May 7, 2008
Sue Johanson Retires Sunday Night TV Show
After six successful years on the Oxygen network south of the border, flawless Toronto septuagenarian sexpert Sue Johanson is ending her TV call-in show Talk Sex. The show was the most popular late-night draw for the network, receiving 100,000 attempted phone calls per episode, but the 77-year-old registered nurse, lecturer, and sex therapist felt it had become tiresome working the 11 p.m.–1 a.m. time slot for more than three decades.
Talk Sex began airing in 2002 on the Oxygen network, spun-off from Johanson's famous local TV program, The Sunday Night Sex Show—itself originating in 1984 as a radio show running for fourteen years on Q107. The novelty of a grandmotherly figure comfortably using words like "queef" coupled with the educator's wealth of knowledge, insight, and advice was a recipe for success, gaining fans from Oprah Winfrey to David Letterman. The final TV show on Sunday will count down the year's top ten sex toys.
Johanson is an avid lecturer (reaching 47,000 university and college students annually), and despite shutting down the show, she isn't retiring from the speaking circuit. She is also the author of three books and continues to write for the Toronto Star. An early trailblazer for sexual health education, Johanson controversially opened Canada's first high school birth control clinic in 1972 at Don Mills Collegiate Institute. The qualified expert received postdoctorate education at the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, and the Toronto Institute of Human Relations, and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2001. She has even developed a line of sex toys and counseled prison inmates.
Talk Sex and The Sunday Night Sex Show now appear in more than twenty countries around the world, and more than four million Americans tune in to the program every Sunday night. The only request Oxygen made of Johanson for U.S. audiences was not to say "cock ring," as she was wont to do on the Canadian version. American ears are sensitive like that.
Images via Oxygen.
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On one TV program, she was asked if there is a difference between Canadian and American callers.
She stated that Canadians are more knowledgeable and ask more intelligent questions.
I've not seen her program on the American network but I do know that there were many well thought questions and callers who were open minded on the Canadian program.
As an American (sorry), yeah, I gotta admit, you guys are smarter and much more open-minded than this country.
That's why some of us want to move up there.
Well, teen pregnancy and STDs are rampant throughout the U.S., sexual health programs are removed from schools on religious grounds, and the President pulls funding for any sex ed that isn't abstinence-based, but hey, don't say "cock ring"—that's offensive!
Sue Johanson is vile. I had the unfortunate experience of working with this woman years ago, and she is extremely difficult to work with. There are many reasons publishers wouldn't touch her work.
She taught me so much. Love those dolls she used to demonstrate positions.
She's pretty feisty, for sure, but her bold efforts to inform and educate particularly young people have undoubtedly prevented pregnancies, STDS and heartbreaks by the thousands.
Doggiez: I don't believe you.
She's a legend, and didn't receive the Order of Canada for nuthin'.
David,
Without giving away too many details -- or me getting too heated and wanting to take a swim in the libel pool -- it is true. You can choose to not believe me if you like. I have no issue with her efforts to educate youngters about "safer sex" (no, not "safe sex"), but her attitude. My opinion is that yes, she has done some good work over the years. However, professionally, she is a nightmare.
Wow, that must have been some damn bad experience for so many qualifiers. She's "vile" and a "nightmare" [at least, professionally]. Come on. We're on tenterhooks. You've already dipped yr toe in the libel pool. Why not at least wade a little in the shallow end? For our sakes, doggiez: brave the waters!
I remember getting way inundated with info listening to her on Q107 either before or after they ran comedy. I always appreciated that she had a no-nonsense approach on-air, was compassionate with her listeners, and proffered advice that was generally meant to encourage safer and happier sex lives.
I'm curious too. I can't imagine how much nonsense she has to put up with from the "huhhuhhuh, she said penis" crowd, and I suspect her "attitude" problem may come from her looking like a sweet grandma, but actually ultimately being a no-nonsense social worker that doesn't have time for bullshit.
Plus, when your name is a brand, and your brand needs to be handled incredibly careful because of what it involves, I would expect her to be "difficult to work with" if she disagreed with how she was being presented. Johanson walks a very fine line with a subject that has to be handled with kid gloves, and she's been brilliant at maintaining that consistency and focus.
Heh heh. He said penis. Heh heh.
Gentlemen, we're free to disagree, but even considering my lousy experience with SJ, I would never call her a legend, puhleeze! Gordon Lightfoot is a legend. Dittio Leonard Cohen, Dr. Norman Bethune, Pierre Trudeau, Nellie McClung, Norman Jewison, yadda yadda. But Sue Johanson?!
(and no sarcastic comments about the "history lesson." Hey, I'm here to help:)
This is typical of Doggiez. He lights a fire and then runs when it gets too hot. Put up or shut up.
