Summary
Sex-positive puppets, comedians, and experts come together to teach you absolutely nothing in this weird Netflix comedy special.
Directed by Ben Turner and Gabe Turner, Sex: Unzipped is a Netflix comedy special at 59 minutes long and aims to debunk myths and misconceptions surrounding sex and simultaneously make the audience feel sex-positive.
So, I’m going to be brutally honest. This is an agonizing watch. The first section where the puppets introduce themselves with their pronouns, including a big gay bear, seemed more offensive than educational and I instantly knew I was in for a bumpy ride (and not in a good way). If you know stage shows, this is Avenue Q but terrible. I highly recommended you watch Avenue Q if you want rude, funny puppets talking about sex.
Saweetie is a fun host, but at times she seems clueless and is taking her cues from the puppets, although she does give off a friendly, kind, empathetic presence. There is a great cast including some A-list comedians, drag queens, and actor-comedians, but their jokes and stories (which are honest and heartfelt) are overshadowed by and lost within the re-enactments from the puppets and quick cuts. There are some fun stories, so I’d rather have just had a show about celebs talking sex, rather than including and enforcing these weird positive sex puppets. It’s rather perverse. The dick puppet has made me never want to see a dick again if I’m being honest.
In one conversation the host is having with a puppet, another puppet is going down on that puppet, which I found completely weird and wrong. Why didn’t the host react or know? Don’t you have to ask for consent before having oral sex next to someone? Problematic and not funny.
Sexual and relationship experts, doctors, and sexual therapists feature in this series which is interesting and is a nice contrast from the comedians’ stories and input. Although, it’s so randomly formatted it did confuse me on what the whole purpose and reason for the series is. A lot of bright lights, flamboyance, and creative props in the setting, it’s visually a whole burlesque. Which is great — I did love that.
This is a series that wanted to be a positive, fun way into discussing sex when really it was odd, cringe, and missed the mark. This is a shame as there are some important topics brought up and discussed. If you’re wanting to educate and make a change in the way we look, talk and think about sex, shows like Sex Education and Sex, Love & Goop will do this for you. This will just make you cringe and probably not want to have sex for a while.
