The Lovers' Guide

This was the first of the videos that started a trend of sex education videos in the early 1990s . I guess the idea behind it was for liberated women to go into a high street store and buy it without any type of guilt or inhibition , but no doubt the main buyer market was teenage boys and dirty old men

THE LOVERS GUIDE is groundbreaking in the fact that it publicised that the couples involved were real life partners but this is slightly dishonest , yes the main couple featured Wendy and her husband were indeed a real life couple who'd been married several years but there was some public controversy that at least one of the couples Kathryn ( The gorgeous brunette ) and Marino ( The well buffed geezer with a ponytail ) had never met one another until they appeared on set where they had unprotected sex for the camera . For a video that self righteously dedicates segments to safe sex it is rather hypocritical

Seeing as it's for education purposes and not pornography as such there's limits as to what can be shown but as a sex education video it's not uninformative though I doubt if you'll be gasping " I never knew that "

As a footnote the main couple featured became something of sexual problem agony aunts in the British press - Until it was revealed that Wendy's husband had a serious heart condition which put a stop to sex . I almost felt sorry for this couple who confessed that they used to make love as often as ten times a day but now couldn't make love once a day because it was too dangerous . My small amount of sympathy soon vanished when shortly afterwards the couple split up and raced off to the gutter press in order to dish the dirt on one another to the highest bidder .

The Lover's Guide does pretty much as the title suggests - provides a guide for lovers. The documentary is laid out in chapters (like a manual) detailing various topic such as: contraception, exploring each other, sexual positions etc. The video is designed to educate and help couples either get over their inhibitions or to improve their sexual technique.

The video is a censorship milestone in the UK, possibly being one of the first (if not the first) film(s) to pass "hardcore" sex at 18 certificate. Hardcore being real sex, aroused genitals etc. The video went on to sell vast amounts (I heard 1,000,000 copies - an exaggeration?) largely on the premise that it offered the viewer explicit sex. As a result it was snapped up not just by couples but anyone who wanted to watch a bit of "smut". Another point is at the time of release many R18 sex shop only films were heavily cut and as a result possibly less or equally explicit.

One criticism I have of this video and many more like it is the emphasis is on couples and relationships. It seems sex education video makers frown on sex outside a loving relationship and I have no idea why. Still, The Lover's Guide does what it does well, despite being ludicrously outdated it may offer some good advice although I'm sure most couples already know what is discussed in the video. Worth a watch if only for curiosity.