I watched BBC Three’s ‘Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents’ for a bit of light relief, but what I saw really alarmed me.

Like many of my friends, a recent spoof article from the Onion really resonated and made me laugh. As a feminist, it can sometimes feel like I have to switch of what I often refer to as my ‘feminist radar’ in order to sit back and enjoy certain aspects of popular culture, without my brain firing off ideas for feminist critical analysis essays.

One of the things I watch for a bit of light relief after a long day at work is the incredibly trashy ‘Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents’ on BBC Three.

The premise is that young people between the ages of around 18-24 fly off into the sun for a week’s holiday of, well, sun and sex, whilst unbeknownst to them they are being secretly watched by their parents. Embarrassment, dismay and equal amounts of horror ensue.

However, watching this programme recently, I’ve just not been able to turn off my ‘feminist radar’.

In the latest series, set in Thailand, what my radar picked up was a running theme: mothers feeling absolutely mortified at how their sons were seen talking about and treating young women. This happened in almost every episode I watched.

One mother described the experience as “harrowing”, admitting how her son demonstrated a “total lack of respect” for the young women he encountered.

In almost all cases this dismay seemed in only small part due to the mother’s naivety, although admittedly that was often a feature; many of the women on the programme exhibited a resolute unwillingness to admit their sons were anything other than little cherubs.

However, for the main part, what the young men got up to was genuinely alarming. For instance a young man called Pat said of the “birds” he slept with, “it’s all about a numbers game”, but also discussed how he “didn’t really have time for condoms”. Well that bodes well doesn’t it?

He went on to justify his decision to purchase the services of a local Thai sex worker with the explanation that he “wants to sleep with every race going”. He laughed at how cheap the exchange was when converted back into English money.

Another young man could be seen screaming from a rickshaw “we want pussy!” at passing local women, before going on to thrust hundreds of pounds down the underwear of local women performing in a strip club for boozed up tourists.

In another episode, a young man named Billy can be seen repeatedly trying to chat women up with the choice phrase “I can see your nipples”.

Another group of young men were more forthright in their ‘pulling’ tactics, choosing to go up to young women and simply lift their tops or skirts up before they could realise what was happening, or surrounding a young woman on her own, one friend in front and one behind, grinding up against her so she was effectively trapped. This in particular was really alarming to watch.

The same group were also seemingly obsessed with getting their penises out and waving them in front of unsuspecting passersby – mostly women – something that as the bewildered mother of one of the young men attempted to explain to him, would be classed as indecent exposure or even sexual assault in most countries.

Clearly there is a element of ‘letting go’ on holiday and both the levels of alcohol and young male rivalry and ‘one-upmanship’ clearly had a part to play in the behaviour showcased. I realise that many people would level that the young women also go there for a ‘good time’, and  that certain behaviour is to be expected in that context; it’s all just a ‘bit of fun’.

However, for me it was the broader attitudes on show that got to me.

I was genuinely shocked at just how poorly the young men spoke of and treated their female peers. You often hear the argument “young women are just as bad as young men these days” when it comes to drinking and having sex – but though the young women on the programme got drunk and talked about ‘pulling’ too, there was absolutely not the same fundamental lack of respect for their male counterparts. There just wasn’t.