Tell Me You Love Me

We watched the new HBO show tonight, Tell Me You Love Me. It was taped.

Mostly, it’s a soap opera with very pretty white people in upscale homes. (Note to set designer: every home looks too much alike.) What was so unique about this television show is that it had actual sex in it. You don’t see actual penetration, but you do see lots of flashes of every body part. Breasts, for sure. Ball sacks, a plenty. Beave, a bit. Rod, absolutely—and at one point there was a full handjob complete with shooting sperm, I’m not kidding.

It was very strange to witness this kind of thing on television that was not running a DVD. I’m not at all prudish, so I was not bothered. But I had to ask in the name of entertainment, “Whatever for?”

This type of thing does not sexually arouse since all the sex is completely surrounded by upper class angst and life dissatisfaction, adhering to the evening soap opera format. So, to what affect is all this bosom heaving and knob gobbling?

When the show was over, I turned to Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, and I said to him, “I have a great show I want to pitch to HBO. I’m going to call it TOILET. It’ll be a nighttime soap opera except we will add in aspects of people’s toilet life. Pissing. Shitting. Showing people on the bowl. Inspecting logs. Talking about how good it feels to take a monster dump.”

Maybe people are bored with the human condition so the envelope is pushed in the silliest ways. Or maybe there IS something new under the sun, without having to get into people’s private parts (or, hypothetically, toilets), and people are just blind to it right now.

I also wonder what these actors must think about their jobs.