All language subtitles for S01E03 - Sexual Healing

♪♪

-It was a revolutionary
sex video.

-"The Lovers Guide" was
incredibly groundbreaking.

Before the Internet,
there was nothing

actually showing real people
doing real things.

-A how-to guide for lovers
that left haters struggling

with how to stop it.

-There is a disgraceful
pornographic video on sale

of sex instruction.

-Jesus Christ would never
condone the kind of things

that you have put on video tape.

-The bitter, sordid story line
of that program

makes it totally unsuitable.

-It was just about making money.

The only reason
that you would want to watch it

is to watch
the two stars having sex.

-Yes, "The Lovers Guide"
was sexually graphic,

but also educational, candid,
and at times perplexing.

-It's not touching a vulva.

The woman is like rubbing it
on her collarbone,

which is like confusing,
honestly.

-My fantasy
is not this guy dancing.

It really feels like this is
how they danced in the '90s.

But I loved how they just
make people feel less ashamed

about sex and kind of tell you
the truth about what's going on.

-"The Lovers Guide" shows
how to get

the best out of love and sex.

-This is the story of how
a small group of

industrial filmmakers ended up
making a little VHS movie

that became a giant step forward
in the sexual revolution.

-No one had seen anything
like this before.

-Yeah.

♪♪

-By the 1980s,
the porn industry in the UK

is broadly very soft porn.

You don't see the actual act
of penetration.

You see breasts, you see lots of
inference and suggestion,

but nothing else.

-Even the softcore porn
was tightly restricted,

sold only in a small number
of licensed sex shops.

-As memory serves,
there were fewer than 100

serving a population
of 65 million people.

So they were commonplace.

-You'd only get to see sex
depicted in,

you know, Bond movies.

And then there'd be porn mags,

which would just be pictures of
some overdeveloped woman naked.

-The British have a reputation
for being uptight about sex.

You know,
"No sex, please we're British."

-No sex seems to free up time
for other pursuits.

And Brits in the 1980s can't
seem to get enough of

how-to VHS videos,
many of them produced

by an enterprising young video
producer named Robert Page.

-We did a whole series
of how-tos,

including bringing up dogs,
babies.

- [ Baby crying ]
- You aren't supposed to be able

to stand the sound
of your baby's crying.

-Doing your garden, cooking,
everything like that.

-Once you've got it
evenly browned all over,

it's ready for roasting.

-By the end of the decade,
there will be a need for

a how-to video that conflicts

with the nation's conservative
attitudes towards sex.

-It is a deadly disease,
and there is no known cure.

So protect yourself and read
this leaflet when it arrives.

-The AIDS epidemic made
educating people about safe sex

a matter of life and death.

-The British government develop
a number of films

which featured graves,

and it was very dark
and apocalyptic.

And the tagline was
"Don't die of Ignorance."

-If you ignore AIDS,
it could be the death of you.

-Not everyone saw fear as
the best motivator for safe sex,

including the wealthy British
businessman Richard Branson.

-Richard Branson,
the Virgin Airways founder,

had reveled in Britain's sort of
Victorian attitudes towards sex,

I mean, calling
his business Virgin.

-One of Branson's responses
to the AIDS crisis

was to launch his own
condom brand

with a cheeky ad campaign
called Mates.

-Excuse me. A packet of
Mates condoms, please.

-Branson understood that condoms
only limit the spread of HIV

if men not only use them,
but use them properly.

So he set out to make
a how-to video.

-Mates contacted a film producer
who had a reputation

for making films
on how to do things,

and they says to him,
"Could you make a film

on how to put on a condom?"

-That producer was Robert Page.

-Well, I was thinking of,
"I don't want to make films

about men's erect penises,
I'm mostly straight." Anyway...

-Fortunately for Robert,
he has a way out.

He's confident an erect penis
will never get past the censors

at the conservative British
Board of Film Classification,

headed by its director,
James Ferman.

-Almost everybody in
broadcasting and cinema

in the UK was scared
of James Ferman,

so the producers
arranged to meet him.

A bit like asking the Pope,
"Would you legalize the pill?"

-So I go along
to see James Ferman,

and I don't want
to make this film.

I want him to say,
"No, no way."

"Jim, tell me I can't
make this film.

Tell me it's wrong.

Tell me you can't
show erect penises."

That's just... that's it.
That's the red line, isn't it?

-Ferman shocked the producers
by saying, "All right."

-He said, "It seems to me a man
putting a condom on

is not only not obscene,

it's downright
medically sensible.

Make the film."

