Sex Box: yes it's controversial; but it's also inspirational, warm and honest

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/29/sex-box-is-inspirational

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Commentators have favoured two particular words when telling the world why Channel 4 commissioned the forthcoming programme Sex Box – the show where couples make love inside a private space, then talk through their feelings with a panel afterwards. Those words are "titillation" and "ratings". As a psychotherapist and Sex Box panellist who has supported the production from the outset, I'd like to explain why it was actually made.

There were three challenges: how to find and keep an audience for a serious discussion about British sex life; how to reclaim the sexual truth from the lies of pornography; and how to counter the cultural inhibitions that I know from my consulting room still cause much relationship misery.

Since there's little point in broadcasting to empty sofas, Channel 4 rightly chose an innovative format to gain an audience. But titillation is surely in the mind of the beholder? The sex in the box is private and discreet, to ensure that the subsequent discussion may be open and explicit. In normal life, people make love all over the place (even in green rooms) and carry their own equipment around for the purpose. Of course, the studio context is not usual. But just as pioneering sex researchers Masters and Johnson endlessly monitored people making love in the lab, so this programme aims to see whether couples in a postcoital glow are better able to recall, share and communicate their joy in sex than otherwise. The box was created to enable fresh honesty – and if you watch the programme on 7 October I think you might agree that it succeeds.

But even if you don't, the production creates the opposite of pornography, because you truly get to see no action at all. And while I'm very clear that most porn is a conspiracy of exaggeration and distortion for a quick buck, I do not believe we can get rid of it. And it does have one plus: you will never need to explain the physical mechanics of sex to anyone ever again. The makers of iPorn and YouPorn have comprehensively funded this entire level of sex education for us by pure accident.

As for the rest of our sexual knowledge, I still worry for Britain. Yes, in my lifetime we've seen the rise of the first generation of free women on the planet who need no male permission to bed, wed, bank or wank. But on the other hand we remain the cultural victims of a legacy of imperial inhibition and sexism. How else to explain the persistence of our Benny Hill-style giggling at sex, or that Carry On gasp at the glimpse of a nipple? I refuse to believe that any other country in the world would find it even faintly amusing to call a sitcom Bottom. And that's before we consider the corrupting impact of our disreputable love affair with Commander James Bond RN.

As a fictional construct, 007 naturally cannot speak for himself, but the franchise is now so huge that even an established novelist such as William Boyd has been persuaded to add his literary support to the genre. But what wisdom about sex does Bond's originator, Ian Fleming, put into the mouth of his senescent swordsman? While re-reading the novels earlier this summer I found this tell-all quote opening a paragraph: "Most women enjoy semi-rape." For the rest, Fleming makes Bond sound like a founder member of Ukip cataloguing his male insecurities on a range of subjects from too many women in the workplace to too many women driving fast cars. (What a shame Auric Goldfinger prematurely extinguished that laser beam!)

So I contend that there are strains and stains in the mainstream media that we should be rather more embarrassed about sexually than whether Channel 4 has pushed the boundaries too far with Sex Box. I also suggest that, in their rise to snap judgment, some critics have forgotten how rarely television explores and examines sexual norms. Extreme fetishes, yes – vanilla bed-styles, no. In fact, there's an entire missing conversation about what actually happens during the sex lives of the silent majority. And I further suggest that some of this information is invaluable.

These are some of the facts I mean. We all have a drive for sex that lasts most of a lifetime. Sex is not the most important thing in the world, except when it goes wrong. None of us is born knowing how to make love; we must be taught. Most of us eventually have sex within a formal relationship, but there's a conflict between intimacy and eroticism as well as a connection. Frequency of sex with a regular partner inevitably declines unless you do something about it. Much of the sex you have in life will be with yourself. Love is blind, so you can fall for anyone of any sex at any time. Desire for others is not extinguished by marriage or cohabitation. Pre-marital sex is no longer a moral issue (everyone does it), but extra-marital sex remains an unresolved area of British hypocrisy. (In surveys we condemn it; in practice we don't.) Normal sexual identity covers a menu of lifestyle permutations. According to Sigmund Freud, when two people make love there are at least four people present: the two doing it and the two they are thinking about (which is to say it's normal to fantasise). Great sex is rare – except in the movies. Good sex starts in the brain and requires you to imagine what it must be like to be in bed with you – and then ensure both parties have the best of possible times. When we feel empty inside, what we often need is love and sex, not burgers and chocolate. There's a direct link between eating too much and sexual frustration, as also between sexual frustration and ideological extremism.

And exactly how far did our programme cover this agenda? I can't reveal too much, but I have to say that for a sex show that's meant to be chatty and friendly it more than managed. The couples were motivated, indeed inspirational. The panel (me, plus sex advice experts Tracey Cox and Dan Savage) moderated by the Observer's very own Dame Mariella all stopped "doing telly" and just enjoyed the talk. It occasionally felt like a revivalist camp, and the audience were emotionally absorbed. The gay couple had come to demonstrate that their love was just like yours and mine – but so had the straights.

As the panel's resident old fart, what I found fascinating was the testimony from this younger generation of lovers that their routine exposure to pornography had not in fact destroyed their sense of loyalty and love. Yes, they may have been slightly more blasé than my dear mamma would have wished when it came to saying things like: "We'd try a threesome." They don't do innocence. But you know what? I heard the same stuff when I was rocketing around permissive London in the 1970s. And in the vast scheme of things the major issues confronting modern Britain do not include the prevalence of group sex among the under-30s.

Sex Box is not a visual agony column (despite the presence of columnists). Nor is it a therapy show for the dysfunctional. It's just a frank chat. If I had to sum it up, I'd reach for words like "unexpected", "slightly surreal", "moving" and "sometimes edgy". The most interesting question to emerge was common to all: "How do we keep the sexual spark going for a lifetime?" Given last week's news that Britain has the highest divorce rate in the EU, it's not an unworthy inquiry. You may worry about bats and badgers. What we actually need in this country is a relationship conservation plan for the human animal.

Phillip Hodson is a psychotherapist and the author of How Perfect Is Your Partner? (Carroll and Brown, £15.99)

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