Dear Brown Methane (sorry, "Green Sulphur" -- I couldn't resist :)
I run away from nothing, my friend. Never have, never will. The dreaded Sue Johanson incident involved a potential book she was working on which died a painful death due to her -- shall we say -- difficult nature. Since I do not wish to engage in libel, I will leave it at that.
My apologies if Mr. Topping doesn't believe this to be true. Again, I do not have anything against Ms. Johanson or her cause; in fact, she has done a lot of great work in the field of safer sex education, and I applaud her for that. My issue comes from dealing with her one-on-one in my previous publishing capacity. Do I feel she deserved an Order of Canada? No, but that is my opinion which, as I have stated, is qualified by working with her on a project which ended badly. I believe it is possible to differentiate my opinions of her. Is she good at promoting safer sex? Yes. Do I respect her for that? Yes. Do I like her? No.
My mom ran into her in the grocery store once. She says she was the nicest lady she's ever met, and they had an amazing conversation about whipped cream.
And then my mom winked at me.
Needless to say, I didn't ask for details.
Anyways, being a woman in the professional world, I can imagine she's probably had to become a bitchmobile a few times. We all do. It's part of the fun of having ovaries.
Look Doggie Doo, if you think by telling the truth you're being libelous, you're wrong. Libel is when you lie about someone/thing. So either you're trying to smear a great Canadian or you're dumb as a door knob. It's probably both.
Frankly, I don't care about your opinion of Johanson. You could hate her for all I care. It's your insistence that Johanson has done something so reprehensible that if you were to talk about it you'd get sued. BS. You're just spineless.
GS:
Umm, err, OK? If you don't care to read my opinion of her, then don't read it. Are you a lawyer when you say you "lie" about someone, or just plain fucking stupid?!
Libel, slander, look it up, genius. One is written, the other, spoken.
Moron.
I think he may be onto something; if you believe that what you have to say about Johanson's behaviour in a professional environment is true, then you aren't libelling her if you say it - of course, the other party can initiate a suit stating as claim that you are defaming them. Then the onus is [I believe - I am not a lawyer and no expert in torts] [torts! i love the word!] on you to prove you are not. You may even initiate a counter suit, reversing the claim, from what I understand, and claim damages. Civil claims are tortuous [hee hee! tort! tort!! tort!!!] and expensive. That's why they are so often engaged in by wealthier parties because the prospect of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and years in court is daunting.
What you've done is safe, and by no means do I fault you for protecting your assets - but it's all too easy to snipe from the sidelines and then claim risk of legal action as a defense from publishing more than what basically amounts to innuendo and rumour. If you can't say something nice...
I continue to be amazed by how many Canadians have bought into the hype that is Sue Johanson, self-proclaimed Queen of Sex Education. She is nothing more than a smut- peddler, and should be ashamed of making a career promoting pre-marital sex to underage children. Her own husband left her years ago because of her intolerable behavior. Torontoist posters like Marc Lostracco remind us that Ms. Johanson received an Order of Canada: “She's a legend, and didn't receive the Order of Canada for nuthin'.” There was a huge amount of controversy surrounding just how much Ms. Johanson deserved her Order of Canada appointment, and I still believe she is undeserving of such an honour. Let us not forget that anti-Semite David Ahenakew was also awarded am OOC.
Stop buying into Ms. Johanson’s self-proclaimed “grandmotherly” image, and think for yourselves. This promoter of porn does not deserve any more attention or accolades.
Satire?
"Satire?"
God, I hope so.
Wtf are you talking about? There's nothing incompatible with what I wrote in my last comment and the definition of libel. You do know it's possible to tell lies about someone in print, right?
Face it buddy, you've been outted as a liar. You should be sued for libel right now based on the factless innuendo you've used in a thinly veiled attempt to bring down Johanson's professional reputation.
But hey, maybe you get off on making senior citizens look bad. I bet Sue could help you understand that side of you better.
Dear GS,
Go away. You have no idea what you are talking about. "Outed as a liar"? What is your big interest in SJ, as a user of her line of butt-plugs?
Regarding Green Sulfur's comment: "Libel is when you lie about someone/thing."
That's quite the oversimplification, and you couldn't be more incorrect. There is no "lie" in libel per se [I laughed out loud when I read this, thank you for my morning chuckle]. Libel is a written statement that defames or attacks another, which exposes them to public contempt and lowers their estimation in the community. By stating that the root of "lie" is libel, you are revealing your obvious youth and inexperience. But that is OK for someone who must be a high-school student.
I didn't realize we were expecting an essay on the meaning of libel. Of course you can go a thousand times deeper into the meaning than I did (or you did, for that matter). Thousands of Canadian lawyers spend countless thousands of hours writing and presenting legal arguments on this topic annually. I was scratching the surface with a definition that is hardly incorrect.
But tell me this: Who has ever been successfully sued for libel after writing a truthful description of an entity or individual, notwithstanding violations of privacy that are reasonably expected?