The L Word is my guiltiest pleasure. It's a show characterised by rampant absurdity, blatant emotional manipulation and hot straight actresses pretending to fuck each other. It's also the worst advert for lesbianism I've ever encountered. Despite its reputation for being "brave" (read, shows you a nipple at least once per episode, guaranteed!), the L Word has never really succeeded in rising above its central premise of titillation for straight people.

Season 2, for example, boasted a self-consciously meta-textual arc in which one the show's straw straight men moved in with two of the hot lesbians, only to hide secret cameras around the place in order to put together and sell an exploitative documentary on Lesbians Gone Wild. Ah-hah, says one of the few viewers not watching with the sound turned off, could this be a commentary on me? Am I, too, an exploitative voyeur, feigning interest when secretly all I really want is to witness filthy Sapphic thrills? The arc, of course, falls flat as the viewer singularly fails to care and waits impatiently for the next dose of nipple.

Similarly, the show's attempts to explore significant issues, like breast cancer and gay adoption, would be marginally more effective if the characters didn't all behave like raging psychopaths. A brief examination of the Bette/Tina relationship car-crash demonstrates this beautifully. Before I begin, I should add a proviso to the effect that I know we're in Televisionlandia, where nobody is allowed to be happy, react sensibly or complete anything (catching a plane, disarming a bomb...) comfortably within deadline. Furthermore, I'm well-aware that The L Word does not offer anything close to "realistic" portrayal of lesbian life in LA - if it did then I'd be on the next plane out there - but nevertheless, although glamorised, the show does claim to represent and speak for a community that has been marginalised in popular culture:

"But I did look around. I looked at the dynamics of the women I've known in L.A., and tried to cut a broad swath through that community." -- Ilene Chaiken (the writer)

This being the case, I think giving a little consideration to what The L Word has to say about lesbians is not a completely spurious undertaking.

Bette and Tina are introduced as our long-term lesbian couple. The future of their quite frankly fucked up relationship seems bizarrely popular with fans of the show, so much so that they (the lesbians, not the fans) have acquired the laurel leaves of a "supercouple" along with the distinction of being the only lesbian "supercouple" currently on air. Supercouple, I have recently learned, is an American concept from the 80s for exceptionally popular prime-time romantic pairings such as, for example, Buffy and Angel, Mulder and Scully or Ross and Rachel. With this in mind, let us examine the evolution of the Bette and Tina relationship.

Bette is a hot, rich art museum director. Tina is a hot, rich ex-movie executive who has given up her high powered career to stay at home and have a family. As Season 1 begins they're undergoing counselling to try and prepare themselves for raising a child and confront the sad truth of their lesbian bed death. Having sex in their swimming pool, however, soon proves a more effective antidote to psychological dysfunction than treatment.

They spend the middle part of the season attempting to acquire some sperm. They try various men - some of whom offer up comically-defunct sperm, because men are just rubbish, even their emissions, and some of whom comically assume the deal includes a hot threesome with two lesbians. In the end they do, in fact, stoop to the hot threesome only to have the man involved (an undoubtedly high quality specimen picked up randomly at a local club) take offence that two women who specifically self-identify as sleeping only with women turn out to be only interested in his ejaculate. Castigating them as sperm-stealing bitches, he yanks on his trendy jeans and storms out. Quite what the viewer is meant to take away from this, I have no idea. Are we meant to admire the man's fortitude and self-respect in rejecting the ultimate male fantasy? Are meant to condemn him for refusing to humour our sperm-stealing lesbians? Is an offering of bodily fluids an appropriate "price" for the fulfilment of a fantasy? Or is the problem the cruel, prejudiced world forcing our lesbians into a situation in which they are forced to prostitute themselves for sperm? In essence: what the heck?