-But Roberts still doesn't want
to make Branson's

"man puts on condom" movie.

So while still in the room
with Ferman,

he begins thinking about a film
he would like to make.

-Then suddenly the penny
dropped in my head.

So I said to him, "You know,
these how-tos I've been making,

you wouldn't let me
make one about sex, would you?"

And he went, "Well, what would
you want to show?"

"I want to show everything."

Master... yes.

Sexual inter...
With actual... yes.

You're wouldn't let me
show... would you?

And he went, "Yes."

I nearly fell out of the chair.
[ Laughs ]

I think I've only had
three great ideas in my life.

And one of them way up there was
certainly "The Lovers Guide."

-There were still some hurdles
to overcome.

Robert needed the film
to earn a rating of 18,

meaning anyone 18 or older
could see the film.

If "The Lovers' Guide"
got a Restricted 18, or R-18,

it could only be sold
in sex shops.

But Britain's chief censor
offered some suggestions

on how to get
the more favorable rating.

-You've got to put a doctor
on the front of it.

We had to have it vetted,
the script, by an organization,

and we couldn't linger.

You could show anything,
but you couldn't spend time

just watching people shag away,
like in porn.

Apart from those caveats,

I knew that this was the biggest
thing we'd ever started.

And I rushed out of there,
ran to the office,

and started the whole ball
rolling right away,

thinking this is massive.

-And Mates would need to find
someone else to make their

how-to condom movie.

Robert was embarking
on an historic project,

the first graphic erotica movie

ever to be shown
to a general adult audience.

His first hire was director
Simon Ludgate.

-Simon Ludgate worked
for the BBC.

He was a top notch
documentary director.

I knew from the moment we first
met that here was our man.

-We're making a movie
that ordinary people

want to buy.
- Right.

-I got a call from my agent
at the time saying,

would I be interested
in helming this quite radical,

slightly risky project?

-"Glory" is the word.

-It would be
something revolutionary.

No one had ever tried this
on video before.

It kind of appealed
as a challenge.

I mean, like, how do you start?

-Even so, even he hadn't done
anything like this.

So we were in very uncharted
territories.

-Women, but also...

-At the time, nobody had ever
been allowed to show

an erect penis.

Nobody had shown people
having intercourse,

ejaculating, masturbating.

-We had no templates to go
from, absolutely nothing.

-Robert begins by locating
the doctor to front the film,

as required by the censor.

- is to help you and your
partner get more out of sex.

-Luckily, we found
this sexologist,

doctor, psychiatrist,
written 30 sex books,

called Dr. Andrew Stanway.

-He's also well-known from his
many appearances on morning TV.

-We were very dependent
on Dr. Stanway.

So basically he wrote
most of the script,

but we were the ones
who had to make it visual.

-We had to sit around
and discuss things like,

you know, clitoris and anuses
and penetration and masturbation

and how was I going to show
somebody getting an erection,

which had us
all scratching our heads.

-A man's genitals
are easy to see,

though many women
haven't taken the trouble

to have a detailed look.

-Robert and Simon decided
that "The Lovers' Guide"

would be almost entirely
narrated, meaning the audience

would see but wouldn't hear
people having sex.

Even when the film's
narration highlighted

how important hearing
your partner is during sex.

-Always be prepared
to listen and learn.

Both from your own feelings
and those of your partner's.

-That voice,
it just irritated me

because he didn't do anything
to enhance it.

-He has a soothing British voice
that makes me feel

like I'm watching
a David Attenborough documentary

and not a glorified porn.

-However, he thought he was
going to narrate

the whole thing, and I said,
"No, I think

we should balance your voice
against a female voice,

and that's going to make it
more of a rounded film."

And we got a wonderful lady,

Eve Karpf,
to do the female narration.

-Masturbation is an activity in
which almost everyone indulges,

even if they are in a happy
and committed relationship.

-But while the film
wouldn't sound like sex,

the film's director argued that
it should still look sexual.

-The thing that really rang
alarm bells with me

was the route that
they were going to take,

which was in a brightly lit
medical room,

a gynecological couch,

stirrups, doing it like
a medical examination.

And that just made me cringe.

-What Dr. Stanway wanted was
actually women up in stirrups.

[ Laughs ]

Then point out their bits.

And I completely vetoed
that and went,

"This is not an OBGYN class."

-Dr. Stanway says he never
wanted that,

but Simon has an idea.

-I just worked really hard to go
the direction of something

much softer and more romantic
and more atmospheric.

-What Simon has in mind
will cost money, lots of it.

But as the first day
of shooting approaches,

he and Robert still haven't
come together on the budget.

