
In theory, I should approve of Sex/Life, the show that everyone’s talking about (though I fear that’s not all they’re doing in front of their laptops). Long ago, when (glory days) I was running my college women’s group, we could only dream of a TV series in which a female character was allowed to have a wilder sex life than that of any man. But… oh, my eyes. That the Netflix “hit” of the moment, created by a woman, directed by women and seemingly made for women, should come complete with a pair of nipples that are erect pretty much from the moment that their owner wakes up right until the second she goes to sleep (in her rustic white nightie, she looks like she’s in an old Timotei ad)… How on earth did we get here?
Not that our heroine sleeps much. In the middle of the night, distracted by her yearnings, she can sometimes be found watching her best friend have sex with her ex-boyfriend, Brad, on her mobile (which is nice, given that her friend doesn’t know she can be seen). You see, Billie (Sarah Shahi) is terribly bored with her vanilla husband, Cooper (Mike Vogel), who is in mergers and acquisitions, and looks like he has been sculpted from Edam, and thanks to this, her mind keeps turning to Brad (Adam Demos), her ex, a record company boss who’s now sleeping with her college roommate, Sasha (Margaret Odette), and who also, strangely, looks like he’s made mostly of Edam. And herein lies the show’s engine: which cheese should Billie choose? Both, I would say, are perfectly waxy and tasteless: as bland as the hotel interiors of their respective homes. However, in a sandwich situation, it’s Brad who requires the least mustard. Also, unlike Cooper, at least he isn’t given to shouting, “It’s gonna work, it’s gonna work!” as he tries, and inevitably fails, to have an orgasm.