‘Queer as Folk’ Creator Wants To See More Male Nudity On TV

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Russell T. Davies is the genius behind Queer as Folk, the current revival of Doctor Who, and the new series Cucumber, and he's as fed up with the lack of male nudity on television as the rest of us. In a recent interview with The Telegraph (link below), he talked about his general feelings with the portrayal of gay men in entertainment, and what he's doing to change those perceptions. 

For example, the main character on Cucumber, Henry (Vincent Franklin), has a fear of anal sex which Davies sees as something not addressed by any forms of gay popular culture.

“It’s one of the great unspoken truths about gay life which is completely true,” explains the 51-year-old Davies. “Gay culture is seen to be all about anal sex, yet an awful lot of men have a fear of it and there is a silence about it. It’s the one thing I can’t wait for transmission for, to see if people stand up and say, 'That’s me.'" The only person Davies has ever heard speak publicly about it is Stephen Fry, in the October 2013 documentary Out There. “I was holding up my hands in horror at the screen, going ‘That’s my subject!’”

Davies is also fed up with the stereotype that male nudity is used primarily to shock audience members.

With these series Davies does not feel he is breaking taboos, merely trying to normalise certain aspects of life. Take the male form, for example. “There is not enough male frontal nudity on TV,” he says. “You’re far more likely to see a naked woman than a naked man. It’s only [seen as] rude because the rest of television is rather tame – it doesn’t actually talk about sex and our bodies and how we feel about them. I’m not out to shock.”

This is all very well but Cucumber is, in places, incredibly shocking. In one scene, we see a young man with a chastity contraption on his penis. Davies refuses to concede that this is in anyway pushing the boundaries of taste. “How harmless and funny is that?” he says.

There's no denying that Davies is a fascinating guy, and I would heartily recommend reading the full interview over at The Telegraph.