Gratuitous nudity on Corrie preferred?

(This post was originally posted by Scott Wilson on the Coronation Street Blog in April 2011.)

In these days of female equality, Corrie's quite rightly refused to allow its female stars to be sexually exploited.  Sacha Parkinson and Brooke Vincent might pose in bunny girl outfits for magazines, but onscreen, they're buttoned up and well dressed.  Even Rosie Webster - who'd drop her skirt the second you waved an Instamatic in her direction - restricts her underwear shots to appearances in her modelling sessions.  When she comes down for breakfast in the morning she's wearing nightdresses and gowns.

No such rules exist for the male cast members, however, as we found out last night.  In only his fourth episode on the Street, Tommy Duckworth was forced to wander around in his boxer shorts and nothing else.  In the process he revealed (a) his rather disappointingly shaved torso (b) his tan line only extended as far as his neck and (c) young male stars exist to be ogled, and the sooner they get their shirts off, the better.

It's actually a long tradition on Corrie.  The most usual excuse is "waiting for a shirt to be ironed".  For some reason, Gary Windass and David Platt are physically incapable of ironing themselves, and so have to wander round shirtless while they wait for their mums to do it for them.  Meanwhile, Nick Tilsley v.2 existed solely to remove his clothes, as demonstrated in the memorable "storyline" where Adam Rickett posed for an art teacher.  (Rickett later took this to its logical conclusion by appearing completely naked in the video for his "song", Breathe Again).

The undisputed kings of random shirtlessness, however, were Todd and Jason Grimshaw, who it seemed couldn't wander round the house without stripping to the waist.  No wonder Eileen always looked so harassed; she spent most of her days washing their "favourite shirts" so they had something to wear.  Even now Todd's left, Jason's continued to pop his top off at the slightest provocation: in fact I'm finding it increasingly difficult to recognise him with his clothes on.

This is all very good, exploiting the men's bodies instead of the women's, but I can't help wondering if it's progress.  Surely it would be better if everyone kept their shirts on?  Not least because Chesney is now of age, and I have this terrifying thought that we may soon be exposed to his pasty pectorals.  Much as I love a bit of male nudity, that would be going too far.