Once upon a time, back in the early 90s before the internet was a lot more accessible to the average person, if you wanted to get an inside peek into the varying sexual interests, curiosities, practices and fetishes of people all across the world, all you needed was a subscription to HBO. The Home Box Office’s Real Sex documentary series explored the subject of human sexuality, pulling back the veil on sex from just about every angle imaginable… and some angles unimaginable (again, this was pre-internet). The documentary series aired for well over a decade, wrapping up relatively recently, in 2008, but it looks like HBO’s toying with the idea of bringing it back.
Vulture reports that HBO is developing a new take on Real Sex, which is being retitled SEX // NOW and will be helmed by Me @ the Zoo director Chris Moukarbel, who shared a bit about his own personal experience watching the series and learning about sex when he was a kid. From the sound of it, we won’t have to wait very long to see the reboot, as HBO has already scheduled a premiere date for the pilot, with the first episode set to air January 2 at 11:00 p.m. The site notes that there’s “potentially more to come,” so it doesn’t sound like it’s a sure thing that SEX //NOW will be a full-on series but the option may be on the table, depending on how well this first half-hour installment does.
The original series was broken up into segments and featured an up-close look at various sexual topics, from swingers to “Real Dolls” to sex toys, masturbation, fetishes, adult virginity and more. The SEX // NOW pilot is said to retain a similar format to Real Sex, in that it will feature two or three documentary shorts and a “man-on-the-street” segment hosted by internet personality LisaTV. “On the show, we want to explore sex culture and we want people to be turned on, but we're also interested in these other questions about how people find sexual fulfillment through the Internet,” Moukarbel is quoted as saying in Vulture's article.
It's interesting that he brings up the internet. On one hand, we could argue that the internet makes a show like Real Sex seems far less risqué than it once was, given how easily accessible information related to sex -- or any other topic, really -- is online. With that said, while sex will always be a timeless pastime, appreciated and enjoyed by generations, human socialization continues to evolve. And since socialization is a requirement for a lot of sexual activities, the topic is ever-changing and always worth exploring. As Vulture notes, if SEX // NOW becomes a full-on series, Moukarbel wants to touch on apps like Grindr and Tinder, which are dating apps people use to find romantic and/or sexual partners. There are likely to be other more modern topics to explore related to human sexuality, largely linked to the internet. As HBO’s a premium cable network, and one that’s never shied away from the topic of sex, it’s certainly a fitting place for a show like this to air.
While we wait for SEX // NOW to air, you can catch some of the old episodes of Real Sex and its spinoff series Pornucopia on HBO Go and/or HBO On Demand.
