Television: Sex on TV is... ...Not Sexy!

Shows from HBO's Sex in the City to MTV's Undressed have angst in their pants

Bob Dole should have tipped us off. When even the stoic standard-bearer of the Greatest Generation is discussing male plumbing problems in public, you know sexual dysfunction has permeated the culture. And when two of the season's most talked-about films, Summer of Sam and Eyes Wide Shut--the latter a gothic sexual hell that would do a medieval allegorist proud--center on orgies that go terribly wrong, a horny romp like American Pie seems quaint. So it's only fitting that TV, long charged with glamorizing lust, is airing images of sex that are not just unglamorous but also neurotic, guilty, antagonistic, even scary.

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