As someone who has worked in a similar type establishment, I was really curious to see how this portrayal of sex workers and their client in a legal Melbourne brothel would pan out. There is a long history of sex workers being portrayed in film and television as victims. I know that there are women in the industry who have had horrible experiences, but there are a lot of women in every day life who have also had these kind of experiences, but prostitutes are usually disproportionately portrayed as having being sexually abused, being drug dependent or being abused by men.
I was so pleased with Satisfaction. Although it is a television drama, (and it does look like one) with gorgeous characters in gorgeous clothes living in gorgeous homes, what it succeeds so well at is its portrayal of the workers as complex women from different backgrounds, working in a well run industry for their own reasons. It is interesting that there is a focus on sexual fantasy type bookings, which is not the general brothel experience, but I guess it is the most interesting for television! The sex scenes are realistic, and not tacky, and the clients are also more than the usual one dimensional 'john'. This is really great Australian television! And for those Australian women (and few men) who have never set foot in an Australian brothel, this is about as close as television/film gets to portraying something close to the real thing. 10/10.
