Company Amazon Prime , Netflix. Category TV. In more than 30 years as a social worker, I have learned that the topic that leads to the most discomfort in both individual and marital therapy is a discussion of sexual needs and desires. Much of the reason is due to shame, for many sexual fantasies involve power, control, and aggression that we are taught repetitively have nothing to do with love and marriage.
Further inhibiting joy and fulfillment in countless relationships is the intractable division of women into virgins and angels or vamps and whores. These dangers are glaringly depicted in this three-season portrayal created and written by Allan Cubitt, which has been understandably criticized for unsparing sexual violence and murders of young women brutalized by a serial killer.
And further, Cubitt introduces us to the painful longing of human beings, surely not sadists, who yearn for satisfying love, yet are unable to find the emotional and sexual intimacy they crave.
As I frame this unsettling, provocative series, there will be no spoilers. I will concentrate only on selected themes there are many to follow and introduce major characters in broad strokes.
Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson Gillian Anderson is a senior investigating officer sent from London to Northern Ireland to bring her expertise to a murder investigation that has remained active for more than 28 days. She is able to demonstrate to her male counterparts that the murders terrifying their community are not random, but the work of a compulsive fetish burglar and voyeur, a vicious sexual psychopath who brings misery to all he touches.
