Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nikki Glaser: Good Clean Filth’ On HBO Max, Sex Education Never Sounded This Funny

Three years after putting out for Netflix with her Bangin’ comedy special, Nikki Glaser has a new hour with HBO that’s just as filthy when it comes to her sexual confessions. But this time, she leans even harder into not just the dirty details of her sex life, but also the why it’s important for her to speak so openly and publicly about sex onstage.

NIKKI GLASER: GOOD CLEAN FILTH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Glaser already made the jump to HBO Max last year as the host and executive producer of the reality dating series, FBOY Island.
But fans of Glaser also already have a great deal of knowledge about the comedian’s own love life, either through her previous hour and two half-hour stand-up specials for Netflix, her Comedy Central shows on TV and radio before that, or her current reality show for E!, Welcome Home Nikki Glaser.
And yet. Glaser still has plenty more to dish about in her new hour of stand-up, filmed late last year at the Paramount Theater in Denver. Mostly about oral sex, anal sex, and handjobs, all wrapped in a bow with her response to a popular book’s advice on how to land a man for life.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of? Glaser’s 2019 Netflix special, Bangin’. If you’re one of those suits who needs an elevator pitch, or just an old person who’s not hip to her game, think of Glaser as a young Dr. Ruth speaking about sex in the cadence of a young Wendy Liebman.

Memorable Jokes: After her first 20 minutes, Glaser concedes to us that she’s fully aware of how much she talks about her turn-ons and turn-offs, and specifically her vagina: “I talk about it so much I don’t call it my privates.”
So she pivots to butt stuff. Making a case for more women to indulge in anal sex with their partners, Glaser offers at least six different pieces of advice, though with tongue firmly in cheek, she numbers each of them “number two.”
She also has a seemingly foolproof method for executing a handjob.
And comparing the sex lives of women in stand-up versus the men, she very specifically calls out Pete Davidson, still managing to compliment the former SNL star for his conquests all while suggesting he should be with someone more like…her.
Our Take: It’s all too easy to dismiss Glaser as a dirty comic talking dirty for shock value. Perhaps because more than a few of her peers seem to have been there, done that. But that’s not her aim, and never has been.
As she reminds her HBO audience (perhaps in case they’re not up on her Netflix catalog), Glaser was a late bloomer to any kind of intimacy. So she’s telling audiences the things about men, dating, sex and power dynamics that she wishes someone had told her when she was growing up. Maybe even the men need to hear this, too, as she argues that the main reason some men refuse to go down on a woman is out of shameful fear. Glaser is not ashamed.
She also astutely rips into men her age (37) for dating younger women and falsely claiming that they’re only doing it because the younger women have old souls. Glaser points out that those women were forced to mature out of childhood tragedy, and need to heal through therapy, not by dating older men. “Leave them alone!”
At the same time, Glaser knows that the real reason men of any age tend to avoid funny women is because too many men define sense of humor as a woman who laughs at their jokes. “That’s why I’ll be alone forever.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Generation X grew up on Dr. Ruth. Millennials grew up with Dr. Drew. Let Nikki Glaser be the loveline to Gen Z.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Nikki Glaser: Good Clean Filth on HBO Max