-We kind of ran into a bit
of a brick wall

with each other
pretty much straight away.

And I said to him,

"You have got yourself
a groundbreaking, innovative,

quite challenging project here,

and you need to
shoot it on film.

You need to shoot it
like a movie."

Rob Page, who subsequently
became a really good friend,

was really struggling
with my grandiose ideas

about the scale of production
and the budget,

because he came from a world

where they never spent more
than £50,000, $65,000.

-This is the first time we felt,

no, we're going to
put it all out there.

We're going to risk everything
we have.

We shot on Super 16.

The budget was a quarter
of a million pounds.

That in today's money is what,
£5 million, something like that?

And that was all our money.
That was my money. [ Laughs ]

We actually built
a big living room

and bedroom set in a studio,

which we'd never done
in any how-to videos.

One of the reasons
we had to build some of the sets

was because Simon always wanted
very high above shots

on a crane looking down.

-Some women are not only shy
about displaying

this most private of
activities...

-Anybody who's made any films
notice that kind of right away

and goes, "Gosh, I never
expected it to be so well made."

Simon brought that kind of
professionalism to it

and used a lot of the budget.
[ Laughs ]

-Casting was equally important,

and the go ahead
from the British censor

came with
an important condition.

-James Ferman wanted us
to show people

who appeared to be couples.

-The audition process was
handled mainly by Dr. Stanway,

who was very experienced
in finding people for things

that he'd worked on before.

-Now, this was a cross
we had to bear for ages

because everybody went, "Well,
some of them aren't couples,

some of them became couples
in the audition line."

-You didn't want people
who thought they were

going to be in a porn film.

You wanted people
who'd be natural,

who the audience
would identify with.

-Sex with someone they know...

-It'd been very difficult
finding people

who were willing to do this.

And I think
they were amazingly brave.

-But when the cameras began
rolling on "The Lovers' Guide",

things started
to get out of control.

-It was 1990, filming had begun

on the first graphic sex
education film ever produced.

When completed,
"The Lovers' Guide" would be

an assault on how sex education
had been taught in an uptight

conservative Britain,
that mostly told kids to

just say no to sex.

-We've used that word
"adolescent" before.

Who can tell us what it means?

-I wish I had had
"The Lovers' Guide"

when I was a young teen.

It really makes me sad that
we are not told how to have sex,

even in its most
rudimentary way.

-I think "The Lovers' Guide"
would be better

to screen in middle schools

than just slide shows of STDs
or just like,

you know, charts where it's like
a cross section of a penis.

- Here's the penis.
- That doesn't help you at all.

But this actually says some
really important things about,

you know, not to shame
someone about something,

a lot about consent.

-I would say that adults need

just as much sex education
as young people.

Like, we all grew up without
having very good sex education.

I'm Gigi Engle.

I am a certified sex
educator, journalist,

and author of
"All the... Mistakes."

Basically, sex has
just been kind of

a fake it till you make it
kind of thing for everybody.

I learned what happens
when a man gets aroused.

I literally did not know.

-As arousal increases,
so does heart rate.

- [ Laughs ]
- Breathing quickens

and the nostrils flare.

- [ Record needle scratches ]
- Their nostrils flare?

Okay. I'm going to look
for that next time.

-But to make this revolutionary
sex education film,

the film's producer and
director, with no experience

making an erotic movie,
need to first figure out

how to shoot
"The Lovers' Guide".

-My name is Simon Ludgate,

and I'll be your director
for this flight.

And the emergency exits
are situated there and there.

I was so nervous on day one.

And I was trying really hard
not to show that.

-I think the very first day
everybody was edgy

about what could be happening.

-Every time somebody mentioned
clitoris or anus or even penis,

I mean, like,
everybody went [squeals]

because we weren't used to it.

-And there are a few no go areas
because the individuals

are in tune with one another
for so much of the time.

-Simon was such a good master
of the ship of the filming

and put everyone
at their ease very quickly.

-Since the British
Board of Film requested

they film ordinary couples,
Simon had to work hard to make

the cast comfortable on set.

-Knowing how embarrassing
it was for us,

I totally got how embarrassing
it was for them.

As soon as I met them,
we had a cup of tea,

and my main job
was to create an atmosphere

where they felt comfortable,
where they felt happy,

and where they felt
like having sex.

Because having 15, 16 people

watching you
is very intimidating.

-There was no nudge,
nudge, wink, wink.

So the morale was incredible.

-It's amazing how quickly people
get used to being naked

in front of other people

because we were all
just doing our job.

