This story first appeared in the Nov. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

This season, broadcast TV isn’t for the prudish. Nearly two months into the fall, it’s clear that explicit jokes and boundary-pushing storylines are changing the definition of what sexual content is acceptable in prime­time. Out are love triangles and awkward dates. In are jokes about anal sex, “fisting” and teen masturbation that Parents Television Council president Tim Winter says are “absolutely inappropriate for primetime broadcast television.”

Fox’s New Girl season premiere featured Zooey Deschanel repeatedly muttering “sex fist!” as an expression for the roommates’ quest to hook up at a wedding. Multiple fisting jokes followed — as did episodes where the gang got stoned and Deschanel dated a guy with a micropenis. “We got away with murder,” exec producer Brett Baer told THR after the premiere.

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