I know this because I have now sat through five series of One Born Every Minute (Channel 4) and three series of Lambing Live (BBC 2), and compounded it all with a weekend on a farm, watching teeming sheep deliver one, two, sometimes three lambs at a pop. Pop! Out tumbles the afterbirth. Shepherds let it trail. The lambs find their feet within a day of coming out, and gambol around it. They put our babies to shame.
I’ve long thought the producers are missing a trick. Why not roll the two series into one, a sort of omnibus to redefine ‘mummy porn’ as a genre of becoming, rather than a genre of so-called literature (this currently includes the 50 Shades trilogy)? We are all voyeurs now, it’s just that some of us think ourselves more wholesome, more highbrow than the erotica reading sort. That’s why we watch wretched women pushing out babies.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in