Nearly a decade ago, some people thought Ron Cowen's new TV show was too racy when NBC's Sisters sat around a sauna talking about multiple orgasms.

        Those people really will have problems with the Cincinnati native's new Queer as Folk, the groundbreaking Showtime series that explicitly portrays nearly every facet of gay lovemaking.

        In the first 30 minutes.

        Will & Grace this isn't. Queer as Folk is the most graphic gay program in TV history. And it's not for everyone.

        Mr. Cowen, a 1962 Walnut Hills High School graduate, compares the program to a R-rated movie with actors doing “adult things . . . except in this instance, it's with gay people instead of heterosexual people.”

Hal Sparks (left), Gale Harold and UC grad Randy Harrison star in Queer as Folk | ZOOM |

        Mr. Cowen and his life partner, Daniel Lipman, have adapted the British Queen as Folk series for Showtime. The duo, who created Sisters (1991-96) and the Emmy-winning An Early Frost AIDS movie (1986), are writing 22 one-hour episodes for the premium cable channel.
       

Unknown performers

       

        Queer as Folk follows the lives of five young gay men and two lesbians from Pittsburgh working-class families. The cast consists of mostly unknown performers.

        Randy Harrison, 23, a March graduate from the University of Cincinnati, plays Justin, the 17-year-old high school senior who falls madly in love with Brian (Gale Harold), 29, an insatiable sexual predator.

        “I don't believe in love. I believe in (sex). It's honest. It's efficient,” Brian tells Justin after a night of passionate sex.

ON THE AIR

What: Queer as Folk.     When: 10 p.m. today.     Where: Showtime.

        Brian's best friend, Michael (former Talk Soup host Hal Sparks), sets the tone in the opening scene at a gay disco when he explains to viewers:

        “The thing you need to know is: It's all about the sex. They say men think about sex every 28 seconds. Of course, that's straight men. With gay men, it's every nine seconds.”
       

Course language

       

        Even if these men aren't doing it that often, they're talking about it that frequently — in very coarse language. (By my count, the cable film uses five of the “Seven Dirty Words” that comedian George Carlin says can't be said on broadcast TV. Or printed in a family newspaper.)

        These conversations usually involve Ted (Scott Lowell) the accountant and flamboyant Emmett (Peter Paige), who likes to wear a Queens College sweatshirt. Even Michael's mom (Emmy-winner Sharon Gless), who works at a diner near Club Babylon, is cool with her son's sexual orientation. (Viewers might not recognize the former Cagney & Lacey star, who must weigh more than Tyne Daly.)

        Pittsburgh's Queer population also includes lesbians Melanie (Michelle Clunie) and Lindsay (Thea Gill), who are raising a baby from Brian's sperm.

True to British series

       

        According to Mr. Cowen, the American version is true to the 10-part British series, though revisions have been made. In the original, Justin was only 15.

        “We're making him 17. Obviously, the age of sexual consent in this country is 18, so we really don't feel we've pulled back there either,” Mr. Cowen told TV critics at the summer press tour in Pasadena, Calif.

        Mr. Cowen and Mr. Lipman, who wrote the first U.S. TV movie about AIDS, have added an older man (Jack Wetherall) dying from AIDS. They also show a character using a condom after a safe sex discussion.

        “What we are doing is acknowledging the existence of this issue in this world,” says Mr. Cowen, who left Cincinnati after graduation in 1962.

Some will be offended

       

        To be sure, some people will find this world totally repugnant. Those not offended by the raw sex and crude talk may be surprised at the poignant human stories penned by Mr. Cowen and Mr. Lipman, who began their careers as playwrights at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Conference in Waterford, Conn.

        Usually gay TV characters are portrayed as clowns, as on Will & Grace or John Goodman's Normal, Ohio. The Showtime characters cover a broad spectrum, from lonely, insecure, normal people looking for companionship and commitment, to the bed-hopping sex addict.

        The men and woman of Queer as Folk are totally unapologetic about their lifestyle in a very realistic way — while understanding they will never have universal acceptance.

        As Brian says: “There are only two kinds of straight people in this world — the ones that hate you to your face, and the ones that hate you behind your back.”

        Showtime executives admit that customers offended by the graphic gay sex could cancel the premium movie channel. That's always the risk with explicit, adult programs such as the Dirty Pictures film about Cincinnati Mapplethorpe photo exhibit at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center or the remake of Lolita.

        “Like with Tales of the City and Lolita, we're going to have a hundred-fold people who are going to write and say, "We're glad you did this. It's about time, finally, that we can see ourselves on television,' ” says Jerry Offsay, Showtime's programming president.

        “I don't think we're really worried about it one way or another. I think we think of this as high-quality drama, which is the business we want to be in.”

        John Kiesewetter is TV/radio critic for The Enquirer. Write to him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330; E-mail: Jkiesewetter@enquirer.com.
       
       

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