Or performing cunnilingus on her mum.
Or in the midst of a furious commuter orgy on the Central line.
Thats far from the whole picture.
Thats not a helpful thing to say.
This is a serious medical condition that involves, for someoneswhole life, suffering.
It can be really debilitating.
Going around saying Im a little bit OCD trivialises the horror inside your mind if you had this condition.
It goes everywhere with you, you cant do anything without it being a part of you.
More often than not the response was Oh, shes a nympho then!
she tells Den Of Geek.
They just misunderstood the wholeconversation.
Marnie isnt a nymphomaniac.
Her problem isnt uncontrollable desire.
The graphic sexual acts shes compelled to imagine arent arousing, but disturbing.
It would just be this constant inner monologue pushing out her thoughts 24-7.
That inner monologue is not sexy, and advisedly so.
The goal was to show real human bodies as they are, explains Swain.
We wanted the audience to be squirming as well.
The end result is a triumph of editing and performance as well as writing.
The visual sequences showing the inside of Marnies head intrude violently onPures more familiar coming-of-age and rom-com scenes.
Shes also shut in this little cupboard of her mind as well.
No-one else can get in there.
Its that sense of isolation.
In recent years, the TV conversation about mental health has opened up.
),BoJack Horsemanand nowPurearedepicting mental illness with experimental flair.
That wasnt always the way, remembers Swain.
Mental illness on screen has often been a shortcut to making characters seem a bitwacky.
Depictions of mentally ill women have been especially simplistic and unhelpful in film and TV, she continues.
The idea of aManic Pixie Dream Girlwas something we were trying to avoid.
We didnt want to romanticise mental illness.
When I came out of the film all I remember thinking is Oh, theyrepretty!
There was something attractive about it, she laughs.
A character might suffer from a condition one week, only to recover from it the next.
Clear explanations werent always forthcoming, either.
I remember watchingNeighboursas a kid, says Swain, and there was [Debbie Martins] bulimia story.
Why would you hideeatingcake?!
A sufferer of anxiety, Swain doesnt remember seeing her own experiences reflected on TV as a teenager.
You kind of watch TV to try and make sense of life, dont you?
She doesnt remember ever watching TV characters experience anxiety.
Especially women, they were just swanning around being sexual objects, she laughs.
Obviously I wasnt watching television looking for it but I didnt see a lot of mental health.
If I did, it wasntidentifiedas mental health.
It was a hidden character trait.
I felt like amassiveprude in my teens!
I didnt have a language or a grammar to talk about sex.
I was totally scared of it!
It was acartoonand I still remember thinking oh God, thats reallysexy!
so I had to hide it.
WatchingQueer As FolkandEurotrashin her bedroom at night was a gleeful secret.
Talking about it as if they were talking about what they had for lunch!
Women talk about that.Peopletalk about that.
You have to represent life on television.
Sex should be the most natural thing in the world, says Swain.
Amid Marnie and Charlies fear and isolation, the makers ofPurewere careful to also include brighter moments.
The show is billed as a comedy-drama and it earns both labels.
Look how sad we are!, says Swain.
We wanted to find some hope and not laughat it, but find the joy.
The worlds in a sad enough state at the moment just to findmoresadness.
But we end on hope.
Pure starts tonight on Channel 4 at 10pm.
