I am a fan of renovation and interior design shows, I never thought I would see one involving a sex room. Yes, it is true, I love seeing the transformation of spaces into more beautiful and useful versions of themselves. It is a specific niche, and like any other TV series genre, they all follow very similar plotlines. We meet the owners, we see the before images, the after images and the reactions of the owners to the renovation.

New to Netflix, “How To Build A Sex Room” is fundamentally a renovation and interior design show, with the twist being that boring bedrooms, spare rooms and basements are made into a variety of bespoke adult playrooms.

Sounds kind of cool, right?

Led by Melanie Rose, interior designer with a predilection for kink/sex therapy (qualifications unknown) with Mike as the contractor bringing all of Melanie’s visions to life, we witness the revamping of multiple spaces for couples, singles and poly families, alongside cringey sexual innuendo between the pair. Although it is insinuated that Melanie and Mike have worked together before, his shocked reaction to seeing BDSM equipment and general commentary throughout suggest otherwise.

Although the show (eight episodes in all) does attempt to be sex positive, there are scenes and dialogue throughout which are a cause for concern.

It made me think this is Netflix once again trying to capitalise on the mainstream popularity of kink without being mindful of what it is they are actually portraying.

Melanie Rose leads this show as an interior designer, but she also takes on a role as a sex therapist and kink expert.  Repeatedly, she seeks to “push the boundaries” of her client’s previous sexual experiences, even if this is not something they have asked for. In the first few episodes, she goes through a process of bringing “props” out of her bag to gauge her client’s reaction. These props include whips, butt plugs and handcuffs. In one episode, despite her African-American client being visibly uncomfortable with handcuffs (and even remarking “I don’t know if you can get a black man to like handcuffs”), she includes them in the room as decoration. The impact of introducing objects and behaviours to people without prior discussion is also highlighted when she takes one of the couples to visit a pro-Domme  while she is engaged in an intense impact session, and the physical discomfort of the couple is hard to ignore.

The series addresses what makes a room sexy and fun, but doesn’t actually deal with the practicalities of exploring these sensitive subjects with people in a physically and emotionally safe way. And I may not be a contractor or interior designer, but the physical practicality of some of the spaces is questionable, for example, the low ceiling in a room designed for impact play, or rooms that are not near bathroom facilities, for the all-important urination and clean up.

The most concerning part in the whole series is this undercurrent of dirty/vulgar/seedy vs classy/sexy/beautiful which runs against the whole sex positivity movement; this language creates a good sex/bad sex narrative which is not sex positive. And although sex workers were involved in the making of the series, the episode titled “What is Your Stripper Name?” is an example of a complete absence of thought around the experience of sex workers in the world. One of the Netflix team asks Melanie Rose this question, and while trying to think of a name, the team member asks her the name of her first pet. For those of us who are aware that sex worker names and personas are a way of protecting ourselves during a job which is dangerous because of the societal stigma attached to it, it is incredibly tone deaf.

The adaptations of the spaces were clever, and the finishes beautiful, but the lack of thought concerning the physical, emotional and psychological practicalities left a bad taste in my mouth. I think this show will appeal to the mainstream viewer who see it as a little titillation, whereas for those of us who spend most of our lives in this space, it is not going to spark the same kind of arousal.