Now that Game of Thrones has finished, where do you turn for your mainstream streaming doses of nudity and sex embedded in an entertaining show? There are many options, primarily from the world of science fiction. Westworld on HBO regularly delivers, as does the Netflix series Altered Carbon. You can also catch the now completed and great Netflix series Sense 8, one of the most expensive streaming shows ever, with a very pansexual approach to sex and nudity. Love, Death and Robots on Netflix has a lot of nudity and I really enjoyed the series, but it sort of does not count as it is animated.

I just started watching Amazon’s Electric Dreams, a 10 episode anthology based on the short stories of Philip K. Dick, whose works have inspired more science fiction movies than any other writer. The production values are amazing with fully realized and incredibly detailed worlds. I have seen 4 episodes and am really enjoying it, including what the reviewers refer to as its gratuitous nudity and sex. Since both those things are a part of life, it is like saying that a movie has a gratuitous food eating scene where people just go at it for an unnecessarily long time. What I object to is gratuitous clothed scenes, where people are dressed under circumstances where almost all of us would be completely naked. You see these far more often than nudity.

There is more to life than just science fiction and fantasy, so this month we take a look at a new show with a BDSM theme. It is a Netflix series titled Bonding, with the promising premise of a dominatrix who takes on a wannabee comedian as her assistant.

Here is the official description of the plot: “Tiff (played by Zoe Levin, who was Kara Souders in the series Red Band Society) is a grad student in New York City who is moonlighting as a dominatrix. For Tiff, her sexually explicit job is a business, not a pleasure. When she reconnects with former high school BFF Pete (played by Brendan Scannell, who played Heather Duke in the series Heathers), a recently out gay man, she recruits the cash-strapped man to be her assistant — performing such tasks as cleaning up after her clients and serving as her bodyguard. This dark comedy follows the unlikely pair as Tiff and Peter’s new professional relationship redefines their friendship. More importantly, though, it helps them find themselves.”

Based on that description it could have been good, but it is truly terrible. While Fifty Shades of Grey managed to get most things wrong about BDSM, this manages to get virtually everything wrong, and in ways even more offensive to the BDSM community. You also might want to check out episode 2 of the great new sketch comedy Alternatino on Comedy Central for a hysterical Shades of Grey parody. Unlike Bonding, it is funny, and if you ignore my advice and watch Bonding, you will understand why the Alternatino parody applies equally well to it.

There are just 7 episodes in the Bonding series, and I was actually grateful that there are not the more typical 8. The running time of the entire series added together is less than most movies. That is because each episode is only around 15 minutes, which might seem like a cheat, but again, in this case I am grateful. It helped me get through it that much quicker.

The series is supposedly based on the real life experiences of creator, writer and director Rightor Doyle, whose previous experience is primarily as an actor. You might know him from his regular appearances as Nick Nicholby on HBO’s Barry. He claims it is loosely based on his time working for a dominatrix when he was a young man. If that is true, he learned absolutely nothing from his experiences.

It is clear from the first episode that they had no advisors from the BDSM community. When we first meet Tiff (Mistress May) in her dungeon, the whole thing is laughable. She apparently works in a commercial dungeon, and her room is lit in purple. There are a tiny number of BDSM toys hanging from the wall (far fewer than I put up in our dungeon room for Halloween). She has a whip that most doms would consider more appropriate for a Halloween costume and she clearly has no idea how to handle it. Other than that, it is a stupidly minimalistic room. No BDSM furniture. Actually, there is little in the way of furniture at all. Compared to actual commercial dungeons, this place is ridiculous.

If you want to know how an actual New York dungeon is equipped, check out Donatella Den, considered one of the best. The very front page describes how they are equipped, and after seeing that, you will understand why the depiction of a dungeon in Bonding is total crap. Actual BDSM players love their toys and tend to have a lot of them.

Sanctuary in L.A. is a premiere dungeon, and from their web site, here is what is not allowed: “We do not do any golden or brown showers, (no body fluids of ANY kind are exchanged), no pathogen play, we do not do any extreme Breath Play, such as choking, asphyxiation or carotid play. There is no strapon play and absolutely no penetration or oral/genital contact, and for sure, absolutely no sex or other illegal activity.” That is fairly typical, but Tiff seems to be on board with actually doing all of those things that are normally forbidden, either because they are very unsafe or are too close to what authorities might consider sex, which would change it from BDSM to prostitution.

Knife play involving cutting is forbidden, and since you could easily accidentally cut someone even if you do not intend to, it is no wonder that I have never seen openly displayed knives in dungeons or at a public play party. Tiff has her knives hanging right on the wall.

