When it was revealed in April that Netflix had lost 200,000 subscribers during the first quarter of 2022, its stock nosedived, and worse was expected to come: Netflix itself projected a loss of a staggering two million more subscribers by the end of June. At that point, it looked as if the streaming giant might actually have awakened to the economic cost of wokeness, explicitly rejecting the cancel culture ethos in telling employees: “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” But don’t get the idea that Netflix has utterly forsaken the cause of cultural decay and degradation: it is gearing up for another assault on the sexual mores, morality, and sensibilities of Americans with its new home makeover series, How to Build a Sex Room.
It’s “definitely not your typical home makeover series,” gushes People magazine with admirable understatement. How to Build a Sex Room, which is set to premiere on July 8, is “all about renovating sumptuous spaces that are all about intimacy.” Neither Netflix nor People say so, but these “sumptuous spaces” are all about late Roman Empire-style cultural decay as well. All the while I was growing up, my family never had, and I never knew any people who had, a “sex room” in their house. Did you? Did anyone?
But as far as Netflix and People and their target audience are concerned, that omission was a manifestation not of modesty and properly ordered societal values, but of a stultifying prudery that must be decisively and resoundingly rejected. Interior designer Melanie Rose, the host of How To Build A Sex Room, says: “When people hear the words ‘sex rooms,’ they concentrate on the word ‘sex.’ And that connotes ‘dirty,’ ‘disgusting.’ Sex rooms are not disgusting.”
Great. One thing I have heard all my life is people insisting that those who said sex was dirty and disgusting were wrong, as well as repressed and psychologically disturbed; however, another thing I’ve never heard was anyone actually saying that sex was dirty and disgusting. People such as Melanie Rose are acting as if it were 1892 instead of 2022 and using this straw man to make a final assault against the already crumbling walls of American public morality.
Rose is just the person to lead this assault. She is, People tells us happily, “an interior decorator who has devoted her career to fulfilling couples’ fantasies via home design, [who] has been dubbed the ‘Mary Poppins’ of sex rooms by her clients.” What is this fascination that Leftist cultural saboteurs have with Mary Poppins? First, we had the self-described “Mary Poppins of disinformation,” the former chief of the ominous and Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz. And now we have the Mary Poppins of sex rooms. Next up could be the Mary Poppins of the Oval Office, once Old Joe finally gets the heave-ho from the people who are really in charge.
Related: Are Conservatives Making a Comeback in the Culture War?
Anyway, the Mary Poppins of sex rooms says that her rooms “defy unfavorable stereotypes and fill many unexpected roles.” In a preview video, “clips of her designs show everything from a bedroom with billowing red curtains to a bathroom with a stand-out open shower.” People goes on to tell us that as Rose “narrates the sneak peek, viewers can catch even more glimpses of elaborate rooms, including a bathroom that’s all about the details. It features a black freestanding bathtub surrounded by candles and complete with a wall of hanging sex toys. To contrast the darker tones is a whimsical tree consisting of pink and purple flowers that hangs above the bath.”
Red curtains, a black freestanding bathtub surrounded by candles, and complete with a wall of hanging sex toys. Pink and purple flowers. Why, the unfavorable stereotypes are being defied left and right! But Rose explains: “A sex room can be anything from a sumptuous bedroom to a dungeon under the stairs. But when I design them, they can be beautiful.” That’s good because if you’re going to have a dungeon of perversion in your house, above all you’ll want it to be beautiful, right? And Rose’s sex rooms are nothing if not tasteful: in “another lavish room,” we see “shelves adorned with sex toys and a range of plants all surround a curvy red chaise lounge. The walls are covered in a paper stamped with sketches of women and hung with pieces of lingerie.” From Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall to Melanie Rose is one steep descent.
But Melanie Rose, People, and Netflix are enthusiastic about this new salvo in the sexual and cultural revolutions. Sex rooms, says Rose, “can be works of art. They can be fantasies. They can be anything my client desires.” How about a new reason for Netflix to hemorrhage subscribers? They will be that, too. Watch for it.
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