Atresmedia's 'Zorras': A Sexual Revolution for Women Only?

Atresmedia launches 'Astuta': a sensual revolution for women only

In 2023, Atresmedia uploaded to its paid platform a series promoted as a sensual initiation catalog: 'Astuta'. Practices like exhibitionism and a list of fantasies to complete. The campaign sold it as a sensual revolution, and according to the critic who started the thread, it was clear who it was for: women. Men, according to that same criticism, do not receive that part of the script, but rather the fine print.

The controversy is not just in the content. It is in the framework: some analyses argue that the series is part of a social engineering program that rewrites what peine half a century ago, while another, more prosaic reading points out that Atresmedia only seeks audience and subscriptions. Both can be true at the same time, and that is what is uncomfortable.

What 'Astuta' is and how it is promoted

The promotional material works as a menu. Fantasies, specific practices, and a tone of pending duty: what is left to try. The adjectives that accompanied the launch in the press were of the type 'priestess of sens' or 'goddess', applied to the author of the novels on which the series is based. It is not a marketing oversight: it is the model to imitate placed in the showcase, according to those who denounce it.

There is a detail that sums up the tone. The list of practices came with a glaring typo, according to the critic who started the thread: the word in question appeared misspelled, shibari turned into 'sibari'. Whoever promotes a cultural revolution with the spelling of their own neglected fantasies deserves, at the very least, to be measured.

The double standard in sens and law

The most repeated complaint is not against the series, but against the asymmetry of the framework. An exhibitionism, as argued, is a prosecutable offense if perpetrated by a man; the same conduct in a woman appears wrapped as a desirable fantasy, another checkbox on the list. The same act, two codes.

To this is added the legal terrain. A participant claims, without providing the specific law, that explicit consent is required under penalty of up to 15 years in prison and tens of thousands of euros in possible indemnifications, a scenario that, in his opinion, pushes any man to extreme caution. Some go further and describe a sort of labyrinth of contradictory norms: consent, do not objectify, affection, do not abuse position of power. To comply with all of them, they say, is a gymkana.

Antena 3 is no longer what it was

Antena 3 was born as a chain with a conservative profile. News programs with Luis Herrero, interviews with right-wing figures, debate programs with Trevijano. That era has disappeared. The most common diagnosis in the thread is that advertising has moved to the internet and chains seek subscribers on their paid platforms, with the niche previously occupied now abandoned.

The comparison with the United States is inevitable. FOX retained for years a loyal audience that now feels orphaned, and Disney has been losing money while the board tried to reverse its line of content. The difference, they point out, is that none of these companies have managed to undo what has been done without a massive internal conflict.

Why Atresplayer bets on Turkish series

The platform's catalog is divided between own production and Turkish soap operas. According to an analysis of the thread, the latter hold up better to comparison: known formula, craft, and a product that, within its limits, does not pretend to be a manifesto. In contrast, Atresmedia's own bets on social content accumulate, in his opinion, a tone problem that is noticeable in every trailer.

A user who says he has seen the first episode pirated summarizes it thus: 25 minutes, predictable script, weak acting, and a language of forced wink to the young audience. His forecast is that the young audience to which it is addressed will laugh at it and that the return is difficult.

What is the relationship established between sensual and natality?

A key of the analysis is demographic. It is argued that detaching sens from reproduction takes its toll, that there are 4,000 million women on the planet and that only a minimum percentage is in the crosshairs of this cultural engineering. Outside that focus, it is asserted, there are societies with reproduction rates five times higher than the native European ones.

They add a paradoxical effect: the early hypersenshyper of young people would lead to sensual indifference in their twenties, when nothing excites anymore because everything has been consumed. The suspicion of a deliberate design on all this is not supported by any evidence provided, and it is advisable to treat it as what it is: a suspicion.

The rigid sarracena order as temptation and its limit

In the final stretch appears the uncomfortable exit: the temptation of a more rigid sarracena order, with modesty and shared values, against consumer hedonism. It is a recurrent lament, and the analysis itself disactivates it instantly: a system that does not admit dissent is not a refuge for those who practice it.

With these threads, the fundamental question remains unanswered. It is not clear if the series is deliberate propaganda or simply a business for a television seeking subscriptions. Those who defend the first cite the coincidence of message across the entire schedule; those who defend the second simply look at the balance of Atresplayer. No one closes the case.