Sara Dale's Sensual Massage: The Stroke of Pleasure’ sex education film

Published on 1 year

By 1992 the UK video industry was going through a boom in supposed "sex education" or "sex guide" titles. Beneath the veneer of respectability and educational purpose the very softcore of these sex-ed titles was obvious titillation and porn-by-any-other-name. The British Board of Film Classification at the time, led by the overzealous James Ferman, was going through a particularly censorious phase, with cuts being demanded to a great many mainstream and genre films ahead of both cinema and home video releases, often citing problematic sexual content (with actual hardcore pornography continuing to be banned in the UK for almost a decade to come). Of course, as it's all about capitalism, film producers and distributors found a way around the censor's thinking - a way to display highly sexualized content and nudity without provoking the censor's venom and being shutdown: simply have a voice-over talk in serious or academic tones, slap the right educational title on it and you can get away with pretty graphic sexual content throughout the film's length. Sorted. And it worked. Carlton Video's 'The Lover's Guide' did this and famously sold 1.3 million copies in the UK after its release in late 1991, spawning 10 sequels, translated into 13 languages and distributed in 22 countries around the world, with international press articles galore. Even the sociological researcher Jeremy O’Grady pointed out to his team in one BBFC board meeting from 1992 that exploitation producers were using sex education "to get around the ludicrous standards we impose on sex", but they were powerless to halt the tide - the sex ed industry became so lucrative during such a repressive era in the UK that big-acting names like Helena Bonham-Carter and Timothy Spall ultimately got involved with other 1990s home video releases, such as 'The Good Sex Guide'. The time was clearly ripe to capitalize on Sara Dale's current tabloid-led notoriety with this contemporary semi-respectable softcore erotic "educational" genre boom. Filmed during the spring of 1992 by Basilisk Communications and associates, COIL's soundtrack was edited into the feature during the post-production phase of early summer, submitted for BBFC classification, and released in late July 1992, COIL fans simply cannot ignore the existence of ‘Sara Dale's Sensual Massage: The Stroke of Pleasure’. And why should we? The video is a delightful example of early-1990s UK exploitation softcore kitsch, positively exuding the deep scent of patchouli essential oil, hairspray, and, er, chocolate fondues. https://archive.org/details/SaraDaleSensualMassage_Film