How To Build a Sex Room Story:-
Ever found yourself watching Grand Designs and thinking, “Why not add some spice to the bedroom with whips and chains?” Or perhaps, pondered over renovating the dungeon into a BDSM sanctuary? Well, if you have, then Netflix has just the show for you: How to Build a Sex Room.
Movie Ratings
| Release Date | 8 July 2022 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Reality |
| Episodes | 8 |
| Cast | Melanie Rose |
| Cinematography | Toby Birney |
| Producer | Jim Berger, Scott Feeley, Sarah Howell, Corrina Robbins, Adam Sher |
| Production | High Noon Entertainment, ITV America |
| Certificate | 18+ |
At first glance, this seems like another superficial, cookie-cutter show aimed at entertaining the masses with a gimmicky take on interior design. And in many ways, it is exactly that.
How to Build a Sex Room lightly touches on couples’ therapy by playfully exploring kinks and encouraging openness with partners, but sadly, it falls short in this aspect. Instead, it’s all about whips, giggles, and “ooh, is that a butt plug?”
“People often view sex dungeons as dingy and seedy,” luxury interior designer Melanie Rose explains early on. “I like to add class and style.” While the final designs may look impressive, there’s a lingering doubt that the novelty will wear off, leaving the sex room to become an unused storage closet.
For couples experiencing sexual rough patches, no sex room or kinky gimmick can magically resolve underlying issues. A healthy relationship relies on communication, and as demonstrated by numerous couples on the show, that’s where the focus should lie, rather than resorting to blindfolds and gags.
Take Episode 2, for instance. Here, we meet a couple with a young child. Melanie suggests that couples with kids need a sex room more than anyone else, without considering the challenges of parenting in today’s world, let alone finding space to build such a room.
Such casual remarks may irk viewers like myself, especially those living in small studio apartments, as the camera pans across lavish homes in a flamboyant, elegant manner. Thanks, cameraman.
In one house, the dad has a massive seven-foot trampoline in his kid’s room and thoughtlessly moved his son’s bed into their own bedroom, wondering why the couple lacks intimacy.
Now, I’m no Hercule Poirot, but the solution seems obvious: remove the trampoline, relocate the child to his own room, and apologize to the wife for the misguided idea. Treating her to a relaxing spa evening with friends, away from trampoline chaos, could also help mend fences.
Each episode follows a similar structure, although the storylines often spill over into different segments, using cliffhangers to maintain viewer engagement.
The format showcases two different couples aiming to explore their sexual interests by constructing a sex room, hoping it will fulfill their desires.
Melanie arrives, they discuss their background briefly, delve into Melanie’s “bag of goodies,” and gear up for the next phase. This involves the team designing a sex room within the spacious confines of their luxurious homes.
Amid the design process, the show includes cutaway scenes (similar to Great British Bake-Off but with fewer cakes and more handcuffs and whips) to delve into the couples’ preferences.
There’s a faint nod to history, but apart from a brief mention of the X cross in episode 1, there’s disappointingly little emphasis on this aspect. For instance, did you know that the Romans often engaged in doggy-style intercourse? Or coitus more ferarum, Latin for “sexual intercourse in the manner of wild beasts.”
It’s an interesting tidbit, but one can’t help but feel that the show could have benefitted from incorporating more of these historical snippets and delving deeper into educational content, along with addressing couples’ therapy aspects—rather than resorting to questionable jokes, like the one about Black men disliking handcuffs (yes, it’s actually included in the show).
While there are moments of enjoyment, How to Build a Sex Room falls short of providing effective stimulation. Once you move beyond the sexual gimmick (and my regrettable pun in this sentence), it resembles any other reality show, offering limited advice for couples.
Unlike shows like Marie Kondo, whose tips are genuinely helpful, this feels more like MTV Cribs: Sex edition. When the cameras stop rolling, no amount of whips and chains can salvage this one.
