Sex on the BBC
BBC is into sex. The bastion of propriety, after spending years broadcasting on all conceivable issues, has finally waken up to what is possibly the most popular subject in the worlds.
Now, before you reach for your dia1, it is not sexually explicit audio- drama that The Beeb is presenting. Instead, Bush House is running a series of radio documentaries on sex and reproductive health in eight South Asian languages plus English. The largest sex education class ever is being run by the BBC, beaming to 52 million listeners in the region.
The programs have been commissioned by the Education Department of the BBC World Service, supported by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. (IPPF). For most languages, this is the first sex-education program ever to be aired. "The national broadcasting outlets would never have done it. Most do not even dare use the word 'condom': which is why, coming straight out, the BBC has done something tremendously useful,' says Afsan Chowdhury, the Bangladeshi journalist who is producer of the series in Bangla.