The challenge with the democratization of media-making has been just that: you know, democratization, getting voices and stories from outside the social media saturated echo chamber (San Francisco, New York, hello) out into the Great World Beyond. Which might be why finding a show like The Midwest Teen Sex Show is still shocking:

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Shocking?

Because, the phrase “teen sex” online still conjures up exploitative badness, even among the most sex-positive minded, and is here used in an actually context-appropriate fashion.

Because the opening (cute girl scantily clad) apes so many cliches of online video, and in so doing, shreds them, at the same time as resisting a desexualization of the discussion of sex — a discussion of sex amongst teens, no less, which is so often over-sanitized to the point of nonsense.

Because the sense of humor throughout is sharp, and real, and not from a place of pained hipster irony, or calculated self-mockery, or some bizarre disdain for sex itself.

(It happens.)

Because being able to laugh at sex from a smart place may be one of the only things keeping us sane these days.

And because giving girls a chance to write and make media? About sex? That doesn’t shame them? Oh my god, Nikol, adopt me ex post facto, please.