Coronation Street fans watching Classic episodes on ITV3 have found themselves feeling ‘uncomfortable’ due to what they called ‘scenes of sexual harassment’.
In an outing aired on Thursday December 1 and then repeated on Friday December 2, the the factory girls were having a wild Christmas party and resident Sam arrived to strip for them.
The factory Christmas party gets wild
The women, led by Karen McDonald and Janice Battersby whooped and cheered as Sam arrived dressed as Santa. Janice even screamed: “Get yer kecks off!”
Karen told the revellers: “Please feel free to touch whatever you want!”
Sam didn’t seem to mind, stripping down and shouting: “Who wants to be Santa’s little helper?” before gyrating with Karen.
When Janice then unfavourably compared Sam to Karen’s husband Steve McDonald, Karen insisted: “My Steve’s got a lovely body.”
Fiz – back then a tearaway teen who had just started dating Tyrone – said: “My Tyrone’s got a lovely body, he’s got muscles.”
“He’s got muscles in his head because he hasn’t got no brains that’s for sure!” quipped Karen.
Janice and Bobbi then described their partners Dennis and Vik and the girls fell out over whose other half had the best body.
The women then stormed over to the Rovers where their fellas were having a quiet drink.
Coronation Street’s women strip their men!
They dragged the men outside to compare bodies, with Karen having bet Bobbi £50 Steve’s biceps were the biggest.
Vik insisted he was not stripping.
The factory lasses chanted “off, off, off” as Steve and Vik refused.
But then Steve got involved – and he quite liked it!
Vik still refused so the girls grabbed him and started to pull his clothes off as he cried ‘no’.
They then tackled him to the floor and stripped him naked, before he ran off into the night.
Coronation Street fans ‘uncomfortable’ with ‘scenes of sexual harassment’
Although it all seemed to be in good fun on screen, the scenes, originally aired in 2001, left a bad taste in the mouths of 2022 viewers.
“Uncomfortable sexual harassment scenes…Yuck,” wrote one.
Another agreed: “Pretty awful, wasn’t it, I was cringing, and Stripper Sam was pretty dire.
“Imagine males stripping females to compare bodies – just ugh! Thank goodness times have changed.”
“Didn’t enjoy today’s eps very much, too much schrieking and women being ghastly,” added a third.
Someone else went into quite the rant about it: “I’d forgotten (wiped from my memory) the shenanigans today until it started playing out…
“Behaving like tedious ‘[bleep] out for the lads’, they thought it OK to debag poor Vik.
“If a group of men treated them the same telling them ‘it’s just a laugh, no SOH’ they’d be – rightly – angry and traumatised.
“Well done [Coronation Street] for the double standards, doesn’t help women who find themselves in trouble IRL.
“Oh and for the last woman to chase naked Vik to be Janice – supposedly sensitive about her daughter’s rape – is this the start of storyline being instantly forgotten and cast behaving out of character?”
Someone else said: “I am shocked by these scenes, where was the warning?”
“So much cringe,” added one more.
Read more: Complete Coronation Street cast list 2022 – meet them all here!
Classic Coronation Street usually airs weekday afternoons on ITV3.
Coronation Street usually airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV.
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