Playing on a TV set near you is a taxpayer-funded porn flick called Bliss which purports to expose fantasies most women keep hidden.

Tens of thousands of your dollars have gone into making this so called 'cultural content' widely available to Canadians.

The episodes include titles like Valentines Day in Jail, Leaper and In Praise of Drunkeness and Fornication.

The films are about lesbianism, orgies and teenagers experimenting with transsexuality.

One episode graphically illustrates the story of a young heterosexual woman falling under the spell of an older lesbian.

Another heralds a young woman's encounter with her male lover's wife to learn about "desire that comes from unexpected places."

If this porn was available in a video store, it would be kept hidden away at the back of the shop with a sign screaming 'Adults Only'. The licensing authorities demand that.

But when it comes to TV, the government has no problem showing graphic sex on mainstream channels.

It also does not have a problem spending your money making it.

Before you run off to your typewriters to call us prudes or worse, anti-gay, this is not about any of that. It is about if your tax dollars should be spent on making sexual fantasy films.

When the credits roll after the smut in Bliss has settled, there is proud pronouncement that tens of thousands of your dollars have gone into producing this four million dollar sexual gem.

The tax dollars have come from Telefilm Canada. The rest have been obtained from private enterprises that have fallen in lust with the geniuses who dreamt up the show and its sequel.

Telefilm Canada is in charge of forking out your hard earned money to the film industry. It is a federal cultural agency dedicated primarily to the development and promotion of the Canadian film, television, new media and music industries.

Telefilm Canada's current annual budget is approximately $230 million and it reports to prime-minister wannabe Sheila Copps.

This is the same organization that threatened to cut funding for children's shows and documentaries in exchange for box office success using randy animals, bare bottoms and arty erotica flesh. That ambition, Telefilm says, is part of being successful.

Industry insiders agree saying Canadian programming will have to get more explicit if they want to keep up with their American counterparts.

According to a recent American study by a public-health organization in Los Angeles, one of seven shows on U.S. television features sexual intercourse in the plot-line, as opposed to one out of 14 shows four years ago. Similarly, the study found that U.S. prime-time is steaming up as well. Two-thirds of all shows from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. have some sexual content, ranging from talk about sex to depictions of sexual behaviour. Four years ago, the figure was only half of that.

The key difference between America and Canada is that the U.S. government does not hand out tax dollars to porn merchants who want to show off their stuff on mainstream TV.

Canadian film makers need the support of the government to be a player in the market, especially if their projects have an educational component.

Bliss is about sexual fantasy. It does little to educate the public about the contributions made and the obstacles faced by the gay community in Canada.

In fact, what Bliss does is re-inforce the negative stereotypes commonly held about lesbians.

To prevent a public backlash of how public money is used, Ottawa should consider the formation of a Content Commission that oversees who gets tax dollars to make films.

It may be another level of bureaucracy but at least there will be debate over whether your tax dollars will be spent making sexual fantasy films.

From an artistic point of view, the taxpayer-funded Bliss may be a front runner in the Canadian porn oscars and may even get more viewership than Hockey Night in Canada.

But the bottom line is money for such ventures - and yes there is a huge market for smut - should come from porn merchants who volunteer the funds in exchange for profits.

It should not be made with taxpayer money, all under the guise of being educationally valuable Canadian cultural content.