Oh? Ohhh. Ohhh!

When it comes to questions about sex, Oxygen TV host Sue Johanson has all the answers. And, oh, the questions she gets.

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published April 13, 2003

One call came from Phil in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

"My wife is 61/2 months pregnant . . . (and) all she wants is sex, sex, sex. I can't keep up with her."

Moments later, Denise from Halifax, Nova Scotia phoned.

"There was this girl having sex . . . She was standing on her head. I was wondering, is that safe?"

Then the corker, from Shawn in Toronto, with a simple question.

"Can I give a cold to my boyfriend through oral sex?"

Over seven years spent hosting The Sunday Night Sex Show, one of TV's most playfully upfront advice shows, Sue Johanson has heard just about every question about the divine art of sexual contact.

And she's happy to provide the answers.

"We are the only mammals in the world who enjoy sex," said Johanson, who would come across as a sprightly, grandmotherly type if not for her habit of decribing sexual situations so explicitly. "We are the only ones who have orgasms. So, therefore, we have an obligation -- I see it almost as a religious obligation -- to learn about, to become comfortable with and accept ourselves as sexual human beings. It's a gift."

Despite viewers' occasional habit of calling her "doctor," she's quick to point out that she's no M.D. -- just a registered nurse who has spent decades studying how sex works and sharing that knowledge with anyone who asks.

The Sunday Night Sex Show evolved from a Canadian radio call-in show Johanson began in 1984 and turned into a TV program in 1996 for the Women's Television Network in Canada.

These days, she airs to American audiences via the women-centered Oxygen cable network, which reruns her Sunday Night Sex Show at 11 p.m. weekdays and offers a live call-in show for the United States at midnight Sundays, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson. (That show is repeated the following Saturday at 11 p.m.)

Johanson's shows are simple affairs; facing the camera behind a simple desk, she greets viewers with a down-to-earth attitude and cheeky manner. Poseable blue and red dolls sit on a shelf behind her -- to help illustrate possible positions or problems.

But this is mostly about Johanson, an open-minded presence (she won't say exactly how old she is) whose frank talk about sex and pleasure somehow goes down a little easier coming from a Canuck who looks more like Dr. Ruth than Dr. Feelgood.

"My age is also a distinct advantage," she said, reached at her home in Toronto. "If I was a cute young chickie-poo with big boobs, I would be seen as flirtatious, looking for action . . . trying to turn people on and advertising horny sex. Because I'm very mature and a mother and a grandmother and a wife, I'm seen as safe. It's like talking to your grandmother."

Perhaps. But few grandmothers may broach the topics she tackles regularly on TV, from the dangers of standing on a man's, um, equipment during sex to the age-old question: Where is a woman's G spot?

During the show's Pleasure Chest segment, she'll pull out a sex toy -- names have ranged from "The Juicer" to "Tickling Panties" -- and describe its function, rated on a simple scale of "trash," "treasure" or "try it."

How does she know what grade to give? Because someone on her staff tries out almost every toy featured. (Johanson chuckled while describing how she picks items for the segment, walking into a local sex shop and gathering armloads of items to cart back to her colleagues.)

"My goal is not to titillate or tease, but to inform," Johanson said onscreen during one show. "And also to give you permission . . . to enjoy your life as a sexual human being."

Few topics are off-limits for the average 65,000 people who call the show each week (fewer than 20 actually make it to air). There are some no-nos: bestiality, pedophilia and necrophilia are off-limits, along with crude terminology and graphic talk about bodily secretions.

But Johanson tackles almost everything else, with hot topics including male size, techniques for having greater pleasure, the G spot thing and homosexuality.

"I think one of the major concerns is what causes it . . . (and) I don't see it being caused by anything," she said. "(I ask male callers), 'At what stage in your life did you decide that you liked little girls? If you're a straight male, gay guys are not going to come on to you. . . . They regard you as boring as dishwater."'

For Johanson, the core of her mission involves dispelling myths -- yes, you can have sex while pregnant without hurting the baby; no, you can't get a sexually transmitted disease from a toilet seat. She focuses on encouraging viewers to see sex as a legitimate source of pleasure; the ultimate expression of intimacy in a relationship.

"I never try to talk anybody out of anything," said Johanson, who often will pick up a sex toy or model to illustrate a point onscreen. "Let's say they phone in and they want to try a threesome. I'm not going to say no, but I am gonna say, 'Are you going to feel really good about yourself the next day?' 'How do you feel about your boyfriend, if it's his idea?' 'Does it change your relationship?'

"I don't want exploitation, manipulation or coercion," she added. "Women equate sex with love. For a woman to be responsive, she needs to feel cherished, she needs to feel a partner will not leave or abandon her. Guys, they feel (sex) is a means to an end . . . and that's not a put-down. But those are the differences."

That attitude, said an executive at Oxygen, is why the channel purchased 26 reruns of Johanson's Canadian show a few years ago, just days after seeing a sample.

The Sunday Night Sex Show reruns began airing on Oxygen in January 2002 and before long, the channel had purchased all seven seasons' worth of episodes. After American fans deluged Oxygen with demands for the chance to call Johanson themselves, the channel began airing Talk Sex With Sue Johanson last November.

Already, her shows are among the most popular on the channel -- an outlet that features everything from reruns of Xena the Warrior Princess to a talk show hosted by fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi and a Candid Camera-style reality/prank TV show dubbed Girls Behaving Badly.

"It doesn't surprise me that the show would be popular. . . . Women want the same things anyone else would want in a good relationship, and sex is part of that," said Debby Beece, president of programming for Oxygen.

"Sue creates a comfort zone for people who may be talking about painful things," said Beece, adding that she hasn't received a single complaint about the show or had to censor anything Johanson might speak about on air. "She understands that sex is about intimacy and honesty and can make all the difference in a relationship. That's part of what women want."

Though Johanson herself remains protective about her private life, a behind-the-scenes book about the show written by the show's producer and director (dubbed Nocturnal Admissions) details her early life growing up in Canada -- raised by an alcoholic father and various relatives, including a mother and stepmother who both died of cancer during her childhood.

Trained as a registered nurse and left a millionaire by an inheritance from an aunt, Johanson's journey on her current path began in 1970 when she was, in her own words, "a suburban wife and mother, doing diddly squat and bored stiff."

After helping a teenage friend of one of her daughters deal with an unwanted pregnancy, she persuaded government officials in 1970 to let her open the Don Mills Birth Control Clinic -- the first sexual health clinic based in a high school in North America, according to Johanson.

She also began studying sex issues in-depth, traveling to colleges in Syracuse, N.Y., Ann Arbor, Mich., and Fort Lauderdale, learning more about how to teach others about their own sexuality. By 1986, she had left her position as coordinator at the Don Mills clinic, focusing on the growing media presence her work was creating.

"I learned that kids want more than basic anatomy and physiology -- the plumbing of sex," Johanson said. "If you look at (many) sex education programs, they're based on fear -- 'If you do this, you'll get a disease.' We tried that with smoking and we tried that with drugs and it doesn't work. We have to ask, 'Why are you doing this?' "

Johanson has written three books (including one called Sex Is Perfectly Natural, But Not Naturally Perfect) and authored columns for Canada's Edmonton Sun newspaper. The show's most common questions are answered at a Web site she maintains (www.talksexwithsue.com), and Oxygen features tips taken from the show on its site, oxygen.com.

A highlight from Oxygen's site: instructions on presenting "a shower with a difference" that involves luring your partner into the shower, fully clothed.

"You undress them, button by button -- unzipped and unhooked," she advises in the video clip. What follows may involve kissing and animal noises, she warned, noting, "you will probably end up on a soggy bath mat in the middle of the floor. Sounds like fun to me."

During the calls described earlier, Johanson eventually took care of every query.

Phil was advised to let his wife know the tremendous performance pressure she was placing on him. Denise was assured that headstands during sex were okay. And Shawn was told the only way she'd give her boyfriend a cold is by kissing him on the mouth -- revelations that seemed to bring enormous comfort.

"I think people are hungry for information," Johanson said. "It may make them cringe -- people think, 'What is she doing?' -- but then they still watch it. I think they're curious, and they want to understand."

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