VH1 is currently airing a reality show called “Dating Naked,” and you would be forgiven for assuming—or even, let’s be honest, hoping—that it was the stage for a hedonistic, debauched scene of young singles gone wild. The nervous folks at the Parents Television Council certainly did; they issued a statement condemning McDonald’s for sponsoring such obvious filth. But this is light cable TV, suitable, as the show’s rating tells us, for anyone over fifteen: the bodies are mostly waxed and safely blurred, and the bad words bleeped. And the singles, though they have signed up to travel to an oceanfront resort in Panama and naked-date nominal strangers for the viewing enjoyment of other strangers, are a circumspect, conservative bunch.
“I want the whole white-picket fence, a dog, some kids, you know, everything,” Joe, a twenty-four-year-old from Long Island who is the male contestant on the first episode, says. He’d been married once, but it didn’t work out. “Dating naked gives me a way to trust someone possibly again.” His female counterpart, a thirty-six-year-old woman named Wee Wee, appeared to be a likely match: “I do have a ticking clock, so it is important for me to meet someone who would like to have children.” Later, she tears up when telling the camera, “I want a family of my own.”
The other contestants in the three episodes that have aired so far sound, similarly, like walking, talking naked eHarmony profiles. “If I can’t see you as Mrs. Justice, then there’s no point in starting a relationship at this point,” says one Mr. Justice, who is looking for a helpmate. “If I find the perfect girl here I could be ready for everything,” a man named Keegan says, already imagining minivans and soccer practices. “You talked a little bit about how you go through guys like they’re chewing gum, and I am not a piece of candy,” Steven, a thirty-something Australian living in Los Angeles, says to one of his dates. “I’m ready to commit and settle down,” he adds. “I’m hoping to meet my true love on this island,” Diane, aged twenty-eight, tells the camera. Later, she clarifies her intentions: “I don’t want someone who is going to try to get laid on the first date. You know, I want the romance.”
As far as romance goes, the following staged dating activities are done naked, to varying aesthetic and practical results: conga playing, bird-watching, water skiing, water tubing, A.T.V.ing, salsa dancing, horseback riding, spearfishing, paddleboarding, zip-lining. Most are done rather gingerly. Hugs are tepid, and strategically performed. Sometimes the contestants go barefoot when walking on the beach or through the jungle, other times they wear socks and sneakers. Safety helmets are allowed at times, as are hats: one pair wears matching pith helmets on a nature walk; another sports Stetsons. And, for a naked dating show, there are plenty of covered moments back at the so-called Jungle Villa (Clothing Optional), where the contestants, contrary to the spirit of the show, seem to get to know each other better when seeing less of one another.
It has been widely noticed, by everyone from die-hard nudists to occasional gym-goers, that there isn’t much sexy about being naked in a nonsexual situation. And dating, at least as practiced by these folks, is decidedly unsexy. Nakedness can be grim, especially when hanging from a zip line in broad daylight, no matter how inclined you may be to fall in love. There is good naked, bad naked, and meh naked. The human body comes in an astounding, and sometimes daunting, array of shapes and sizes. Or, as the contestant Taryn puts it, “It’s crazy to me to see that there’s so many different types of guys, as far as their package goes, and all that.”
“Dating Naked” joins a list of other nudity-themed reality shows, either already on the air or in the works. There’s “Naked and Afraid,” a show in which two contestants are released into the wild, where they must perform “Survivor”-style challenges; “Buying Naked,” in which nudists go house hunting; and “Skin Wars,” which is about body painting. Yet “Dating Naked” may be the most chaste of the bunch, and the show seems to recognize its own harmlessness. The host, who is not naked, counsels a new pair of contestants at the beginning of each episode. “Both of you are here for the same reason, you’re single. You’ve tried everything from the bar scene to blind dates, and even online dating. But none of it has worked.” It has come to this, she seems to say, a bit pityingly. “This is a radical dating experience, but it will allow you to date in the most honest way possible.” It is traditional matchmaking with a modern, efficient twist, another boring and earnest contemporary lifehack for grownups tired of wasting their time.
Into this morass of maturity comes, in the third episode, Katie, from Queens. She is a classic reality-show ringer—outrageous, sweary, and likely an aspiring actress. Walking in the jungle, she mumbles, “This is like the beginning of a bad porno.” She’s bound for the zip line, but pauses to mock the very conventions of the show: “This is my version of getting to know somebody. I don’t like that (beep) like, ‘So, what are you looking for and how long have you been single?’ I just want to (beep) because that’s what I do.” But, like many who speak truth to power, Katie is treated roughly. She hits her face while riding on the zip line and gets a black eye. The other good-sport contestants don’t know what to make of her. Later, drunk and alone back at the Jungle Villa, she tells the camera, “This is so un-fun.” Then she offers a sweeping critical appraisal of the entire enterprise, voicing an opinion that I suspect is widely shared by viewers who have lasted this long: “Like, if you’re not gonna to get wild in the pool, that is boring as (beep) to me.”
Katie is, so far, the outlier, a holdover, perhaps, from another era of reality television, when crass, low-budget shows felt no need to bolster their respectability or offer any credible justification for their existence beyond a mere shrug and the words “Why not?” The producers of “Dating Naked” claim that they have already produced six real-life couples. It works! This fall, they’ll air a special wedding episode, in which two characters who met on the show will tie the knot naked, their private bits tastefully blurred. Someone tell the Parents Television Council: this is the new face of real old-fashioned family values. As one of the great screenwriters of the past once wrote, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”
