Real or Made Up Stories?

On Saturday night, the wits at TLC send off 2013 by rolling out “Sex Sent Me to the ER,” a four-part series about real-life emergency room visits, whose title has been deemed so irresistible that the show will also be seen on a sister channel, Discovery Fit & Health.


The series is from the same production company, GRB Entertainment, that brings us “Untold Stories of the ER,” which recently promoted an episode with the tagline “Stuck in a Toilet.”



So, off the bat, you’re expecting a certain level of quality. But “Sex Sent Me to the ER” aims much lower than whatever lowest common denominator you were anticipating.



It shouldn’t be surprising that sex occasionally requires medical attention since, done with conviction, it can be physically rigorous.

And because humans are an innovative species, it is also to be expected that the cases in a show of this type will sometimes involve more than mere overexertion.

An ironing board plays a pivotal part in one of the three cases in the premiere.

What really makes “Sex Sent Me to the ER” distinctively unpleasant, though, are the re-enactments of the incidents being described by the actual participants.



It’s not that they are X- or even R-rated. It’s that they are given a leering, heavy-breathing quality that might be intended to be funny but that makes you want to send your brain out for a steam cleaning.

If the medical emergencies themselves don’t cause you to swear off sex, these wretched re-creations will.