Pornographers, puritans, and gold-medal performers ...

As a proud Canadian, I've found the 2008 Olympics disappointing. Seems the best we can expect from our athletes is "personal-best" performances. Woo-hoo: we travelled all the way to Beijing to compete against ourselves?

My patriotic pride was briefly rekindled when I read that Edmonton broadcaster, Shaun Donnelly, is promising to deliver at least 50% Canadian content on his new CRTC-approved cable channel, Northern Peaks.

But alas, it turns out Donnelly's 50% Canadian content is 100% porn. The idea of Canadian studs and starlets stripping down to simulate sex just doesn't make me proud to be Canadian. But Donnelly thinks I'm missing the point. The way he tells it, homegrown porn has an added bonus. I'll let Donnelly explain:

"I've always found there's a real turn-on to watching and knowing it's people you could run into in the grocery store."


Ah yes: what could be more sexually stimulating than seeing my Safeway cashier naked on Northern Peaks? Why didn't someone think of this sooner?

Our culture has been co-opted by pornographers on the one hand and puritans on the other. Both are evil. Pornographers make sex promiscuous. Puritans make it simply procreative. Whatever happened to creative sex? Whatever happened to erotica -- sex that is sensuous and sophisticated? Why is it almost impossible to broadcast sexual content in our culture without being either crude or clinical (read, boring)?

I'm glad we have a sex channel in Canada, but sex is no spectator sport. Shaun Donnelly needs to make Canadians better performers. The Chinese rule gymnastics. The USAmericans own the swimming pool. Let's make sex Canada's game. When the world thinks of Canada, I want them to think "best sex in the world".