I Got In Bed With Ten Women
I was on the phone with one of the most successful TV producers in Hollywood. It was only a few months into my new job as Head of Programming for Playboy TV, where I was hired to find mainstream production partners to create sex-positive shows for the channel. After being rejected by dozens of other producers and major production companies, this guy was the first person I spoke with who appeared interested in producing shows for us. As a gay man, he also seemed totally open to sexual content without all of the snark and judgment I faced from the other producers I’d attempted to hire. We were having a great talk, he totally got what I was trying to do, and he was excited to pitch me some shows. Everything seemed to be going great.
Just to make sure my expectations were clear, I reminded him once again that I wanted the new shows to have explicit content. Most mainstream reality shows such as The Bachelor have people hooking up all the time, but the producers don’t shoot that part because they can’t air it. Now that I was working at a channel that could air it, we wanted to show the sex that was contextual to the story.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you trying to tell me you actually want to shoot the sex? Like, erections on camera?”
“Yes,” I said. “Sex is a big part of the stories we want to tell, and we want to show everything.”
