"Strange Sex"

Credit: TLC

Watching the third season premiere of TLC's "Strange Sex" (Sundays, 10 p.m. ET), I had a lot of questions -- none of them about sex. Who are these people? Where did TLC find them? Why are they talking about this stuff on national television? Is this willingness to share part of the fetish, too? Do they have jobs to go to? If so, do they have to go to them the day after this airs? Damn, I wonder what that's like!

Of course, none of these questions are answered on the show. Instead, TLC blithely dives into some weird ass stuff as if the show is covering nothing more bizarre than a child's tea party instead of, oh, you know, adult breastfeeding. With the exception of some ridiculous background music and a damning title, the show mostly features talking head interviews that are so dull and stilted they seem ripped from a PBS documentary. Except, of course, that the talking heads are exploring the challenges of finding the best uses for breast milk in an adult diet (good in cereal, not so good in coffee. Just in case you wanted to try it, I guess).

And that brings us to our first couple in the episode, Jeff and Michelle. The happy parents of two little kids, they seem like the very picture of domestic tranquility. Except that Jeff's main turn-ons are getting his wife knocked up and drinking her breast milk, straight from the cow, so to speak. I bet those particular turn-ons were never once mentioned on "The Dating Game," by the way. 

Michelle, who seems to have exactly one front tooth that has moved front and center to make her look like an alien lifeform from "Futurama, thinks this is just fine. She's making the milk, so why not? And they've cut down on their grocery bills! It's better than coupon clipping! The other bonus? Breastfeeding has cured Jeff's erectile dysfunction. Given that we passed the point of TMI many, many minutes ago, this additional information only adds a slight layer of discomfort to the whole viewing experience. 

While Michelle and Jeff seem perfectly happy with their arrangement, the show needs someone to stare at them in disgust and thus has them visit a therapist, who readily complies. When Jeff reveals that he's also turned on by getting his wife knocked up, the therapist suggests that this may not be the most practical way to pursue an active, happy sex life. Michelle just nods her snaggle-toothed head as if this crazy therapist don't know nothin'. She don't need no stinkin' therapy! The therapist promptly shoves them out of her office, dead bolts the door behind them, and suggests with wide-eyed horror that Jeff and Michelle may be in for "a rude awakening down the road." You know, like menopause. I also have to wonder if Michelle might start to see the drawbacks of this particular lifestyle after the 10th or 11th kid, or maybe while trying to change five diapers concurrently while her husband chases her around the house, trying to tap her for his breakfast cereal. But hey, different strokes, I suppose.

Our other story features another happily married couple. Jonny and Lynn will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. How, you ask? Diamonds, maybe a nice vacation? No, Lynn will be having surgery to tighten her vagina as well as a hymenoplasty so that Jonny can pop her cherry a second time. How sweet. 

Lynn and Jonny are exceptionally dull interviews, explaining their reasons for submitting Lynn to a painful surgery with zombie-like stoicism, but where they don't disappoint is in coming up with colorful descriptions of Lynn's saggy, double car garage-like vagina. 

As Jonny tells us, after their first child Lynn was a lot "looser than before she gave birth. To be blunt about it, it was like throwing a tennis ball down a hallway." Yes, that would be blunt, Jonny. I cannot actually wash my ears out with soap OR unhear that, but okay, great. I'm expecting Lynn to be insulted by this description, but oh, no! 

Instead, Lynn tops Jonny by describing her vagina after her second son thusly: "It would be like having your hand in a glove originally, then like throwing it into pudding." STOP, for the love of God, STOP WITH THE ANALOGIES! And now I will never eat pudding again, or at least not for a very long time. But I can say with some certainty that Lynn and Jonny are perfect for one another.

So, Lynn has her surgeries (it is only as she's being wheeled into surgery that Jonny expresses some concern she could, oh, die getting her vagina rebuilt) and the results? Well, Jonny has some descriptive words for that, too. "The new equipment is extremely tight, and that's not a bad thing." Well, listening to this may actually be a bad thing, but that's what you get for watching a show called "Strange Sex." 

Liane Bonin Starr
Sr. Editor

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Liane Bonin Starr is an author, screenwriter and former writer for EW.com. Her byline has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Variety and a lot of other places. Her last book was called "a scandalously catty, guilty pleasure" by Jane magazine. Expect the same from Starr Raving.