© Central European News
"Rape or Not", which will make its debut on November 7, has sparked outrage in the Netherlands with the recent sexual abuse scandals involving Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and actors Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey.
The show by Dutch broadcaster BNNVARA will feature several real-life court cases of sexually transgressive behaviour with alleged rapes re-enacted by actors.
A panel of 14 youngsters will then discuss the final ruling of the judge.
Its producer, Bernard van den Bosch, blames most of the outrage on the "in-your-face title" of the show.
He said: "First everyone raised their eyebrows, now everybody says: 'What timing.'"
But he believes the recent sex scandal stories that have emerged have shown the topic is "nuanced".
He gave the example of a recent Dutch scandal involving two male TV producers, in which Jelle Brandt Corstius claimed he was raped by Gijs van Dam, who in turn said the sex was consensual.
Van den Bosch said: "Those are personal dramas. One says rape, the other sees it as an innocent sexual encounter. Our show is about that grey area."
Many Dutch citizens have expressed their disapproval of the upcoming show on social media saying the topic is being so insensitively discussed.
One user commented: "They do everything nowadays just for ratings."
Another wrote: "An ethically and emotionally very difficult topic like this does not seem very suitable for this format in which people can give their unabashed opinion. Bizarre idea.
"Luckily it is written very clearly in the law what juridically is seen as rape, so there is no discussion about that."
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter