I Have Covid and I Watched Naked Attraction

I'm sorry if this post grosses you out

After three years of avoiding it, it happened: I got Covid! I’m feeling much better now, but having Covid meant I spent a lot of time this week simply staring at a screen in bed. Because I’m me, I definitely felt the internal pressure to make my Covid time “productive,” whatever that means, but honestly I couldn’t focus on much. It kind of reminded me of the last time I was really sick when, instead of finally getting to all the movies I’ve been meaning to see, I got very into Sister Wives the show and Sister Wives the Reddit board (I still maintain that some of the sharpest comedic minds of our time are there on the Sister Wives Reddit, posting jokes about Robyn saying something is a “rill big dill”).

So, no, I didn’t take advantage of my Covid time to, say, acquaint myself with the oeuvre of recently departed director Terence Davies or catch up on all the Scorsese movies I never saw. I watched a few things I’ll mention in my monthly roundup later, but right now I want to talk about one show: Naked Attraction.

A long time ago, Alex told me about a British dating (“dating”) show where all the contestants were naked. I understand the impulse to share, because once you learn about Naked Attraction, you kind of need to tell people it exists (hence this newsletter). But it wasn’t easily available to see here in the States until recently when it showed up on Max. Pop Culture Happy Hour mentioned it in a newsletter and that reminded me I’d never checked it out. And I thought…if not now, when? If I won’t watch a show with naked contestants when quarantined, then when would I watch it?

I’ve now watched a few episodes and I’m not sure I’ll watch more. This show has kind of broken my brain, and also made me think I might be a prude. But I do need to tell you all about it because I have limited human contact right now.

So Naked Attraction starts with one contestant who’s looking for love. We see them hanging out with a friend or family member who tells us how great they are and how much they deserve someone who cares about them. You know, the standard dating show stuff. We’re introduced to the host, who assures us that she’s bisexual. I think she’s trying to tell us that being attracted to men and women makes her uniquely qualified for the job of pointing at various genitalia? I don’t know. Every time she says it I’m like, “that’s great and I’m so happy for you and I don’t understand what that has to do with you hosting this bizarre naked show.”

This show so far exists within a gender binary and equates physical characteristics with gender (a lot of “lady bits” and that sort of thing), but I have no idea how that holds up across later seasons. I can’t imagine this is a conscious decision, but it does stand out given that it seems so focused on being transgressive in other ways. (Actually, I just found this recent article that does make it sound like the show is interested in being a bit more subversive as it goes on.)

Inevitably, the contestant will find themselves explaining why they came on this naked dating show to find love. “I just want to be seen for who I am,” they’ll say. “Modern dating is so much about artifice. But here, within the confines of Naked Attraction, we’re judging people on who they really are: headless naked forms standing in colorful boxes, as God made us.” This is the justification for most dating shows, really: that whatever strange format they have will actually help people be themselves. I guess it would be a little too honest to just say “we’re doing this because it’s remarkably entertaining for viewers.”

And then we get to the actual show. There are six completely naked people standing in colorful boxes. The doors of the boxes slowly rise to show the lower halves of the contestants bodies. And they are…fully nude. Nothing is blurred out. Nothing is obscured. On the contrary, we are zooming in here. We are getting up close and personal as the original (still clothed, for now) contestant stands marveling in wonder and/or shock.

There was something about this that made me feel, if I’m being totally honest, a little queasy. I don’t normally think of myself as a total prude…I mean, I read open door romance novels. But this nudity, despite being part of a dating show that’s ostensibly meant to revolve around romantic attraction, is deeply unsexual. It feels antiseptic. It’s something about how the contestants are just standing there as if they’re being examined (and, well, they are). It’s also something to do with the fact that you don’t see their faces for so long. There’s something a little bit disorienting about focusing so much on body parts without seeing the person they’re attached to.

The clothed contestant must eliminate someone based only on their lower halves. Can you imagine doing this? Personally I cannot, although most of us will likely never be in a situation where we’ll have to. Then the doors move up, revealing the naked contestants up to the neck. We see and judge their tattoos. Someone else gets eliminated. Then we see faces! Someone else gets eliminated. Eventually we get down to two contestants, at which point the original chooser contestant must also get naked. What sense does this make??? None.

Now everyone’s naked except for our proud bisexual icon host, and the original contestant must choose between the remaining two. She does, and they nakedly walk off into the sunset to go on a (clothed) date. We get to catch up with them after a few weeks and most of the people I’ve seen seem to get along just fine but they aren’t in love. I did see one woman totally ghost a guy…imagine going through all that (naked) work only to give up after the date!

I can’t imagine what makes this worth it for people, although I’m fascinated by the decision to go on this show. Most of the people involved so far seem to be dancers or models, which makes sense. They’re comfortable with their bodies and they won’t get fired for being naked on television (predictably, we haven’t seen a lot of, say, kindergarten teachers). The show also lets us see them with their clothes on after they’re eliminated, and almost without fail they dress like someone in an early 2000s movie about a dance troupe. Out of all the things happening in this show, this is the one that boggles my mind the most. Googling “why does everyone on Naked Attraction dress like that” hasn’t brought up any results for me, as everyone else seems more focused on what they’re not wearing.

My ultimate verdict on Naked Attraction is: I think this is probably a fun show to watch with people (as in, not by yourself when you have Covid). I can imagine that this would’ve killed with my friends and me in college. The thing I like about reality TV is that you get a chance to see weird people be their weird selves, and that is true here! However, I’m kind of grossed out. And I had to share that with you!

This post is shorter and even less necessary than usual, but listen…I have Covid! You can’t blame me! For the content of this post or any typos found in it! If you’ve watched Naked Attraction, please let me know what you think. See you soon. xo