A young woman wearing too much make-up knocks on the door of a semi-detached house, and a second woman of a similar age answers. Before the front door has closed behind them, they are pawing at each other and kissing.
Seconds later, they are pulling each other's clothes off, their hands and mouths working in a frenzied - if unconvincing - parody of insatiable desire.
'Crude, pathetic and offensive': TV porn has the appeal of a grubby Soho peep-show
Their depilated bodies - female pubic hair has no place in this parallel universe - leave nothing to the imagination; their faces are contorted into gurning expressions of pleasure as they pretend to be having the time of their lives. It's all so predictable, crude, pathetic and offensive. Poorly shot and badly staged, it has all the appeal of a grubby Soho peep-show.
So why am I, a mother of two, sitting on the sofa, polluting my home and my mind with these horrible images on the television screen in the corner of the living room? Well, I wanted to find out exactly what it was that the Home Secretary's husband has been viewing at the taxpayers' expense. What did these 18-rated full-length films and 'the best of amateur video and adult entertainment' really contain?
On the Sky menu that comes up on my screen at home, there is a section marked ADULT. On selecting it, I quickly discovered that there are 65 X-rated channels on my Sky box, all of which are either subscription or pay-per-view.
Flicking through, scantily-clad girls, some of whom looked only a couple of years older than my own 15-year-old daughter, invited me to 'watch the dirtiest UK amateur action. Genuine home-grown footage from real people at it in their own homes, perhaps even your neighbours!'
Although you have to subscribe either on the phone or online to watch the films in their entirety, there are plenty of insalubrious images on the trailers at your (or indeed your children's) disposal at the mere push of a button.
Easy access: It took just one hour to subscribe to an adult package on Sky, costing £15.99 a month, plus a £15 joining fee
Much of the footage is of a very amateur, 'readers' wives' nature. While many of the women look self-conscious and embarrassed, others approach their task with a gusto that seems born of desperation.
One channel seeks to entice prospective subscribers with a 'happy half-hour', where you can sign up for a recession-busting package.
I decided to subscribe to a similar 3-in-1 package to the Home Secretary's husband: Playboy TV, the Adult Channel and Spice Extreme. (Playboy TV's website, quick to capitalise on the recent unexpected attention, has this to say yesterday: 'We'd like to offer all MPs and their husbands a special VIP subscription to Playboy.')
When I called to subscribe, an automated service asked me to hold, stating that all operators were busy. No shortage of new subscribers then.
The phone line operator, when she answered, sounded as bored and weary as a hooker on her final trick of the night. Since my husband's name is on our Sky package, I had to hand him the phone for him to authorise my usage. (I wonder whose name is on the Timney-Smith household's TV package?).
Garbage viewing: Ms Lichtenstein says actresses such as the one above are the 'battery hens of the sex industry'
Once subscribed, you can generally access the content from television, laptop or mobile phone. It took a mere hour for the satellite signal to be authorised and to reach my television screen. The Adult Channel promises the viewer the best of British action, boasting that they have 'everything you want, everything you need'.
They're on the hunt for MILFs, or Mothers I'd Like to ****. As a mother myself, I found this particularly upsetting. What children could ever want their own mother paraded under this banner for the titillation of strangers?
Playboy TV, meanwhile, calls for viewers to send in amateur footage for them to screen, thus cashing in on people's insatiable thirst for 'celebrity' at any price.
There used to be a time when fame and notoriety were two different words - now it's all rolled up and seductively packaged as 'fame', which is no more than 15 minutes of squalid self-degradation.
With women like the topless models Jordan and Jodie Marsh as their role models, is it any wonder that taking your clothes off on these tawdry porn channels might seem a shortcut to the desired state of 'rich 'n' famous' to which too many young women mindlessly aspire.
Even after watching this material for a few minutes, I was left wanting a good hot bath to wash away the degradation and tawdriness of the experience.
