Naked Attraction is an awful concept for a dating show - but at least we're seeing real bodies
Real people, confidently, happily existing in their unretouched, unfiltered bodies are the Channel 4 show's saving grace
Naked Attraction is an awful concept for a dating show. One fully dressed singleton and six boxes, each containing a stark naked prospective date. The boxes open a bit at a time – bottom half, then chest, then face – as, body by body, they're eliminated, based on physical attraction alone.
Daters pick their partners without even knowing the basics – their names, ages, jobs or hometown. They just know their bum isn’t “juicy” enough or that their lips are slightly too small.
Apps like Tinder, which gives users the ability to immediately swipe onto someone new, have already gone some way towards making our fellow humans into a commodity – a potential partner is thoughtlessly pushed aside like a bruised apple in a supermarket – so any show that asks people to judge others purely on their looks has to be questioned.
Instead, we should be reminding each other that our minds and personalities are more important than six packs, big boobs and thigh gaps.
But Naked Attraction does have one saving grace: it’s showing real bodies on TV.
That's why this Channel 4 "dating show" is equal parts repulsive and captivating. It’s hard to turn it off in a rage, because what we are seeing is so rare. There are wobbly tummies, jiggly bums, legs of all different shapes and sizes. Tall, short, curvy, skinny. Scars, hair, tattoos. I won’t start listing different types of genitalia, but you get the point.
These people are all stood there, confidently, happily existing in their bodies. And that’s what young people should be seeing and recognising as normal. Heck, it’s what we should all be seeing, not glossy magazines stuffed full of professional models or Instagram lifestyle gurus with perfectly posed, edited and filtered pictures.
Naked Attraction is about what real people find attractive about real bodies. The lack of perfection is remarkably refreshing.
Naked Attraction continues on Mondays at 10:00pm on Channel 4
