Note to pervs everywhere: There’s a new series on HBO (or “Max” as it’s been pointlessly renamed) masquerading as a radical dating show that’s really just a means to stare at strangers’ wobbly bits — uncensored.
Don’t get me wrong: I love nudity. I like seeing my sculpted, experienced boyfriend naked. And I readily admit that I have a penchant for a bit of on-screen smut. Who not?
But as soon as I started watching this fetish freak show – titled Naked Attraction – I felt sicker than when I opened a can of warm sardines after New Year’s drinks.
This is the premise of this tawdry porn fest: an unlucky man or woman in love goes, as the trailer teases, “back to basics, (starting) where a good date often ends: naked.”
Like the fat kid in a candy store, the participant (at this point dressing herself) stands wide-eyed in front of a series of colorful pods that open incrementally to reveal six figures – all altogether more striking, in varying sizes and states of shaving.
First, the screens rise to waist height, providing full exposure. Next it’s pecs and pecs. Before we finally get to see that largely irrelevant part of the human anatomy: you know – the face.
Note to pervs everywhere: There’s a new series on HBO (or “Max” as it’s been pointlessly renamed) masquerading as a radical dating show that’s really just a vehicle for staring at strangers’ cheeks, breasts, and wobbly bits – uncensored.
As soon as I started watching this fetish freak show – titled Naked Attraction – I felt sicker than when I opened a can of warm sardines after New Year’s drinks.
In each stage, one of the selection of nude figures is brutally eliminated, with the participants always coming up with hilarious and not at all subtle excuses, such as how they are ‘too strong’ (translation: Chubs McGill is not for me) or why they are on one somehow foreseeing an incompatibility based solely on appearance (translation: it’s not big enough).
When we get to the last two, our boring voyeur also strips naked, before choosing a partner, awkwardly embracing (the backs sharply arched to avoid cross-on-cross collisions) and then heading out for a date – which is inexplicably, fully clothed.
The whole horrible, genitally unnecessary exercise brought back a terrifying memory from high school: When I was fifteen, the “question of the week,” painted in giant letters on a poster board, was: “Would you have the same boyfriend or girlfriend as you meet you naked?’
I felt sick. Not just me not I have a partner and my prospects were slimmer than an Olsen twin, I wore a very padded bra to hide the fact that I scored an A-minus in the bosom department.
But was my school on to something? Ultimately, we are animals. And whether it’s tackle or tuppence, we have them all. Should we pile up so much fuss, social pressure and shame?
In defense of HBO: the range of body types and shapes on Naked Attraction is varied. God knows we need fewer skinny hunks and huns to perpetuate America’s eating disorder epidemic.
I wanted to love it, find it exciting – a strange touch of rawness on a cold autumn night.
I really didn’t want to be a prudish creature clutching pearls.
But let’s be honest: this carnival is, at best, a forum for narcissistic exhibitionists, presented in a slightly more palatable package than hard-core porn for sex-starved and obsessed.
At worst, it’s offensive trash that risks further corrupting our ultra-sexualized culture, where young girls are pressured to send nudes to potential partners, and what’s between your legs is more important than the contents of your character.
This is HBO’s proud new addition. Maybe the family subscription service suggested watching on rainy days.
Naked Attraction premiered in Britain in 2016 and ran for seven series before making the jump across the pond. Within days of its US release, we learned that it had secured HBO’s coveted ‘Most Popular’ slot.
It’s a sign of the depths of reality TV we’ve plumbed – and of the utter implosion of our cratered society.
This carnal carnival of flapping schlongs and bouncing bushes is at best a forum for narcissistic exhibitionists, presented in a slightly more palatable package than hard-core porn for sex-starved and obsessed. At worst, it’s offensive trash that risks further corrupting our ultra-sexualized culture.
What’s next?
A show that assesses the contestants’ skills in bed, performed in front of a live audience, with points awarded for the power of thrusts or the decibels of grunts?
Or how about a game where you have to kill a stranger for a bag of big money? A real squid game?
Here’s Naked Attraction squirming and straining to disguise itself as a serious show.
“Do you like playing with a penis?”, British presenter Anna Richardson asks 75-year-old contestant Ian with all the faux sincerity of an indictment against Hunter Biden.
“She’s got a nice, tidy baby,” one man declares the way someone comments on the snazzy cupholders in your new Hyundai.
When 32-year-old music producer Aina inspects a headless guy with – and I’m not kidding – elephant ears tattooed on either side of his big John Thomas, transformed into a trunk, we get this ridiculous interaction:
‘That’s a very large appendage. Is that something you’re into?’ Richardson asks Aina.
‘Circumference or length?’ she probes further, as if sifting through Tiffany tennis bracelets, choosing between the white or yellow gold.
Listen to a ridiculous and laughably serious mini-teaching about how “87 percent of women surveyed would choose girth over length,” complete with cartoon diagrams to really drive home the point: ahem.
Thanks HBO, I’ll note that along with Donald Trump’s fat BMI on my list of things I never needed to know.
Ultimately, of course, and because it wouldn’t be a shock to anyone with eyes, Aina decided to take her chances with the hung Dumbo.
In another episode, we meet 21-year-old Dom, whose mother personally suggested he appear on the show and wave his wild pig at the cameras, as if her bathtime toddler simply never grew up.
Mum Gemma tells us her little Oedipus is an ‘older soul’ who doesn’t fit in with the modern world of dating apps, he’s ‘sweet, adorable and a bit of a catch!’
Well, sorry Gemma, but I think he’s a bit ill – and so are you!
Naked Attraction premiered in Britain in 2016 and ran for seven series before making the jump across the pond. Within days of its US release, we learned that it had secured HBO’s coveted ‘Most Popular’ slot. It’s a sign of the depths of reality TV we’ve plumbed – and of the utter implosion of our cratered society.
This show is syrup of ipecac on television. If you’ve ever ingested poisoned berries or a gallon of kerosene, knock back a few episodes and you’ll throw away the contents of your stomach faster than these deviants threw aside their dignity.
Let’s not pretend that this lurid, libidinous parade of hairy bastards is some grand experiment in evolutionary biology. It’s not. It’s crazy people watching crazy people and everyone goes out.
For a culture that has made do with ankle porn for centuries, it seems like Britain is cracking open Pandora’s box freshly waxed in one fell swoop.
But here’s the thing: in the US we’re struggling with a very loud group of creeps who are desperately trying to normalize adult nudity for children, get guys in dresses into public libraries, and tell kids that the path to happiness might just be are to cut back on their private lives.
The money-hungry HBO executives who have sacrificed the remaining shreds of innocence of their young viewers – who have all too easy access to this content – should be ashamed of themselves.