I said there was no BDSM furniture, which is true, but there is one piece of sloppily made fake BDSM furniture. They have what is supposed to be a Saint Andrew’s Cross. These are something you attach people to for whipping or spanking or tickling. The one we see in her dungeon has no attachment points, so there is no way to attach someone to it, making it merely decorative. Even then, it is poorly made by just nailing a couple of 2×8 boards together without insetting them into each other, leaving the wood unfinished, and then spray painting it red. I don’t even think they sanded the wood. It looks shoddy, and that level of attention to detail runs throughout the entire series.

Then there is Tiff in her ill-fitting corset. Corsets are a big deal in the BDSM community, but as with any fetish attire, attention to detail is important. They have to be properly fitted. Worse, she is wearing a collar with an attachment ring. She wears this even in the last episode. Only submissives wear collars with attachment rings. It is sort of like having someone who is supposed to be in the Navy wearing an Air Force uniform. An experienced submissive would take one look at her and know immediately that she has no idea what she is doing.

And that is just in the first few minutes of the first episode. It gets worse. The series leaves out the absolutely most important part of BDSM, whether it be commercial or personal. It is all about consent and negotiation. Tiff cares little for such trivialities, including for assistant and supposed friend Pete, who she forces to do things he does not want to do. You never see the careful negotiation and planning that goes into commercial sessions.

She forces Pete to pee on a male client against Pete’s will. I am pretty sure they do not allow water sports in New York dungeons. Later she says to him that he is brave as he never knows what she is going to make him do next, such as take a shit on someone. God no. This bashes the notion of consent in the head, plus there is no way a commercial dungeon is going to allow such things, just for the smell alone as well as the fact that it is an unsafe activity.

That is another weird thing. I know that this was written by a gay man, but Tiff brings Pete in on a lot of sessions that would tend to make the typical heterosexual clients one would see very uncomfortable. None of her clients seem to be that picky about gender. Maybe they forgot to mention that she caters primarily to bi men? Or maybe this is just the fantasy perspective of a gay man with little understanding of BDSM or heterosexuality. I don’t mind the gay perspective, as it is written by a gay man. What I do not like is the delusional gay perspective where all the men seem to want gay sex, especially with Pete (the character who is the stand-in for the writer).

I am all for normalizing sex workers, which dominatrices are despite the fact that they can not legally have sex with their clients. The show does not normalize Tiff. She is rather unpleasant all of the time. I know a lot of dominatrices, and what is fun about them is their duality. They are typically the sweetest people you will ever meet, and then they can turn on their dominant side and become someone else. Tiff seems to be a 24/7 dom, which wears thin rather quickly.

Twitter typically pulls down pages of actual dominatrices, but they do allow fake ones. Netflix put up a page for Mistress May, as if she were real and it stays up. Instagram deleted a review of Bonding by a dominatrix. I guess you can make fun of them in bad comedies, but they can’t express themselves in social media.

The brilliantly funny D’Arcy Carden, who plays Janet in the Good Place in one of the most amazing comedic performances on series television, is wasted in her brief appearances she makes in three episodes. She knows the Bonding creator through acting with him on HBO’s Barry, where she plays Natalie Greer. She gets more out of the rather flaccid material than you might think possible, though. It is still not good, confusing the almost ritualized fantasy role playing of BDSM with actual physical violence.

There is a surprising amount of actual violence, and I do not mean BDSM play but actual violence- punching, stabbing, assault. No beheadings, though, so no actual substitute for Game of Thrones.

Make no mistake, like Fifty Shades of Grey, this is a deeply negative and distorted view of BDSM, a true outsider’s interpretation. I am not even sure it is all that gay positive, either. Maybe I am taking it too seriously. After all, it is just a comedy. I mean theoretically. Does dark comedy mean comedy without laughs? Even the comedy club scenes are unfunny.

Maybe I should focus on the sex and nudity? And we’re done. There really isn’t any. There is a brief fully clothed premature ejaculation scene in a car but no one is naked and you can’t see anything and it is anything but sexy. A brief flash of a nude male posterior. A scene in a male strip bar has the dancers wearing shorts. A bare penis is displayed while urinating. Gay men are apparently into burlesque (who knew?), so we join Pete and his date to see a pair of bouncing breasts with pasties. That is about it.

Creator and writer Rightor Doyle said that his experiences working for a dominatrix “eventually freed me of many of my own sexual hangups.” Actually, his sexual hangups seem to be on full display in this series. I think he still has a lot of them.

My real problem is how unrealistic everything is. Men are fine with substituting men when they were expecting a woman. There is the cliched classroom scene where psych student slash dominatrix Tiff reveals her true dark identity, claims she is this way because bad men did bad things to her, and all her fellow students are into it and want her to tie them up. And worst of all, the penguin scene (don’t ask) has Pete say “leave your money at reception.” Seriously? You always pay up front. They manage to get everything wrong.

Virtually no sex or nudity, not very funny, even less insightful about both BDSM and human behavior, and with mostly hard to like characters. You can watch it, but if you know anything about BDSM, I doubt you’ll get very far. For now, I will stick with fantasy and science fiction for my sexposition.