The most entertaining thing about Dating Naked UK is the little note that comes with it when it arrives in my inbox, solemnly declaring that, of course, the participants of this nude reality show received psychological support during and after production. Great, good, it’s the least you can do. The bare minimum, you might say. But it does not stop there. “Strict hygiene and dignity protocols were in place during filming.” What’s not to love? Strict hygiene? Dignity protocols? I cannot press the play button quickly enough.
After watching the first episode, I wonder if I am the one whose dignity protocols have been breached. The setup is familiar to anyone who has so much as walked past a laptop, phone or television screen over the last decade or so. A group of single people, mostly in their 20s, are struggling to find love through the apps. So they’ve all signed up to what looks like a very nice holiday in a villa in the sun, where they can ditch the shallow world of swiping and find a relationship with more depth. There is of course a twist, because there always has to be a twist, and this twist is that they don’t wear any clothes. That’s it.
For years, Naked Attraction made solid entertainment out of people pretending they were definitely keeping their eyes right up there, and were just judging people on their hairstyle, honest. But once the couples had been nakedly matched, they were sent out into the real world for their first dates, fully, dully clothed. I’m not sure that Naked Attraction was the romantic type, though. Once the “experiment” was over, you rarely heard about its couples meeting up again.
So you could say that Dating Naked is on to something: keep the clothes off at all times, from meeting to match-up to date. And it has carried over one of Naked Attraction’s most endearing quirks. Here, as there, hugging is a nightmarish mess of bodily contortions. In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David sets out the strict dignity protocols of a hug: “You have to get your butt back.” Watching these strangers meet each other for the first time, ask if it’s OK to have a cuddle while trying to work out how far the butt has to go back to be polite, is like ballet. It’s almost beautiful.
Dating Naked was an American show, in which all the parts that you can’t see in swimwear were blurred out, and a German show, in which they were not. We have chosen the side of the Germans. For some reason most people here are pretending to be shocked that they are nude, while strutting around like happy naked peacocks. “I can’t believe I’m about to walk into this house naked,” says a woman who has chosen to appear on a television show called Dating Naked. The man who wakes up one morning and simply shouts, “We’re in a tropical paradise and we’re all naked”, is the most honest of the bunch. Maybe he came up with the original idea.
Everyone says they are taking part in yet another TV love experiment because they’re tired of trying and failing to find love the traditional way. Nobody has quite managed to figure out how being naked fits into the picture. There are a few shared lines that get tossed around the villa, as if they’re trying to make them stick. (Don’t worry, there are strict hygiene protocols in place!) One is that being naked makes everyone more vulnerable, and therefore if everyone is naked, they are more likely to see each other for who they really are. Another is that they can’t hide behind a personality based on what they’re wearing. One contestant talks about how much he likes expensive cars and clothes, but in this house, women might discover who he is as a person. Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, as John Lennon would sing – if not too distracted by everyone’s thong-shaped tan lines.
As one man rides a horse, he notes that it “feels like my balls are getting stuck to the saddle”. But aside from the hygiene protocols, the one other vaguely entertaining thing about Dating Naked is that it’s hosted by Rylan Clark, who remains clothed and only says “I feel a bit overdressed” once. Otherwise, it’s one heavily constructed reality show ding-dong after another, as partnerships are thrown together and discarded quicker than a cardigan at the door. In the great history of naked TV shows, it may say something about me that I prefer Naked and Afraid. This, however, is a load of bollocks.
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