After about 15 minutes,

the cast was sort of
standing around butt naked,

having a chat and a cup of tea,
and we all kind of got over it.

-Not so easy because unlike
simulated sex scenes

in mainstream movies,
actors in "The Lovers' Guide"

were literally performing
the acts being discussed

in voiceover, including this
scene involving penetrative sex.

Robert is still sorry the scene

was not as realistic
as he wanted.

-The one bit I don't like is the
actual sexual intercourse scene

because it was shot
in blue light.

-I call it my "Betty Blue"
moment, where I shot it all

in a sort of
a really deep blue color.

And we were tracking around
the shelves in the foreground

and peeking through,
so it kind of matched

the soft caressing nature
of the scene.

I like the scene
because it's surprisingly

not dated and cheesy.

-It's in blue light,
so it's like a blue movie.

So I would have re-shot that
in nice, warm, glowing lighting.

-Since the film was titled
"The Lovers' Guide",

it offered to educate viewers
on more than just sex acts,

including this very 1980s
British take on seduction.

-This scene was actually shot
in a bathroom in my house,

and it happened
rather spontaneously.

-This was just a bit of fun.

Because we weren't
recording sound,

I was able to chat to them
the whole time

and sort of direct them live

without having
any sound problems.

I like the idea
of the juxtaposition of her

being all kind of naked
and soapy and slippery

and him being, you know,

in denim with buttons
pressing against her and...

-Who knew that the best way
to seduce your husband

was when he comes to say
goodbye before he goes to work

and kisses you
while you're in the bathtub,

is to pull him
inside the bathtub

and ruin his entire outfit.

-It's just like an idea
of breaking away from the mold.

You know,
do something crazy in your life.

Jump in the bath with your
partner and muck around.

-She pulled him into
the bathtub,

fully clothed
and everything, yeah.

-But my first thought was,
"Oh, I'm so glad that guy

doesn't have an iPhone
because it's the '90s."

-But not everyone was amused
by the tub scene

or "The Lovers' Guide"
in general.

Lucy Marsh has been
a critic of the film for years.

-It looks exploitative.

I mean, it doesn't
look like there's any...

there's no preamble to it.

He's just sort of straight on
top of her in the in the bath.

And I don't understand
how anyone could see

that as educational.

I'm the communications officer
with Family Education Trust.

We campaign for families,
for the traditional family unit,

parental rights.

It was disguised
as an educational video,

but it was basically porn.

And anybody who's saying they're
watching it for

educational purposes
is just kidding themselves

because the only reason
that you would want to watch

it is to watch
the two stars having sex.

-She's wrong about that being
the only reason

because for many people,
the most memorable scene

involves a man all alone with
his thoughts and his erection.

-So this was the shot
that caused a real stir.

The shot of the penis
getting erect,

which I had never seen before
in anything.

At the time, nobody had ever
been allowed to show

an erect penis.

-The erect penis portion of
"The Lovers' Guide"

was truly handcrafted
for little gay boys like me.

-I cannot believe they caught
a penis rising.

And at first, I thought
it was already hard,

but then it kept going up.

-Rose up sort of
like a drawbridge. [ Laughs ]

-Honestly, watching that penis
like rise slowly,

it felt like
I was witnessing something

that had never
before been captured on film.

-We spent a long time trying
to figure out how we were going

to get this shot
of somebody getting an erection.

-The clearest sign of male
sexual arousal is an erection.

-We all felt that it was
very important

that was depicted.

-Tissue within the penis fills
with blood, making it stiffen.

-I tried to film that happening
a few times on the shoot,

and it just had
the opposite effect.

So I had this kind of
light bulb moment where I went,

"Right, well, I've just filmed
somebody with a banging hard on

going soft and dropping down."

We're going to run it
in reverse.

And it's like... it's just one
of those moments

where it's so obvious.

-This was groundbreaking
even then,

and it still is groundbreaking
because guess what?

We can't even show it to you

because we're not allowed
to show erect penises.

-For some, the scene
that goes too far is

what a man does
with his erect penis.

-Here is a guy
properly jerking off.

I remember him saying that
he hadn't had sex or something

in like two or three weeks
before he did this for us.

And he said
his balls had turned blue.

So he was absolutely ready to go

and didn't really need
much encouragement.

-And now he's masturbating.

There's nothing
educational about that.

I just don't get why.

-He's just, like,
masturbating to orgasm.

I was like, I mean, I'm here
for it, but that's a lot.

That's a lot for
a sex education movie.

-I love a good
erection clip, right?

But for some reason,
it didn't excite me.

And then he gets him...

