{"id":105458,"date":"2026-09-12T19:29:47","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T19:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ccmagazine.es\/?p=105458"},"modified":"2026-09-12T19:29:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T19:29:47","slug":"cochinas-sex-women-female-desire-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ccmagazine.es\/en\/cochinas-sex-women-female-desire-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Cochinas: sex, women and everything no one used to talk about"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is something particularly clever about setting Cochinas<\/em> in Valladolid in 1998. Not only because video rental shops were still part of everyday life, or because VHS tapes provide the backdrop for much of the plot, but because Spain in the late 1990s now feels close enough for us to recognise it and, at the same time, distant enough to surprise us.<\/p>\n

The internet had barely made its way into our homes, sex education was practically non-existent, talking about female masturbation could still provoke more than a few horrified looks, and female pleasure remained a territory fraught with guilt, ignorance and prejudice. For many women, particularly those from generations that had grown up under Franco, sex was simply not something you talked about.<\/p>\n

And then along comes Nines<\/em>. A conservative, married woman, accustomed to a life in which so many things seem to have already been decided for her, played brilliantly by Malena Alterio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The patriarchy still largely dictated what a woman was allowed to desire, how she was expected to behave and what place pleasure could occupy in her life.<\/h2>\n

The series really takes off when her husband falls into a coma and she is forced to take over the family video shop. When she does, she discovers two things: firstly, that the business is practically bankrupt and, secondly, that the only section still attracting any real interest is the porn section.<\/p>\n

What is interesting is that something that begins as a financial decision ends up opening a door that had been closed for far too long. Because Cochinas<\/em> is about porn, yes, but above all it is about women talking about sex.<\/p>\n

And that is probably the most interesting thing about the series. The video shop gradually becomes an unexpected meeting place where women of different ages begin to watch, ask questions, compare notes, share experiences and, above all, discover that many of the things they had experienced individually \u2014 dissatisfaction, shame, a lack of knowledge about their own bodies, certain desires or simply curiosity \u2014 were far more common than they had imagined.<\/p>\n

At the time, information was scarce and prejudice was everywhere. The patriarchy still largely dictated what a woman was allowed to desire, how she was expected to behave and what place pleasure could occupy in her life. Almost three decades have passed and, although much has changed, it is unsettling to see how many traces of all this remain in 2026.<\/p>\n

What if porn could speak to women too?<\/h6>\n

Cochinas<\/em> also raises a particularly interesting question: what happens when women stop being merely the objects of sexual representation and start asking themselves what they actually want to watch?<\/p>\n

The series constantly plays with the codes of 1990s porn \u2014 exaggerating them, laughing at them and turning them into part of the comedy \u2014 but gradually introduces a far more uncomfortable question: if so much pornography has historically been created through and for the male gaze, where does that leave female desire?<\/p>\n

And this is where Cochinas<\/em> avoids the easy answer. Porn initially appears as a window, particularly for some of its protagonists, allowing them to discover practices, desires and even possibilities they had never imagined.<\/p>\n

But the series ultimately begins to question that very window, as it becomes increasingly clear that what it shows is not necessarily a free, diverse or realistic representation of sexuality either.<\/p>\n

The move towards the possibility of creating a different kind of porn, one also conceived through female desire and the female gaze, introduces a fundamental idea: sexual liberation is not simply about having access to more images, but also about being able to decide who creates them, from what perspective and for whom.<\/p>\n

Everything that fits within sex<\/h6>\n

From there, Cochinas<\/em> begins to expand. Because surrounding that small revolution taking place inside a video shop are abortion, homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, sex education, body diversity, sex in later life, people with disabilities, sexual orientation, relationships and the right to make decisions about one\u2019s own body.<\/p>\n

The series shows bodies of different ages, sizes and shapes, placing desire in spaces where, for a long time, fiction seemed reluctant to find it. And it also allows itself to do something important: to show that sexuality can be awkward, funny, uncomfortable, contradictory and considerably less perfect than we have been led to believe.<\/p>\n

Perhaps part of the problem lies precisely there. For a long time, sex education barely existed and, in its absence, other things filled the gap: religion, family prejudices, conversations with friends, magazines, cinema and, of course, porn. Hardly the ideal combination for learning how to relate to our own bodies and those of others.<\/p>\n

1998 isn\u2019t that far away<\/h6>\n

What makes Cochinas<\/em> so enjoyable is that it manages to talk about all of this without turning into a sex education lesson. There is everyday comedy, deliberately over-the-top situations, plenty of 1990s nostalgia and a great deal of humour.<\/p>\n

But beneath it all lies a question that is difficult to avoid: how much have we really changed since 1998?<\/p>\n

Today, we have access to an amount of information about sex that the women in that video shop could never have imagined. We can also talk publicly about identity, consent, female pleasure and sexual diversity with a degree of freedom that would have been unthinkable three decades ago. And yet, we continue to carry many of the same ghosts with us: we still struggle to talk about sex; we still compare our bodies with impossible ideals; shame still surrounds female desire; we are still debating women\u2019s right to make decisions about their own bodies; and porn, now infinitely more accessible than it was in that Valladolid video shop, remains one of the first sources of sex education for many young people.<\/p>\n

Much of what makes Cochinas work lies in using a story set in 1998 to talk about 2026 without constantly having to spell it out.<\/span><\/h2>\n

That is one of Cochinas<\/em>\u2019 greatest strengths: using a story set in 1998 to talk about 2026 without constantly having to spell it out. And doing so through humour, imperfect characters, absurd situations and conversations that, not so very long ago, would have been almost unthinkable on television. A funny, irreverent series that feels far more necessary than it might initially appear.<\/p>\n

Available on Amazon Prime Video.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is something particularly clever about setting Cochinas in Valladolid in 1998. Not only because video rental shops were still part of everyday life, or because VHS tapes provide the backdrop for much of the plot, but because Spain in the late 1990s now feels close enough for us to recognise it and, at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5903,5904],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-en","category-cinema"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCochinas: sex, women and everything no one used to talk about<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cochinas travels back to Valladolid in 1998 to explore female desire, porn, sex education and sexual freedom with humour and intelligence.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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