Larvatus Prodeo

With Blair’s latest morals crusade being against teenage pregnancy, a sexual health expert has blamed reality tv:

It is not often the august agencies of Her Majesty’s government have to bother themselves with the heavy-petting antics of ITV’s Celebrity Love Island. But maybe they should.

Sexually graphic reality shows featuring bed-hopping contestants are hampering the drive against teenage pregnancy, a key adviser on sexual health warns today.

Programmes such as Celebrity Love Island - in which scantily clad couples are closeted in a tropical ‘love shack’ in the hope that temptation will get the better of them - or Big Brother, with its cameras trained beneath the duvet, send teens the message that everyone else is having sex.

Fortunately Australian teens won’t be rushing out to have unprotected sex (despite the Government’s incentive of a $3000 baby bonus) because BB continues rather tame. And when things get steamy in the sauna between Geneva and Shearer, Mikey gets embarrassed:

And my final point, and one which is dragging this series down from it’s good start: BIG BROTHER IS SCARED TO TAKE A CHANCE! If the producers would only just push the envelope a little further we’d have a much fresher show. If they want to put 15 horny and (mostly) single pepole in a house together they need to expect footage higher than a PG rating. Friday night (27th) was a classic example: during Uplate, which is an MA15+ show, we were cut away from footage more than ten times (I counted) because it wasn’t sanitary enough. In particular, the incident with Glenn and Geneva getting hot and heavy in the sauna. I’m sure we can see two people making out this late at night.

And pushing the envelope doesn’t need to be all about sex either: during the same Friday night Uplate, Michelle was talking about her pesonal debts and how “Big Brother was her ticket out of debt”, just before the feeds were cut. This is the type of thing we want to see - and frankly Michelle only being in the house for money is something we need to know about for evictions. How about showing us diary visits when they happen?

It seems Big Brother constantly has a nervous shaking hand hovering over the censor button at the slightest mention of anything “bad”… and it’s killing the show. I guess this is what you get when middle aged TV execs run a show designed for 16 - 39 year olds.