He's like, demonstrating,
you know...

[ Grunting ]

No, he was doing something...

I don't know what he was doing.

It's the face for me.

-It's just... it just makes
you feel really uncomfortable.

-But "The Lovers' Guide"
was an equal opportunity film.

-Now, this is Wendy Duffield
masturbating.

It was kind of hard
to get her to stop.

She really got into it.

And she said to me
afterwards that it really

turned her on actually,
doing it in front of all of us.

-Wendy's role in
"The Lovers' Guide" would grow,

in part because she wasn't shy.

-The young lady that was
masturbating,

it was beautiful to watch.

It was like art.

-Now we could do a much better
job of how this all worked,

but we were very nervous about
how far we could take it.

I think women have got
something like 10 times

as many nerve endings
as men in the sexual areas.

-She was very sexually aroused.
You saw her mouth.

Like, everything
about it was beautiful.

I look like that. [ Laughs ]

-During the filming
of "The Lovers' Guide",

news of a how-to sex movie
reached the British tabloids,

who existed for stories
just like this one.

-Rob Page was working really
hard on engaging the press,

whetting their appetites,

and letting them have little
sneak previews of it,

and putting out some stills
of what we'd shot

and so on and so forth.

-I mean, the press build up
was going insane.

The actors had all signed
non-disclosure agreements,

but they were leaking
all over the place

and telling their stories.

The entire shooting process
became crazy.

We used Dr. Stanway's
place in Guildford.

There were often
press helicopters overhead.

His children and my children
were being door stepped

by the press.

It was getting out more and more
that this was happening.

-When "The Lovers' Guide"
was being filmed,

it was acknowledged to be
delicate and controversial,

and so it proved.

-By the spring of 1991,
"The Lovers' Guide" is ready

for the British Board of Film
Classification to review.

They would decide if the film
could be sold openly

in local bookstores,
video stores, and news shops,

or banished to the back alley
adult smut shops.

-So we submitted it to the BBFC,
and I think that was

the most nail biting two weeks.

They didn't rush in those days.

They really did view
it many more times

than they normally did
with any normal movie.

So we waited longer and longer
and kept thinking,

"This is going
to go horribly wrong."

-We didn't even know if we were
going to get a certificate,

whether distributors
would distribute it.

-And that's when
we were terrified

that it would get an R-18.

And that meant it could
only be sold in sex shops.

- hard core pornographic
material...

-It was there for weeks

while we waited
and waited with bated breath.

-"The Lovers' Guide",
a how-to video

showing sexual intercourse,

a close up of a penis
becoming erect,

and both men and women
masturbating

was about to get rated
by the powerful British censors.

-They really did view
it many more times

than they normally did
with any normal movie.

So we waited longer and longer
and kept thinking,

"This is going
to go horribly wrong."

-When the call finally came,
it would forever change

the way sex
was viewed in Britain.

-We got the 18 certificate.

The British Board of
Film Classification

didn't cut one frame.

-The news shocked the producers,
but that would not be

the final hurdle
to get the film to the public.

-We were doing it in
conjunction with newspapers,

and they were giving us
some really good coverage,

which was fantastic exposure
because you're talking about

papers that had, you know,
a readership of like

6 million people.

But then they kind of
turned against us

and started doing exposé stories
about some of the people

who were going to be in it
because they realized

that that was going
to sell them even more papers.

-And then all this bad press
starts appearing

about these people being porn
stars, not being real couples,

and we're just pulling a fast
one on the British public.

So all the shops
started pulling out.

-The outlets like Woolworths
and Smiths got really nervous

about whether or not
they were going to take it.

-Not having the Target
or Wal-Mart of the UK on board

would drastically affect sales.

-WHSmith, they were holding.

We were hunkered down
in the lawyers offices.

Everything was so complicated.

So I was sent
to the local Smiths.

"Excuse me. Have you got
that 'Lovers' Guide'?

I've heard it's very good."

"We'll get the manager."
"No, no."

They got the manager.

"I'm sorry to tell you that
we took a decision last night.

We're not stocking it."

So I went back to the office
and I went,

"Guys, it's all over.

We've just blown quarter of
a quarter of a million pounds.

Smiths have pulled out,
that's it."

-That said that decision
would likely result

in "The Lovers' Guide"
becoming a mere footnote

in the history
of British cinema,

a noble experiment
forever unseen and unloved.

The cast and crew
spent a grim weekend

wondering what they could
have done differently.

We came back in
on a Monday morning,

9:00, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00.

Nothing, nothing, nothing,
and we didn't expect anything.