In the end a donor is secured (although, tellingly, later his hysterical heterosexual partner will show up and accuse Tina of being a, wait for it, sperm stealing bitch) and Tina is duly impregnated. This, however, culminates in deeply traumatic miscarriage which leaves Tina sunk deep in depression. Bette, however, is fucking a hot lesbian carpenter. Eventually her infidelity is discovered. There is much screaming and weeping and physical violence. And the two fall upon each other in an embarrassingly soggy rape/seduction scene which, quite frankly, beggars belief. Attempting to force sexual attentions on your partner when you've been caught cheating is a response so utterly bewildering to me it smacks of psychopathy. To say nothing of ick.

In Season 2, Bette attempts to repair her relationship with Tina, who is pregnant again. Tina, meanwhile, uses her position on the moral high ground to sleep with Helena Peabody, a hot lesbian heiress with a really creepy pregnancy fetish. There's also a minor subplot involving a predatory lesbian divorce lawyer whose main role is to draw attention to the uncomfortable legal position of those in lesbian relationships: "you gave up your autonomy in a relationship the law doesn't recognise." Again, this would be in some way relevant if, by the airing of Season 3 when the law does, in fact, recognise them, they had shown any indication of deserving it. In the end though, they move back in together and their completely awful relationship looks like it might be salvageable. Tina has her baby. Lesbians gather in the hospital to look on lovingly. Honestly, I wouldn't trust the lot of them with a tin of beans.

In Season 3, however, all has gone to shit again. Bette has lost her high powered art job and money is apparently rather tight. Never mind that they're living in a gorgeous house in a posh neighbourhood with a swimming pool in the back garden and object d'art from floor to ceiling. Although both women are disconcertingly obsessed with the child - to the extent that they won't put ot down because they are practicing "attachment parenting" whatever the heck that is - their ability to relate to each other has fallen from negligibility into negative figures. There aren't sleeping together, they actually have a barricade of pillows lining the centre of their bed and Tina is cruising internet chatrooms for virtual cock.

They are also involved in yet another legal furore because, due to the law being prejudiced against completely batshit lesbians, Bette has to formally adopt the child. The social worker (or whatever Americans call them) is a feisty red-haired woman in a wheelchair who has trouble navigating Bette and Tina's uber-fashionable house. Needless to say, they just don't care. They only care about the rights of lesbians. Not human beings. The social worker is naturally concerned about the lack of child proofing and the fact neither of these two mad women will put their child down for a second. But Bette does not want to child proof because it's ugly. Um, I understand dead babies are pretty ugly too.

Again, I'm completely unsure what, as a viewer, I'm meant to be taking away from this. Quite frankly, yes, I'm more interested in art than children but I don't have a fucking child. The social worker is portrayed as impatient and prickly but she is most certainly not homophobic, since she has a good relationship with the two gay fathers who live next door. Well, at least they help her with her goddamn wheelchair. Are we, in fact, meant to conclude that Bette and Tina are not suitable parents? But considering they are the only long-term lesbian couple with a child on the show, this is not exactly a hopeful conclusion.

And it gets worse. Tina soon sets out to be the breadwinner, having admitted to Bette that she is in need of a good deep dicking. Bette responds to this by a) sticking around longer than any normal person would do having received the news that their life partner wants to boink other people b) going on a silent meditation retreat. Because that always helps. Finally, after one or two false starts with complete idiots (men are generally evil, remember?) Tina finally gets it together with the most boring man on the face of the planet. Henry. For the record, he also has an uncommonly ugly back (because men are evil). She and Henry then proceed to make vigorous heterosexual lurve and establish a proper family, complete with, I'm sure, child proofing in the home while Bette looks on sadly.

So not only as the show revealed to us two lesbians incapable of raising a child a child or maintaining an relationship in the most elementary way, it has also offered us up a fully functioning family within the hetero-normative paradigm it presumably expects us to question. Were I a lesbian, I'd be fucking pissed off by now ...oooh, look, a nipple.

