“What you are about to witness are real stories presented to Sex Court. The litigants have all agreed to abide by The Honorable Judge Julie’s rulings and judgments as defined by the Laws of Sex Court. Only their names have been changed to protect the innocent…or the perverted.”
Court is now in session, and we are putting this show on trial. The plaintiffs are upset with how aroused they are, and the defense barely has an alibi, so we won’t need to keep the jury sequestered for too long. This sham tribunal is less about determining whether the program is guilty, and more about making citizens aware of what they missed. This is the case of a legal anomaly, a rare occurrence of softcore jurisprudence, and a mundane procedural wrapped inside a sexy interrogation. This is Playboy TV’s Sex Court.
The premise is loud and upfront: what if Judge Judy and Jerry Springer had an underdeveloped child who was embraced by the world of pornography? Sex Court would have benefitted by taking more notes from a show like Ally McBeal, but the idea is to keep things short, simple, sensual, and focused on the bare-naked drama.
“And now, here’s bailiff Silk for the swear-in.”
“Place your hands on my butt. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing BUTT the truth?”
Most episodes feature two cases introduced by the court’s Private Dick where the litigants are introduced and the issue between them is explained, just before the bailiff has them swear in on her exposed ass. Each side is heard, usually with it breaking down into arguments, stripping, and violence before the honorable magistrate retires to her chambers. During this time the audience is asked about their opinions on the proceedings until it’s time for rulings. Finally, there’s the sentencing, which usually involves one party being forced to perform a sexual act, and the performers go to the judgment box for the softcore action, with later episodes adding a lot more props to this part.
This is no daytime network show. It was a perfect fit for Playboy TV, but that fact also meant most people never saw it. The cast of recurring characters looks to be straight from a posh Hollywood brothel, other than Private Dick, who is living the perverted noir dream. Almost all of the litigants are stars from the porn industry, and there are numerous recognizable faces for those familiar, including a few welcomed superstars. There’s even a running joke in later seasons about a notable adult actor playing multiple roles. So, there is little surprise that most of them end up naked, with the full-frontal nudity of the women (and a few of the men) being one of the show’s most attractive qualities.
Obviously, Sex Court covers a lot of adult themes, and if it wasn’t for how silly the presentation is, certain cases could have been a real downer. Some of the material discussed brings up insensitive responses, with several that are simply dumb to make us disagree more with the characters and others that are rougher products of the time. In a few instances, however, I was impressed with how reasonable and level-headed reactions to these comments were, but that doesn’t make it easy to ignore the homophobic remarks. That said, the episode featuring a trans stripper still somehow feels progressive for 1999. Sex Court managed to feel daring in several episodes while coming off as dull in others.
The simulated sex that is used for punishments or reparations in most cases is a softcore spectacle, cleverly obscured in some places. Many of the segments seem quite subdued, even for the lighter side of pornography, but a number of the scenes crudely push those limits without penetration. Sadly, other than the hot bodies rubbing against each other, these portions quickly become lackluster with few exceptions. They’d grow even worse in later seasons when the program started over-editing the action. Several episodes have video tapes submitted as evidence that are often raunchier than the courtroom climax and it’s a shame how far some of them go while managing to be uninteresting. From reading a few accounts of people on set though, it sounds like watching these scenes being set up was more enjoyable than witnessing the sexcapade itself.
Sex Court covers a range of major fetishes, from feet, sex dolls, mud wrestling, and cuckolding, to eating food off of someone or men wearing women’s clothing to feel sexy, but a few cases go a little more out there for silly entertainment. Most of the cases in the first two seasons were taken from real events, legit filings, and letters written to the magazine, but as the show progressed the stories ventured more into outlandish fiction. There was a Halloween episode featuring witches and ghosts. Later we had an alien and a little VR sex, while another trial featured a clown who wouldn’t stop doing his act in the bedroom (that’s a bad one).
The show changed a good bit over its eight seasons, with an upgrade for the sets and outfits after the first two episodes being the biggest remodel. The studio was located in Culver City, CA, and was tweaked slightly with each new group of recordings, most of which (a season of eight or ten shows) were filmed quickly in four-day chunks. The in-studio audience was apparently comprised of locals, with a few press and studio personnel as well as planted performers for specific episodes. The live viewers are quite vocal. Sometimes they’re the funniest part, with one person usually yelling “bullshit” loudly when the litigants say something that sounds like a blatant lie. The editing formula changed slightly too, trimming some of the normal practices to allow more time for the payoff segments.