And then suddenly, 2:00,
the phones start going nuts.

There are queues
outside of Smiths.

They've reversed their decision
that Monday morning.

A wonderful guy
called Tim Foresal

got the board back together,
got them to change their minds,

told them this was going to be
the biggest release of the year.

-I think outside WHSmiths

and other stores that were
selling it,

there were crowds of people.

-It was a bit like seeing
the release of

a Michael Jackson album
or something like that.

There were people
stretching down the street.

-And that was the first time
I ever saw one of those ropes

turning a block of people
into a line.

-In the stores,
people were fighting over it.

The pre kind of vibe
about it was

this is something
that everybody has to have.

It was really surreal
that first week,

hearing people talking about it,

because we had been in this
little bubble for nine months.

-The film sold well
in its first week,

but that was only the beginning.

-So when "The Lovers' Guide"
did hit the streets,

we sold 200,000 copies
in the first week.

-We didn't realize
what a huge success

this was going to be, though.

-And to put that in context,
that was more than

"The Little Mermaid"
and "Die Hard."

-It went to number one
in no time.

-We outsold both movies
in that week,

which is extraordinary.

-The only video ever to go

to number one
that wasn't a Hollywood movie.

-1.3 million in the UK within
its first year and a bit.

Majority of the customers,
55%, were women.

-As the sales of
"The Lovers' Guide" skyrocket,

so does interest
from the British tabloids,

who see the film's popularity
or backlash against the movie

as an opportunity for them
to sell more papers.

-There's quite a lot of money
attached to videos,

so we were aware that
whenever a video took off,

there was a story.

-The Sun
and the News of the World

and then the Today newspaper
and other media,

even the Sunday Times and TV
were all talking about it.

-There were a lot of complaints.

That was something
that The Sun courted, as well,

and really liked the idea

of being, you know,
a bit controversial.

-But now I'd like to introduce
Mrs. Mary Whitehouse

of the National Viewers
and Listeners Association.

- [ Applause ]
- There was only one nutty lady

who was a prudish campaigner

who I understand didn't even
get beyond the opening titles,

who said, "This is porn,
this is bad."

-I haven't seen it.

I have far too much respect
for my mind

ever to look at these things.

-Mary Whitehouse, who was
a self-appointed

amateur censor of the media,
but she was very strident

and got a lot
of media attention.

-She was very active
in complaining to the BBC.

-We had her already saying
that the thing was disgusting

and shouldn't be made
and it was immoral,

it was going to corrupt
children, and that it was,

you know, filthy,
and she hadn't even seen it.

-There is a disgraceful
pornographic video

on sale of sex instruction.

It is very, very explicit.

-It is rubbish.
This is a pornographic movie.

- Yes, sir?
- Even today, the film is still

seen as exploitative by some.

-I read that they made
a lot of money out of it.

I'm sure they're rubbing
their hands together in glee.

And if there is no shame,
what's to stop anything

being considered normal?

If there's no line in the sand,
where are the boundaries?

-But its ability to break
boundaries around sex education

is what many found
so astonishing

about "The Lovers' Guide".

[ Telephone ringing ]

-When the video first arrived
in the office,

we had a number of copies.

It went on all over the office
at the same time,

and everywhere you looked,
you just saw crowds

of people all crowded
around in astonishment.

I mean, hardened tabloid hacks,

they couldn't believe
their eyes.

From three months previously,
writing down timings

where people, person,
or whatever could just

get a glimpse of a nipple
on television.

Three months later,
we're watching people

having full sex, full sex,

masturbating, men,
women, everybody.

And it's legal.
I mean, it was astonishing.

-I do recall seeing it after
it came out,

and it will have been
at a friend's house, actually.

Of course, watching in
a mixed group of people,

watching "The Lovers' Guide"
amongst a group of friends

with alcohol, there was probably
quite a lot of laughter.

Laughter is one of the ways we
cover our embarrassment, right?

-Everything about sex
was outrage.

And here we were watching
something that wasn't outrage.

It was popular.

-It didn't feel
particularly pornographic.

-Every time I went round
for dinner with somebody

or went round to see, you know,
a girlfriend, it would come.

And it was like,
"Hey, did you do this?"

"Yes, I did."

And everybody wanted to talk
about it on a personal level.

-So I'd heard about it,
and I wanted to see it.

It's an evening,
I'm with two friends,

and somebody has brought along
"The Lovers' Guide",

and there's a sort of hush.

And so there were three of us
sitting there watching it going,

"That's the way
it's meant to be."

-But along with
financial success,

"The Lovers' Guide" team

was about to earn
a serious criminal charge.

