I am straight and I remember when this first "came out" and the debate and host of press articles it generated in mainly the lifestyle sections of our newspapers about the explicitness of the gay sex scenes. The debate was mostly positive but I remember thinking how brave C4 were to put this on, we had all seen explicit straight sex scenes on television series before which was nothing new' but never explicit gay sex scenes which at that time was new.
I watched the second ep and I was gripped from the start. To me it was about a sizeable minority out there whom us straights knew little about. The sex scenes were to me at that time shocking but sex scenes are just part of any adult drama so I was not disturbed as some where at that time. But the seminal and brilliant thing about this was the writing, Russel T Davies is a big name over here and always writes quality TV.
At that time I thought all gay people were just the Larry Grayson effeminate stereotypes, it never occurred to me that there are gay people who are as "queer as "Folk"", as in, just normal people with the same drives and ambitions who just want to live happy and hassle free lives. I also remember learning that Aiden Gillen (a fellow Dub) was not gay but straight and being minorly shocked by that.
I recently watch this again which prompted this review and I can say that this was one of the best and most educating TV shows I have ever seen. It got good ratings and I believe "added" to our more accepting attitudes to homosexuality. This is what TV dramas do at their best and this is one of the finest examples.
It is still worth a watch.
