Sexual Healing (South Park)
Kenny is killed after attempting autoerotic asphyxiation while in a Batman suit, while Kyle and Butters are sent to attend a therapy session for sex addicts consisting of Michael Douglas, Michael Jordan, Ben Roethlisberger, David Duchovny, Charlie Sheen, David Letterman, Bill Clinton, Billy Bob Thornton, Kobe Bryant, Eliot Spitzer, and Tiger Woods.
When one member of the team suggests that the mission is irrational and that sex addiction is simply an inherent part of the male ego, he is ordered by Obama to be hauled away.
Because Kyle also feels sex addiction is not a disease, but rather a natural male desire that can be kept under control with the proper discipline, others suggest he is somehow immune from the "spell" of the wizard alien.
"Sexual Healing", the South Park fourteenth season premiere, was written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker and was rated TV-MA-L in the United States.
[2][3][4] The episode satirized the sex scandal surrounding golf pro Tiger Woods, who had admitted to cheating on his wife Elin Nordegren with multiple partners.
[5][6] Series co-creator Matt Stone said the scandal provided so much material for satire that an entire season could have been dedicated to it, and the media storm surrounding Woods meant they had even less to worry about the delicacy of their parody.
[7] During the production of the episode, the writers decided to incorporate the Tiger Woods scenes as part of the video game that the boys, including Cartman, are playing.
[6][13][14] "Sexual Healing" also included a version of the public apology Woods delivered in February 2010, which was closely covered and examined by the mainstream media.
[6][13][18] The episode suggests men of normal financial means would likely be tempted by infidelity and sexual affairs if they had enough fame and money to obtain them easily.
Among them were former U.S. President Bill Clinton, night talk show host David Letterman, NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, basketball players Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and actors Charlie Sheen, David Duchovny, Michael Douglas and Billy Bob Thornton.
[20][21] While discussing how to avoid getting caught, Roethlisberger says, "Don't screw girls in the public bathrooms", a reference to his March 2010 sex scandal in Milledgeville, Georgia.
A version of the song, sung by series co-creator Trey Parker, is featured at the end of the episode, when the celebrities claim the sexual addiction has left their bodies.
[25] Scientists from the Center for Disease Control, a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, conduct experiments on chimpanzees in "Sexual Healing" to discover why celebrities crave sex with multiple women.
[27] Trey Parker and Matt Stone have gotten huge mileage out of South Park's blink-of-an-eye turnaround time [but here] we get the same gag beaten into the ground over an occasionally amusing but mostly tedious twenty minutes.
Harris complimented the episode for addressing the larger issue of how sexual acts among celebrities are dissected and analyzed by the media and public.
"[6] Bill Brownstein, from the Canwest News Service, called it "an absolutely blistering and timely satire" on Woods and sexual addiction.
The review also found the ending of the episode, with Stan and Cartman growing bored with their video game once it focused on golf rather than sex scandals and fighting, to be a "pretty hilarious gag".
Alston said, "Whereas once the show's creators swiftly turned around topical episodes because they could, now the South Park team is expected to seize on the news.
Delgado felt the alien infection theory was too random and lazy, and the idea that men would cheat on their wives if they had more money and opportunity was offensive, but not entirely untrue.
[19] Within days of the episode's original broadcast, rumors began to spread throughout the Internet that EA Sports planned to sue Parker and Stone over their portrayal of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game in "Sexual Healing".
The rumor began with a March 21 post on the blog Daily Informer, which quoted an unnamed EA Sports source who said the episode had "a few copyright infringements in there that I’m sure will be dealt with accordingly".
