TV watchdog fails to clarify code for portrayal of gay sex

BROADCASTERS who have been lobbying for new guidelines on the portrayal of gay sex on television are expected to be disappointed next week when a new code is published.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission, the television watchdog, is due to publish a new code on taste and decency in television next week and had considered a new clause to state to viewers that the portrayal of gay sex on screen is not grounds for complaint on its own.

But the BSC is understood to have rejected the clause in its final draft of the code, which as well as providing for viewers who wish to make a complaint also acts as guidance for all the UK's broadcasters over what they may broadcast.

Broadcasters had asked the BSC to include the clause to clarify the watchdog's position on the representation of homosexual sex on screen. A broadcaster involved in the construction of the code said yesterday: "It was suggested that such a clause be inserted, because we thought the code should include a positive statement. We have to deal with complaints that would never have been made about heterosexual behaviour. For example, if The Bill features a female rape, nobody bothers, but if it's a male rape, people complain."

Peter Tatchell, spokesman for the gay rights group OutRage!, said: "The BSC apparently believes that gay sex is more offensive than straight sex. Standards of taste and decency should apply equally without discrimination."

The portrayal of any gay activity on screen, however chaste, tends to attract a certain level of complaints on taste and decency grounds from viewers. The BSC has tended in the past to base its rulings on the degree of explicitness on the sex portrayed rather than the sex of the participants.

The BSC, which is chaired by Lady Howe, yesterday published a report criticising Channel 4's TV Dinners for showing a family eating a human placenta. A spokeswoman refused to comment on the contents of the code until it is published next week.