“Strap in for a ride to remember,” says Dr Pixie McKenna in the voiceover at the start of Pixie’s Sex Clinic (RTE Two, Tuesday) a nudge, nudge, wink, wink opener if ever there was one. But viewers tuning in expecting a hot and sweaty live action guide to the Kama Sutra will have been a little deflated.
Instead, episode one (of three) focuses on sexually transmitted diseases and sexual consent. There is a clear statement of intent that beneath, in McKenna’s warning words, “the crude and lewd language” this series, funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, intends to be educational and firmly pitched at a teenage and twentysomething audience. Despite the general air of giddiness, it takes its mission to be “the first Irish TV series dedicated to education in sex, sexual health and behaviour” very seriously.
Seven young volunteers, aged from 18 to late 20s, come clean about their sexual experiences and take part in several exercises from condom-fitting lessons and a sexual-consent workshop to STI testing and playing “STI bingo”. “That looks sore, number four,” calls McKenna, as the seven tick off various symptoms on their bingo cards. See, the programme is shouting loud and proud, abandoning all attempts at subtlety, learning about sex is fun.
Some things work in Pixie's Sex Clinic, others don't. The game show where mum and son test each other's sex knowledge feels hopelessly forced and not as hilarious as it think it is, while excerpts from a stand-up comedy night in Dublin are funny in a moreish sort of way. The unshockable, almost always smiling Pixie McKenna is the right presenter for the job - we've seen her dealing, up-close and horribly personal, with all manner of oozing boils in private places on Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies. A frank-talking group of 16- 17-year-old students in a Dublin school isn't going to phase her: "Don't be silly, wrap your willy," says one girl giving contraception advice.
A "Private Sex Booth" is set up in a third-level college and students, youthful freckled faces and GAA jerseys aplenty, pile in to answer very personal questions such as "What's your number?" and "Have you ever had a one-night stand". It's all joyously shame-free, not an embarrassing body in sight, which makes me wonder if Pixie's Sex Clinic is, in its out-there, no holds barred approach, preaching to the converted, if viewers less assured than those young people who took part will be a little intimidated by their easy frankness. They'll learn a lot though.
