Tuesday 5 February 2013

The giant vajayjay and other horror stories

I have to ask myself why I watched Channel 184 last night. There I was, all tucked up in bed, when my sister advised me that Embarrassing Bodies would be featuring a giant vagina. Well, I was intrigued - wouldn't you be? I mean, what exactly constitutes a giant vagina? Immediately, I thought of that tunnel one comes across when travelling to Limpopo.

Now, I am in no way proud to admit this, but even with Level 9 exhaustion, I climbed out of bed and back on to the couch where, just an hour ago, I had been treated to another view of Gordon Ramsay's bum (Why? Why has Ramsay's rump become a superstar in its own right? Again I say: is this a man for whom it is necessary to strip off every five seconds?)

But Gordon's derreriere was nothing compared to the sight that was in store. For the uninitiated, Embarrassing Bodies is a series all about the grotesqueries that we usually only admit to after the third cocktail, and only if our drinking companions are our very closest friends, or even share our DNA. Even then, when one awakens the next day and recalls recounting, blow by blow, the finer points of one's flatulence problem or third nipple, one feels not so much liberated as steeped in shame, and greatly encouraged to check out to move town.

Not so the people on Embarrassing Bodies: the producers have somehow conned a bunch of folk into believeing that the very health issues they have kept secret for years should now be shown, not only to a doctor, but to the whole world; the idea being that they visit the show's medical  experts, who can be found hanging out in a special trailer waiting for people apparently desperate to be on TV, but no good at hosting dinner parties, to show them their verucas and halitosis. Think of it as Come Be Repulsive and Misshapen With Me.

Ms. Salami Down A Passage Way is a case in point: in all honesty, I'm freaked out by the voyeuristic streak that made me sit down and watch something so intimate - and, even worse, that got a good giggle out of it. But if that's bad, what about the producers who felt compelled to flight something like this, knowing that this worst kind of Sideshow Bob would boost viewing figures in a way that a programme about, I don't know, good old fashioned romance between a man and a normally endowed woman wouldn't. And as for the lady with the large labia - clearly, this is something very painful for her. I'm just not sure why, when she's been reluctant to share with boyfriends her little - oh, sorry, gigantic - problem, she decided to skip the gynae appointment and go straight for the money shot, to be viewed by millions.

What made it even worse were the pithy little comments, replete with puns, that British reality presenters seem to be so fond of. But, while it may sound cheesy to say "Will Tracey and Dom sizzle like the steak she just cooked for him" on Dinner Date, telling us that "Mary's roomy bits have her and her husband sleeping in seperate rooms" is not quite the same.

That all said, I've lost my appetite for spying on things that in a more genteel era would have been kept under one's hat (or knickers, as the case may be). Perhaps it's not necessary to describe a pregger as being "in the family way", but in my mind, it's equally unnecessary to have a gander at the parts involved in getting her that way.

 

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