First Oral Sex Scene on Network TV

Cafe Society
1

In this TV column for the Washington Post, we learn some details about the easily-offended and apparently easily-confused Julianna Margulies:

Leaving aside Ms. Margulies’ fleeting concerns over history and propriety… is it?

I have to say no. If nothing else, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “Once More, With Feeling,” features a scene that clearly is intended to convey oral sex between Tara and Willow. Perhaps (before she became offended) Ms. Margulies meant heterosexual oral sex. I can’t imagine she’s right even then, but I can’t think of a counterexample.

2

Here is an article written last January which sites some earlier examples.

Including:
Blue Mountain State
Cougar Town

I never watched it, but was there any in The L Word or are we only talking about hetero oral?

3

I can see excluding Blue Mountain State as not being a broadcast network show, which I think was implied, but Cougar Town’s example seems to fit.

4

How do they make it clear that it’s oral sex? Is there dialogue after the fade-out?

5

How I Met Your Mother had a scene in the second season where Marshall and Lilly got pulled over for driving in the carpool lane with only the driver visible… if you know what I mean.

6

I don’t have an answer for the American networks, but the BBC passed this milestone in 1973, with the ‘Play for Today: The Operation’.

7

Probably just a lot of humming.

8

Not a network show.

9

apropos… what’s network TV?

10

TV shows that air on the major networks, i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.

11

this is

12

Then *Buffy *doesn’t count. :smiley:

13

The free, public airwaves networks that you don’t have to pay for – that would be ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS and whatever else you can get without cable.

14

In the first season of Joe Millionaire…it was pretty clear in the next to last episode that Sarah was going for hers behind a a tree with Joe… I remember you could hear an audible slurp. The fact that she denied it in a Playboy interview confirmed it to me…

15

Seinfeld had an episode all about it. And there were some very obvious scenes with George under the covers.

16

I recall a scene from a 1987 movie called I’ll Take Manhattan, where Valerie Bertinelli – yes, Barbara Cooper herself – unbuckled her guy’s belt in a manner that left no doubt whatsoever what was about to transpire. It was so blatant (even on its network TV broadcast) that even my mother-in-law commented on it.

It was at least as clear as the *Buffy *episode which everyone always cites. (By the way, *Buffy *had another, equally blatant example in the episode “Intervention”, with Buffy and Spike.)

17

That’s awesome. If I ever write a scene in a TV show that is meant to suggest oral sex, I’ll make sure they play “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by The Crash Test Dummies in the background.

18

Hmm, this thread calls out for a clip of said scene in “The Good Wife” so we can tell what they did that was so groundbreakingly new in network oral sex portrayal. :slight_smile:

19

A dopey sitcom did this, with the wife trying something new by blowing her husband in the car while he was driving. They crash, cop asks what happened, husband says “Show him, honey!”

I forget which show, maybe Everybody Loves Raymond or Malcom In The Middle or something like that. The couple definitely wasn’t young; 40s at least.

20

The article mentions that the suggested oral sex scene will probably not air…

…which makes me sad because I’d love to see the Sexy Mr. Big --er-- Mr. Noth getting his knob polished.