And just to add the final nail to the coffin of sanity, Bette goes running to the nearest lawyer (the same lawyer as in Season 2) not to fight for her right to remain in the child's life (as the enlightened law now recognises her role as the intended parent of the child) but because she wants the whole cake...err...child for herself. It doesn't matter that she's not the birth mother of said child; her reasoning, if so selfish, spiteful, deranged and vindictive an act deserves to qualify has possessing some, boils down to the ethnicity of the child who is half-black, like Bette. And this, apparently, counts for more than biology. Colour is thicker than water. If we ever wanted clinching proof that these people shouldn't be allowed near a child, or each other, or out in public, this is it.

Bette and Tina form a particularly egregious example of psychosis but, when you get right down, the other characters aren't much better. Alice and Dana - hot, quirky journalist-cum-radio presenter and hot tennis-pro respectively - are set up as the "cute couple" of season 2. And, damn, it's cute. Of course, they break up between seasons 2 and 3 for reasons that never become clear beyond "it wasn't working." This is, of course, partially due to what Dan calls "the straight razor of characterisation" that passes for character development in The L Word and partially to make way for Dana's big plot in Season 3 but, still, the relationship falls apart in such an arbitrary fashion that it's genuinely faith-shaking. And not in a profound, making you question the nature of human relationships kind of way, in a "is there anything these lesbians can't wreck" way. Dana immediately leaps into rebound bed with her first lover of Season 1, the hot, personality-devoid chef. And Alice goes completely pieces: deep depression, fits of destructiveness and, oh yes, let's not forget the Dana shrine, complete with photo walls, candles and life-sized cardboard cut out. I half-wonder if this is what passes for a comedy subplot these days but it scared the bejesus out of me. Again, the only conclusion one can draw from this whole plot arc is that even the most promising lesbian relationships are basically doomed and that within every lesbian lurks a psychotic stalker out to get you.

We also have Shane and Carmen. Shane is a hot hairdresser. Carmen is an unspeakably hot DJ. Shane is the lesbian equivalent of a rake but she and Carmen - with their genuinely sizzling sex scenes - settle down nicely in Season 3. And by nicely I mean that Shane gets herself all riled up over Carmen flirting in the course of her job and spends a night of strap-on fun with her ex-squeeze Cherie Jaffe. Carmen then retaliates with some cheating of her own but they still decide to get married. That's right: Shane the byword for Unavailable and Carmen the grudge-cheater decide to tie the knot. Shane, however, has an attack of Xander Harris, and leaves Carmen at the altar... not half an hour, or a day, or a few days before, you understand, but actually at the altar. I know we're still in Televisionlandia but for God's sake women, must you destroy each other at every turn?!

I think we'll slide swiftly past Helena Peabody upon whom the straight razor of characterisation performs personality surgery between seasons, transforming her from spoiled, pregnancy-fetish rich bitch into fluffy brainless kitten woman who manages to get herself lumbered with a sexual harassment charge from a hot documentary film maker just coming out of the closet. Indeed, one cannot help but wonder if there are any positive depictions of human relations to be found in The L Word. Well, yes, there are. Halfway through Season 3, Jenny pays a grudge visit to her ex-boyfriend from Season 1, the ever-wholesome Tim. I think this scene is primarily to show how far Jenny has come in terms of embracing her sexuality from her early days as Tim's naive girlfriend. Although the script requires Tim to be portrayed in as unsympathetic a light as possible, the fact remains he has a lovely wife and a child on the way. They seem very happy together. By the end of Season 3, Tina is well on her way to establishing a charming family circle for herself ... with Henry, the straight single Dad. And, of course, there's Bette's straight sister, Kit and the metrosexual "manny" Angus. They, too, seem to be displaying an otherwise unheard of degree of emotional maturity and general sanity. Could it be because they're straight?

But, in spite of everything, the fact remains: The L Word is excellent television. It just goes horribly wrong if you take a step back from the ludicrous plots and protean characterisation to think about what it's (consciously or otherwise) saying. Which is all the more reason to stay focused on those nipples. As I said earlier: it's a winning formula, just rather less so if you're actually a lesbian.