On the Spice Extreme channel, once I have subscribed I am bombarded by a blizzard of offers luring me to watch programmes like Teen Fetish Slags: 'Meet dirty young babes who aren't afraid to be dominated. Leather, lace and some vigorous spanking sessions will make sure they behave in the bedroom.'
If it wasn't so pathetic, it would be laughably absurd. Imagine receiving a work schedule which demands that on Monday you're a lesbian and on Tuesday, a dominatrix, while on Wednesday you're a passive maiden half-raped by a strong man.
Why? Married to a powerful woman - the Home Secretary - perhaps Richard Timney watches porn because it makes him feel in control
You wear leather, you wear lace, you take part in the euphemistic game that is 'water sports' and you claim to love it all. These poor women must lose all sense of themselves.
The thing that comes through most strongly in these so-called films, is that the objectification of women is absolutely routine, as if in this seedy world the feminist revolution never happened.
Could this be the key to why Mr Timney likes it so much? He has such a powerful wife - who is also his boss. Does the watching of such material where women bow so totally to the desires of men allow him to feel in control for once?
Those of a liberal bent will argue that what adults do in the privacy of their own homes need not concern us. Perhaps. But in this case we, the taxpayers, are being asked to pay for it.
One of the many bitter ironies to emerge from this sorry story is that not only did Ms Smith allow his tawdry entertainment to be charged to her expenses, but as Home Secretary - Britain's first female one, incidentally - she is the person responsible for regulating the adult entertainment industry.
As part of that, she has been determined to introduce tough licensing laws for lap dancing clubs, as well as outlining plans to outlaw paying for sex with a woman controlled by another for their financial gain.
Who can say whether the women her husband was watching perform for his gratification were not coerced to take part in filming for the gain of others? Were these women keeping the money they earned, or were they forced to hand it over to pimps or agents?
While you become an expert in female anatomy, you learn almost nothing about the male nude. The men, in any case make relatively rare appearances - 'girl-on-girl action' is the order of the day, however heterosexual the women may be. Clever camera angles stop short of actual penetration, but it's abundantly clear what is going on at all times.
In short, what I saw were unlovely people doing unlovely things.
It's hard to imagine that only a century has passed between a flash of ankle sending a man wild and this unadulterated and depressing, commercialised porn being readily available in our own homes.
These 'actresses' are the battery hens of the sex industry - performing what any sane person would see as horrible and degrading acts for the cheapened pleasure of others.
Addiction: Porn users gradually need to raise the stakes to achieve the same sexual gratification
Pornography is addictive and, as with any addiction, the user's need steadily increases and demands ever more shocking, titillating and fetishistic stimuli.
What is the effect of all this on a marriage? Chris Diggins, a relationship counsellor, asserts that porn can lead to harmful, sexually addictive behaviour, that it isolates individuals and can damage their relationships with their wives and children, and that the use of pornography is ultimately corrosive as men become addicted to high intensity pleasure and lose the ability to enjoy other simpler, more healthy pleasures - such as making love to their wives.
I don't know whether this is true, but I'm certain that this mindless filth tarnishes the way in which men perceive women.
However hard we have fought to be recognised as equals in the workplace and in society, this cannot fail to reaffirm that, for some men, women remain sex objects whose principle purpose is the sexual gratification of men.
This is a depressing thought for those of us with teenage daughters and sons who have worked hard to bring them up as mutually respectful human beings. It sends a message that it is acceptable for men to treat women as whores - and for women to behave like them, too.
Hundreds of hours of this garbage television are available each day from ten at night until four in the morning in our living rooms - the result of a dangerously misguided liberalism which says there should be no censorship, no moral checks - that we are all grown up enough to see and do whatever we wish.
My greatest fear is that our children will grow up thinking this sort of material is normal - that all men and women are like this.
The programmes on these channels are as loveless, cheap, sad and depressing as Britain itself is in danger of becoming. That surely, for those with children and teenagers at home, is the most worrying fact of all.