Pop Culture Fix: Lesbian Couple Will Seek Sexual Education in Gillian Anderson’s New Netflix Show “Sexual Education” and Other Educational Stories

Welcome to your weekly pop culture fix, sold door-to-door by intrepid Boi Scouts with their finger on the pulse of LGBTQ entertainment news.


+ Talking Sex, Dildos, and Psychology With Gillian Anderson and Asa Butterfield: We’re pretty stoked for bisexual actress and Certified Lesbian Whisperer Gillian Anderson’s new Netflix show Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist with a nerdy son who, at his friends’ insistence, starts his own ‘sex therapy’ practice at school. But the lesbian couple in the preview are only listed for one episode on imdb, so we’re not sure EXACTLY how stoked we should be. But it bears mentioning that Anderson felt it bore mentioning it in an interview with Vulture:

Q: Laurie Nunn wrote the series, and it’s her first TV show. We’re used to seeing a lot of sex comedies from a male perspective, did you feel like hers moved the show in a different direction than you might expect?
Gillian Anderson: I definitely feel it in terms of the way that the female characters are written. It feels like they’ve been written by a female. Subtleties and sensitivities. Also, the ways the sex scenes are handled and the lesbian relationship, it feels like it’s handled with care. Not that it wouldn’t be handled with care if written by a man, but it feels sensitive and it doesn’t feel gratuitous.

It also comes up in an i-D article about the show, at which point I began frothing at the mouth that ten years in to running this website that promotes Netflix shows nearly every day, Netflix still won’t give us access to screeners or the press website that mainstream press has access to. AGHHH. Anyhow:

While Otis might not use the internet to watch demon/horse sex, he does use it as a way of dipping his feet into the waters of lesbian desire. Not for personal gratification — something that is truly lost on him; as he’s often reminded by his best friend Eric, he “can’t even wank” — but as crude research to try and help a same-sex female couple in his class understand why nothing seems to go quite right when they have sex.

+ Speaking of…. have you read our complete guide to all the TV shows you need to be watching this winter?

+ The trailer for Natasha Lyonne’s Russian Doll is here, and I’m 90% sure that Greta Lee and Rebecca Henderson are playing a lesbian couple! If not then I will have to eat my hat, as promised in aforementioned TV Preview.

+ David’s Bridal features a lesbian couple for the first time in its ads: David’s Bridal, your ad is cute, advertise with us!

+ The Favourite, lesbian comedy drama, leads BAFTA nominations

+ Amandla Stenberg will be presented with the HRC Visibility Award at its 2019 Greater New York Gala in February.

+ Good Trouble Boss Talks [Spoiler]’s Sexuality! [Spoiler] it’s not a woman who’s sexuality is being discussed FYI.

+ Carmen watched this trailer three times and howled all three times (also, it’s executive produced by a 14-year-old girl, Marsai Martin from black-ish!)

+ Lesbian Culture Has Had a Major Update: “What I mean to say is that the sheer amount of high-tier lesbian action and storylines that have graced our screens, timelines and headphones over the past year has watered the gardens of a culture that needed it – just like all cultures do.”

+ Have you watched the video for Janelle Monáe’s Screwed yet? Featuring Tessa Thompson and Zoë Kravitz? It was in the visual album for Dirty Computer but if you didn’t watch that, it’s time to watch this.

+ Transgender Pose Writer Our Lady J Slams L.A. Times for Body-Shaming

+ And finally — GALECA, the only critic’s association that truly matters because I’m in it and because they gave an award to A Simple Favor, has announced the winners of this years Dorian Awards. It is very clear that they added a bunch of women to the group this year because we won a lot of things! Here are some of this year’s winners:

Film of the Year
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
THE FAVOURITE * (FOX SEARCHLIGHT)
If Beale Street Could Talk
Roma
A Star is Born

Film Performance of the Year — Actress
Yalitza Aparicio, Roma
Toni Collette, Hereditary
OLIVIA COLMAN, THE FAVOURITE * (FOX SEARCHLIGHT)
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Film Performance of the Year — Supporting Actress
Elizabeth Debicki, Widows
REGINA KING, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK * (ANNAPURNA PICTURES)
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
Michelle Yeoh, Crazy Rich Asians

LGBTQ Film of the Year
Boy Erased
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? * (FOX SEARCHLIGHT)
Disobedience
The Favourite
Love, Simon

Screenplay of the Year
Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade
Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
DEBORAH DAVIS AND TONY MCNAMARA, THE FAVOURITE * (FOX SEARCHLIGHT)
Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Unsung Film of the Year
Colette
Disobedience
The Happy Prince
Tully
We the Animals
WIDOWS * (20TH CENTURY FOX)

Campy Flick of the Year
Aquaman
Book Club
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
A SIMPLE FAVOR * (LIONSGATE)
Suspiria

TV Drama of the Year
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
The Handmaid’s Tale
Homecoming
Killing Eve
POSE * (FX)

TV Comedy of the Year
Barry
GLOW
The Good Place
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
SCHITT’S CREEK * (POP)

TV Performance of the Year — Actress
Amy Adams, Sharp Objects
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Jodie Comer, Killing Eve
SANDRA OH, KILLING EVE * (BBC AMERICA)
Julia Roberts, Homecoming

LGBTQ TV Show of the Year
A Very English Scandal
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Killing Eve
POSE * (FX)
Queer Eye

Unsung TV Show of the Year
The Bisexual
Dear White People
The Good Fight
One Day at a Time
SCHITT’S CREEK * (POP)

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3260 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. I cannot believe Netflix is not giving you g d screeners. The the f is wrong with the world!

    Great summary.

Comments are closed.