HBO's adult-themed late-night programming "was my sex education"

Jezebel

Taxicab Confessions. Real Sex. "For better or worse, these shows were my sex education," says Tracy Clark-Flory. "With the news that HBO has nixed its late-night adult entertainment, I am filled with wistful reminiscence, even though my pubescent era of programming is already long gone. Now it’s really gone, removed from HBO’s TV channels and subscription streaming services. As a kid, late-night HBO was like the cool older sister that I didn’t have. At school, I had learned through a series of dashed-together classes that sex was about pubic hair and sperm and genital warts. At home, raised by a couple of sex-positive hippies, I was told that sex was a magical, transcendent spiritual experience of love and connection. But at night, watching HBO, I learned that sex was wild and weird. It wasn’t always about love or spirituality on the level of, as my dad put it, 'two star systems colliding in outer space.'"