Bodyshock: Orgasmatron (C4); Going Naked To Work (ITV1): DR Stuart Meloy was working in his pain management practice when a female patient let out an exclamation.
She'd had an orgasm as a result of a procedure involving spinal implants and long needles. "You'll have to teach my husband to do that," joked the patient.
What if he could make the earth move using his pain control methods?, wondered Dr Meloy. Had he stumbled on the answer to the question that had been puzzling scientists for decades - the secret of the female orgasm?
Bodyshock followed the American doctor as he tested his device on three women, implanting the prototype for a week. So far his clinical trials have involved just 11 women - and the earth moved for only four of them.
This sounded like one of those cheap and cheerful sex documentaries that take a slightly juvenile approach to sexual matters. It did seem rather like that machine, invented by a mad scientist in the film Barbarella, that sent Jane Fonda into virtually permanent orgasm.
Some film-makers would have adopted a jokey approach, but Nadia Hall's film dealt with the subject seriously and sensitively. She was helped by the willingness of couples both to talk about their problems and allow cameras to follow their treatment.
Jackie, from Tring, had never had an orgasm with a man. She didn't even know what it was until she read about it in a magazine. Since then, it's been her holy grail. "I know what it's like to feel less of a woman," she said.
I never found out if Dr Meloy's treatment - which stimulates nerve pathways running from the spine to the genitals - works. A dodgy preview DVD robbed me of seeing the climax of the programme.
Naturists are a group of which TV, as well as some of us, tend to make fun. Going To Work Naked was more concerned with getting at the psychological root of people's desire to be nude than to show endless shots of sagging boobs and bobbing bottoms (which it did as well).
Naked gardeners Ian and Barbara might be dismissed as eccentric. Members of the public visiting their gardens might be greeted by the sight of the married couple gardening in the buff. This didn't seem very practical to me, what with dangers posed by stinging nettles and prickly bushes. For Ian, going naked is "just another way of dressing". His mother-in-law was less convinced. "I don't feel the need for it," she said - and seeing Ian's dangly bits dangling over the kitchen table I agreed with her.
The lay chaplain known as Trev the Rev likes to be naked in the sight of God, holding nude services in a shed in the wood. He argued that God created us naked and unashamed, so there was nothing wrong in taking off your clothes to worship and pray.
"It's the fulfilment of what I believe God has called us to do," he said.
Published: 08/02/2005
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