-And of course, the boring
old police in Britain

thought anything that had
anything to do with sex

must be depraving
and corrupting and obscene.

So they started
investigating us,

and they were charging us
with obscenity.

So we then had to plead
in front of a magistrates court.

I wanted a full on trial
because I suppose I was a bit,

you know, up myself at the time
and wanted the whole publicity

and thought that would do
wonders for the brand.

-You don't want to be done
for obscenity

because it's actually
a criminal offense.

Go to prison for several years,
pay a massive fine.

You know, it's not funny.

Once you've done it,
you've done it.

You can't take it back.

-Robert Page and team brace
as an obscenity charge

with serious consequences
hangs over them.

And the tabloids are about to
have a field day,

running wild headlines about
the stars of the film.

-"The Lovers' Guide"
has gone from being banned

from major retail chains
to becoming a best seller.

It has been attacked
in the press,

then praised,
then attacked again.

And now the filmmakers were
being charged with obscenity.

-In the '90s, it was
highly improbable, to my mind,

that "The Lovers' Guide"
was being seriously consumed

by couples who just didn't know

how to pleasure themselves
or each other.

And it struck me
as being far more likely

that "The Lovers' Guide"
was providing

endless hours
of adult entertainment

for teenagers
and lonely gentlemen.

-We'd done everything
at the BBFC, we had followed

all their guidelines,
we had got the proper doctor,

and done all the things
they told us to do.

-Robert's lawyers
were able to get

the obscenity charge dismissed.

So the British papers
turned their attention

to the stars of the film.

-Most of our coverage
was in The Sun newspaper

and The News of the World,

and they started running stories
about their private lives

and alleging that
they'd done this and taken drugs

and had been in porn films
and, you know, all sorts of

stuff about about their pasts.

-We started off just going
for everybody.

You know, "He's an adult star.
She's an adult star."

And we were also trying
to find out

if they were normal people

or professionals
from the adult cinema world.

-This mattered because
the British censors

needed ordinary couples
in "The Lovers' Guide".

-It was pure, innocent naivety.

It wasn't, you know,
willful kind of using porn stars

when we knew they were.

But of course, the minute
anybody knew who they were,

the press were on it
like a shot.

The major stars were a couple
called Wendy and Tony Duffield,

and they had met
just before making this film.

Tony, though, had left
his wife for Wendy.

That was another of the scandals
we had to deal with.

-While one or two people
appearing in "The Lovers' Guide"

were former adult models,
the vast majority were not,

including Wendy and Tony.

-Wendy and Tony
became superstars.

They made millions.
They went over to Hollywood.

They then went over to Thailand,

all because of
"The Lovers' Guide".

Sadly, their relationship
didn't hold together

as I would have hoped it would.

But certainly for the period
they were with us,

they became so well known,
so famous, and very rich.

They were even employed
by one of the tabloids

to be sexologists.

-The tabloid press also began
to report salacious allegations

about the doctor, required
by the British censors

to ensure the film
was educational.

-Dr. Stanway, for instance,
would interview couples

in his rooms and not have
anybody else there.

And then they would go
to the press

and say, "He had us
doing naughty things

without anybody being present."

And they were all telling
their stories to the press.

-Dr. Stanway told us he was
never unprofessional

and tabloids were just trying to
sell papers.

It was a different time.

This type of casting
hadn't been done before,

and the couples only did
a small fraction

of what they'd already agreed
to do on screen.

-He was a quite
prickly character.

He had a very sort of
strong idea of how

things should be done.

And the lighting cameraman
and I fell out

with him fairly badly.

-So did Robert when Dr. Stanway
went into business

with Robert's ex-wife
to make a video to compete

with "The Lovers' Guide".

-Dr. Stanway made
quite a lot of money

out of "The Lovers' Guide"
and was very associated with it.

My wife had left me, set up
another production company,

and he went off with her
and made a rival sex video.

It bombed.

He wasn't bigger than the brand.

The brand was bigger than him.

Actually, we're very proud of
what he did in the early days.

We just don't understand
why he knifed us

so severely in the back
after we'd done everything.

-"The Lovers' Guide" would go on
to become Robert's

most successful series
of how-to videos.

But that triumph
would come with a cost.

-"The Lovers' Guide"
is shockingly popular.

Everyone talks about it.

Unbelievably high sales.

Not loved by all.

Controversial, startling,
precedent setting

in its graphic frankness.

Robert has put his life,
his money,

his reputation into it,

teaching couples to be
more open, intimate,

loving, and physical.

