more "in your face" I don't think it's changed that much. Gone are the magazines hidden under beds and now we have internet, TikTok and Instagram. If we have frank, open conversations with our children/young people and they know they can come to us with worries and issues then I think that's half the battle of instilling healthy, respectful and consensual relationships with those around us.
And, controversially, it's not just boys who are guilty. I've known personally of several girls who have made up stories regarding how boys have treated them when they've been alone together. To the point where boys have (again, controversially) videoed "consent" videos with a girl so they don't get into trouble.

Of course, when it comes to the crunch, NO means NO.

Whilst my children are young adults, I have many young friends who have shared their worries with me ( in my previous job I became the "Auntie" to the young'uns 🥰). Their worries are valid and not always what we think they are. Very often they're not about boyfriends/girlfriends. But at least they knew they could talk to me about anything.

I wouldn't want to be the parent of a teen nowadays. Or, as it happens, be a teen.

I don’t think you should call gay sexual acts perversion

The OP didn't.

However, the girlfriend of one of the men watching him and another man having sex is rather unusual.

Just watching the news. Another two 16 year olds convicted of murder but cannot be blamed because they are children.
A 17 year old rapist cannot be named because he is a child.

But posters on here think that it's fine for 15 year olds to watch what would have been considered pornography not long ago.

The more the boundaries are pushed, the more it seems normalised and the more women and girls are coerced into doing things they might prefer not to.

As one of my grannies used to say*, ‘Smut and filth!’ 😂

*when there was even sloppy ‘wet’ kissing on the TV.
Oddly enough, she wasn’t generally prudish at all.

But I agree, OP, it wasn’t suitable for 15s. I wouldn’t want to watch it, either.

I agree that pornography is dangerous, but mainstream TV shows aren't pornographic by most definitions.

I understand that there are things that most of us might find uncomfortable viewing if watching with children, but I think we need to remember that shows are not made with that in mind. I don't watch much 'youth' tv, as it's not made for people like me - that's the point of it, really. My parents didn't watch The Tube, or Friday Night Live when I was young, and the audience enjoyed the fact that older people didn't 'get it'.

If I happened to watch a 'youth' programme with someone in the intended audience group I wouldn't expect it to have been toned down to fit my sensibilities. It's up to all of us to be selective in what we watch, and switch off if we don't like it. Now that there are so many channels programme makers don't cater for wider audiences like they used to - almost everything is targeted.

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t think you should call gay sexual acts perversion, or suggest that the people involved are morally degenerate , nor would I agree that what you describe is likely to corrupt young people, but personally I don’t think what you describe is very suitable for a 15 year old.

I too agree and I too wish there was a like button!

I would say that the only thing this poor 15 year old felt was sheer embarrassment at watching sex scenes with her grandmother!

I wouldn’t cancel Netflix on this basis, normal Netflix does give “warnings” normally with the synopsis.

Most 15 year olds are very familiar with sexual practices both within heterosexual and homosexual communities. I doubt whether any mid teens are likely to be corrupted.

I’ve looked at several reviews of Northern Comfort, none of them refer to explicit sex acts. The consensus seemed to be the 15 age tag in the UK was appropriate and it wasn’t very funny for something described as a comedy.

The issue of pornography as covered by Woman’s Hour this week deserves its own thread

Agree with most on here, also, how much 'uncomfortable' content is relevant to the storyline/plot anyway?
Surely TV channels want to attract viewers not disengage them?
This is why I like Agatha Christie adaptations- you know what you're getting or actually NOT getting

silverlining48

There was a discussion on the radio today about how the sexual acts youngsters see on porn are regarded now as normal expected behaviour.
It isn’t and it saddens me that children, 13 14 15 year old boys especially, have these views of sex. It should not be purely physical but a part of a loving respectful relationship.

I agree with you silverlining

I'm quite sure that 15 year olds have seen this and worse on their phones but does that necessarily make it right?

Girls are being pressurised by boys now, and being persuaded that this is normal sexual behaviour. It encourages bullying and misogynistic behaviour.
Violence is being normalised too and is resulting in more violence and deaths on our streets.

When older women on social media (some grandmothers) normalise this type of behaviour then it is very worrying indeed.

Chestnut

Those who are saying to check the trigger warnings, fine, you may decide not to watch. But that doesn't stop it being transmitted and young impressionable people seeing it.

Actually, I agree. There are a lot of activities portrayed in films and on TV , that I don’t choose to watch, and no, we can’t police other people’s viewing, but we hear/read endless concerns about what children are doing, purportedly because of what they have seen in films that are for an older age group.
If I say nothing, am I agreeing that it’s OK?
Like Dickens said
For me, context is everything. Explicit sex and violence just for the sake of shock-value is not something I'd want my grand children to absorb.

Fair2good
HousePlantQueen

To be fair, you have to look for it, but it's there.

rafichagran

I would not like to see a film for 15 year old depicting a man giving another man oral sex watched by his girlfriend.
There should have been a warning before the film and then you can decide to watch or not.

There likely would have been. Most programmes are prefaced by a warning involving explicit sexual behaviour/drug taking/or whatever.

Silverlining. The Women’s Hour discussions on pornography this week have horrified me. Today the discussion with a woman describing 14 year old youngsters competitively chalking up their sexual achievements including anal sex because they thought it was the expected and the norm. Their knowledge/experience at such a young age I found distressing, but I am of advanced years. I am sure it does not make for a happy society. At that age the love if my life was hockey!

Isn't more a question of how old a child / teen has to be before they can be regarded as mentally and emotionally capable of processing the adult world in a way that doesn't alarm or disturb them?

As pointed out by others, consensual sex is not depraved no matter who or how many the participants. But it may not be appropriate for a youngster of 15 if, for example they've led a sheltered life, and they are suddenly confronted with it without any prior 'introduction'.

I do however believe that some producers of plays and films are invested too much in their own quirky ideas and think that "in yer face" scripts and plots without too much intellectual content is what the public needs and wants. I think it's a bit of an ego thing- they might see themselves as trail-blazers.

For me, context is everything. Explicit sex and violence just for the sake of shock-value is not something I'd want my grand children to absorb.

MissInterpreted And I'm more concerned that the OP appears to be sending out the message to her GD that sexual acts between two men are depraved or perverted.

An appropriate name! You (and others) have completely misinterpreted the OP's post. She is not saying that homosexuality is perverted, she is saying that the inclusion of pornography is perverted. It would be just the same if a man and woman were involved, it's the casual inclusion of an oral sex act in a comedy that is wrong.

SeaWoozle - well said.