The real star of the show is Judge Julie Strain, former Penthouse Pet of the Year (1993) and B-movie goddess who sells herself extremely well: “I’m 6-foot-1 and worth the climb.” The confidence is warranted, as she truly is an interesting person with a fantastic backstory that led to movies, music videos, and pinups, as well as being used as the cover model for Heavy Metal magazine. This ravishing sex symbol used what spare time she had for professional photography, something Strain also taught classes on when she wasn’t spending time with her husband, Kevin Eastman (co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
The overly dramatic music and close-ups when she enters are amusing (at least at first, the song is overplayed), coming out with big hair (shorter in the later seasons) and sexy black lingerie, sitting atop a florid throne. She’s presented as an intimidating figure like the badasses she plays in the movies, but Strain says she is nothing like her characters — even if the actress enjoys playing it up on TV. Strain told Rock Confidential that she felt bad about working for Playboy and not getting naked on the program, save a couple of instances and a few see-through outfits. She continued, saying that Sex Court was the hardest show she had ever worked on due to the number of lines and terms that needed to be memorized, but Strain still felt that everyone else was working harder than she was. Humility is hot.
Other than our Judge we have the Bailiff Alexandra Silk, a slender porn star who can’t wait to get out of her uniform at every turn and seemingly likes worshipping at Julie’s feet (might be a couple of fetishes mixed in there) or waving dildos during the depositions. She’s incredibly entertaining and stayed for the entire run, adding a lot to the show’s humor. Private Dick is another big part of the presentation doing hosting duties and presenting evidence. The original actor, Jon St. James, performed the role excellently, but his replacement, Asher Pryce, wasn’t quite as smooth when he filled the gumshoes.
Next up is the court Stenographer Nikita, a Russian girl added in season two, who prefers body paint and stark nudity over professionalism. She was eventually replaced by Ava Vincent and Skye Ashton. There are also Sex Experts, or Sexperts, that help instruct the participants. The role was most often held by Brittany Andrews, but Devinn Lane and Taylor Hayes would fill the position in later seasons. Finally, a male and female bodyguard was always present to escort Judge Julie, help break up fights, and when they needed to do a little more than keep the peace, one or both were often stripping, dancing, or having sex with the litigants.
This extensive cast worked for the most part, but the initial iteration in those first couple of seasons felt the strongest. The humor hit sometimes and there were spots of clever writing, but most of it just felt formulaic and juvenile in the end. If phrases like, “My very well-hung jury,” “The double-D scales of justice,” and “Do you have any proof of this titty encounter” cause someone to groan, then this show may not be as entertaining as it is for others.
The credits are extensive, down to who provides the legal counsel, sex toys, and body paints for the program. There’s the typical message most shows like this have for those who want to participate, “If you would like to be a litigant on Sex Court, please call 310-246-4063 or e-mail us at sexcourt@playboy.com,” which was replaced with a video of Silk asking for volunteers in the later seasons, but it’s hard to imagine they would have let just anyone on. Still, I’d love to speak to someone who applied. Another passage at the end assures us that Judge Julie’s rulings in Sex Court aren’t intended to have any real legal effect and the show’s publicists made sure the press understood this wasn’t meant to be taken seriously as well.
The show generated some buzz, especially around seasons two and three. Most of that came from having Julie Strain involved, but there was also a non-staged legal issue that made the papers when Playboy sued a man who had the domain name for Sex Court, an adult website. The man countersued the company, but before things could go too far, the issue was settled out of real court, with an exchange of money and the site agreeing to cease using the name.
We often ask, “Who is this show for,” but the truth is somewhere in the middle here. Sure, horny people and those looking for a bit of story or just some nudity disguised as reality television, but it’s amusing in other ways to those who simply don’t mind a good bit of perversion. It’s hard to call Sex Court a good show, but it isn’t easy to reinvent the pornographic wheel and find new trends without trying new things.
Sex Court ran longer than most shows like it and even spawned a more traditional softcore film (Sex Court: The Movie), so there was some sort of audience out there eager for more justice. Unfortunately, the series isn’t easy to find currently. The movie is available online, but I had to do a lot of looking to acquire the majority of the episodes for this review and couldn’t get all of them to work — but that’s why we’re here. Whether Sex Court does anything for the ladies and gentlemen of the jury or not, it is evidence that is worth being presented and knowing about.
I rest my case.
