Childhood sex education leaves a mountain of questions that follows us into adulthood. Once we’re familiarized with more than just the basics of penetration (all that’s really mentioned in grade school classrooms) and the risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections broached in high-school health seminars, curiosity gets the best of us.

For sexually active adults seeking guidance — indicators for what is normal, tips to spice up bedroom activities, overcoming obstacles to orgasm — one-on-one counsel is rarely sought. How many of us consult a doctor or therapist before hitting up Google with our kinky questions?

When search engines fail to give us the answers we’re after, the phone-in sex show has saved us from facing embarrassment through anonymity. The talk-show format has been around since the early 1980s, when pioneers such as Dr. Ruth and Sue Johanson opened the lines of communication to queries from live callers in television and radio formats.

“People have a lot of questions around love and relationships and who is there for us to ask questions to as adults?” poses Cynthia Loyst, Canada’s newest sex talk-show host on CP24’s Sex Matters, a local Toronto series available across the country through satellite cable providers. “No question’s stupid. We just don’t really have a lot of opportunity to ask.”

While Dr. Ruth’s TV show Sexually Speaking started answering live viewer questions in the United States back in 1981, Johanson’s Sunday Night Sex Show wasn’t brought to Canadian televisions until 1996, 12 years after the radio program launched. Nevertheless, Loyst says historically Canada is more open to talking about sex and considers us to be a few steps ahead of our friends south of the border.

“I find in some ways, Canadians are so much more liberal,” Loyst observes. “I feel that we’re much more advanced, much more European in many ways, but in some ways we are more conservative at times. But the States, I think, still has more contradictions to do with their sex education in classrooms. They’re still just starting to come up after years and years of abstinence-only education.”

As North America becomes increasingly liberal with its approach to boudoir broadcasting, call-in sex programming continues to evolve over the years. Sex Matters incorporates book reviews as well as the question-and-answer portions of series past. Viewers will also get a taste of the latest sex toys to hit the market, a throwback to Johanson’s pleasure chest.

But Sex Matters is more a hybrid of the magazine and phone-in program, integrating both live and taped segments throughout the half-hour show. Filmed portions will bring viewers behind the scenes of places they might not otherwise go, such as inside swingers clubs or sex-toy stores.

It also goes beyond just weekly airings, following Sex @ 11’s twice-weekly format found on Rogers community stations. But instead of two unrelated episodes airing on Tuesdays and Thursday nights, Sex Matters brings two companion episodes to viewers every week, without compromising the anonymity and democracy live callers bring.

“In studio, I’m going to have guests on, so I’m going to bring on sex educators, therapists, doctors,” Loyst says. “Every episode we’re exploring one topic and so the Thursday and Friday night relationship is that we’re trying to have them kind of hold hands a little bit.”

The topics covered will be like those found on any other sex talk show — everything from body image to sex addiction, the influence of the Internet and pornography is fair game. One defining element of the show is the explicit (but not gratuitous) approach to its subject matter, Loyst says. “It’s about adult-oriented content, but the show is not aiming to be especially explicit in visuals. But the dialogue is explicit.”

This isn’t the youth-oriented sex education approach of Johanson’s day, nor is the aim of the show solely to titillate, a common theme among male-targeted programs like Playboy TV’s Night Calls, a live phone-in series geared towards fantasies and hosted by female porn stars. Loyst emphasizes Sex Matters’ serious but fun angle intended for Canadian females.

“My ideal audience is women in particular from ages 20 to 40 probably, but I think that their male partners will come along and watch, or their female partners, or gay men will watch it as well,” Loyst says. “A lot of times sexuality can be used in one particular way that just titillates and that’s not our intention. Our intention is to inform and to enlighten and to also be a bit playful.”

Sex talk shows are increasingly female-oriented, says Loyst, who began observing other shows that deal with sexual content. She points to daytime talk series including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tyra Banks Show and The View, which have all addressed sex issues (including pornography, sexual fantasy and late-in-life lesbianism) from a female point-of-view in recent months, surely a welcome development among sexually active — and curious — women in North America.

“One of the things that’s the most insightful or inspiring is watching women who become more confident with their body or their awareness or their knowledge, how it transforms them and allows them to take control of their lives in a way that kind of is unexpected and beautiful, not to sound cheesy,” Loyst says. “When you’re dealing with adult people who want to learn and want to share that with other people and be in healthy, encouraging, loving relationships — I absolutely love that.”

Sex Matters airs Thursdays and Fridays, 10:30 p.m. ET, CP24

Thoughts? szolis@tvguide.ca or comment below.

 

 

Whether it’s reality or scripted TV, Stephanie firmly believes the most important element to any series is a sordid romantic story arc.— Grey’s Anatomy’s MerDer, Laguna Beach/The Hills’ Lauren and Jason, The Office’s PB & J, and General Hospital’s Spoily, to name a few. The more dysfunctional a couple is, the better.

A proud single gal with an obsession for everything New York, Stephanie is one relocation away from living out her dream as a Carrie Bradshaw impostor. In the meantime, her weekly column scrutinizes the most explosive couples, crushes and relationship catastrophes to unfold on the small screen.

 

 

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