Secrets Of The Living Dolls is an eye-opening but empty-headed documentary

Channel 4’s Living Dolls expose was a secret that was best left unshared.

I once heard it said that every man’s ultimate fantasy would be thought to be perverted by every other man (presumably, women were a given).

I Googled this quote to attribute it correctly but couldn’t find it anywhere so it might have been me that said it. It’s funny how you can come out with something so profound when caught wearing your (now ex) girlfriend’s underwear.

That’s not true (she wasn’t my size) but the quote is still valid and was never better illustrated than when watching Channel 4 on Monday night.

Secrets Of The Living Dolls may have sounded like a Russ Meyer movie but Erica Gavin was high-end entertainment compared with this eye-opening but ultimately empty-headed documentary.

“Female masking” involves men who dress up in latex rubber suits to make themselves look like women, or what women would look like if they were made of latex rubber. The programme invited us to snigger at these men, pretending to paint their behaviour as normal yet making no attempt to tell us why they do it.

The subject of sexual gratification was treated like passing wind in a lift. If you don’t bring it to everyone’s attention they might not notice. After the expected trips to California and Florida the hot American sun tends to lead to predilections of this sort we were introduced to Joel from Essex.

Escaping a mother who “treated him like a four-year-old” (again, a probing follow-up question was conspicuous by its absence), Joel was moving in with girlfriend Mel. She knew of his masking but he now wanted to tell best friends, Phil and Claire.

They must have known something was up the cameras weren’t there to capture their reaction to Joel admitting he took part in medieval battle re-enactments, but meeting Joel’s alter-ego “Jessie” still took them aback.

Phil let out an extraordinary noise, like what would happen if Eric Pickles sat on a bagpipe, while Claire groped “Jessie’s” breasts and then started to cry. I finally found a good reason for Joel to be dressed head-to-toe in rubber after this. It will make it easier for him to bounce back.