Learning From Queer As Folk

There are many lessons to be learned from Queer As Folk. One of them is that universality can only be rendered by being faithful to the particulars of life. Another is that sexual explicitness has enormous power to deepen a story and convey character. Novelists have long known this and fought for their right to party. Yet our visual novels—films and TV shows—have been deprived of this crucial narrative device. At the same time, we have created a separate genre for erotic works, in which sex is stripped of its interpersonal vitality. The dichotomy between porn and other dramatic forms is a testament to our abiding puritanism, which insists that you can't be both pornographic and profound. This show points to a future in which the forced segregation of the erotic and the emotional is overcome. Are you ready for Johnny Depp in flagrante or Jennifer Lopez getting rimmed? I know I am. But then, I'm queer as folk.

Queer As Folk airs on Showtime. Sun., 10 p.m.; Tues., 11:10 p.m.