But at home, his own
relationship was ending.

-The hard part, though,
is continuing to court

one another on an ongoing basis.

-So within a few years
of this happening,

my personal life fell apart.

Sadly, lost my marriage.

I messed around for a while.

Suddenly felt felt free
to do whatever I liked.

And in the midst of all this,
I was introduced to this

amazing graduate of
Balliol College, Oxford,

a historian, musician, diplomat
for the British government.

Even though she's 20-some
years younger than I am,

we got married and we've been
happily married ever since,

22 glorious years.

-The tabloids realized that they
were possibly on the wrong side

of history with the argument,
and we became warmer towards it.

-The press talked about,
you know,

this being naughty and sexy
and all that stuff,

but nobody actually really
knocked it for its content.

-So much of the problem is that
people are so scared of sex.

This series, I think,
was, as dumb as it is,

and the dancing and the robes
and the outfits and the hair...

-Ideally, when sex goes wrong,

it's helpful to remember
to take things gently.

- if you listen to what
they're saying,

I think it's
really important stuff.

-The project
remains controversial

right to the present day.

-I think it's the normalization
of what is basically pornography

and sort of getting it out there
as an educational purposes

is just horrific, really.

A watershed moment, I suppose.

Since then, everything else
has just become more

and more explicit
and more and more extreme.

I mean, it's like a trickle
down effect.

Everything else becomes
normalized, and things

that would have been considered
extreme and obscene maybe

10, 20 years ago
are now the norm.

Some of the scenes from the
early "Game of Thrones" episodes

are really quite hard core
and shocking,

but yet, you know, they're
just there on mainstream TV.

-"The Lovers' Guide" is
an historical stepping stone

towards Pornhub, and everywhere
where we've ended up.

There's probably
a lot of people out there

that would actually quite
happily turn the clock back,

if they could, to a time
when our sexual behavior

was closer to
"The Lovers' Guide"

and perhaps less like all the
modern porn sites and such like.

So I do wonder that.

-So I think there's a lot more
information out there,

which is great,
but on the downside,

there's just an absolute deluge
of free, shitty Internet porn.

Boys watch porn,
and then they will think that

that's just how sex is
and like the way that they're

going to be really good at sex
is just like jackhammer someone.

-For the stars of the film,
it is not a Hollywood ending.

Wendy Preston and Tony Duffield
marry in 1992.

Wendy reportedly
gets a Hollywood agent

but also develops
a serious cocaine habit.

She has a brief career
as a sexpert.

Despite their wild romance
that started

on the set of
"The Lovers' Guide",

their marriage would not last.

After shooting to fame
with "The Lovers' Guide",

Marino Franchi becomes one of
Britain's biggest

male porn stars, believed to
have bedded 1,000 women.

He has noted to the press
that although he got

to meet beautiful women
and travel the world,

pornographic work made it hard
to hold down a, quote,

proper relationship.

-I actually have a friend
who is a 32-year-old virgin,

and she's terrified of sex
and is asking me

a lot of questions about
what does a penis feel like,

what does semen taste like?

I want to send her
"The Lovers' Guide".

This actually explains,
like, what it looks like.

It's very instructional, and it
makes you less scared about sex.

-"The Lovers' Guide" goes on
to huge success.

The movie spawns books,
magazines,

sex position flashcards,
and many sequels.

A cottage industry of sexy
adult ed with far more diversity

in backgrounds and orientations.

-There were so many people
that I met personally

or who wrote to us
or gave us feedback about it,

saying how much
it had changed the lives.

-Simon Ludgate goes on to direct
many films and TV shows,

including one of
"The Lovers' Guide" sequels.

-Nobody set off to make
"The Lovers' Guide" thinking

they were going to get rich.

It was a genuine
surprise phenomenon,

And I think that was its power.

It allowed ordinary women,
not just middle class women,

to talk about sex.

Some men, at least, think
about their behavior,

their performance,
and how they went about.

So it was a force for good.

-And everything seems
to free up and open up,

and people are better.

And then it seems
to sort of slide back again,

and people start getting
more conservative again.

We're talking
about banning books now.

We're talking about
restricting abortion.

We're talking about
limiting women's rights.

This, to me, is anathema.

This is going backwards
as the human race.

We've got to go forwards.
We've got to open up.

We've got to love each other.

-"The Lovers' Guide" emphasized
communication between partners

and being honest
with one another,

because I think we're all
just trying to do our best.

I mean, we're all so scared
of disappointing each other,

and it's bound to happen.

We're all still
clueless out there.

But, you know,
I think it's getting better.