Are you are unmarried, and therefore unhappy? Well, relax, because the television executives of the world are here to help. They are hard at work trying to fix the non-existent love crisis that is infecting The Youth and have given us shows like Dating Naked to help out. Isn’t that considerate?
Much like Married at First Sight, Dating Naked is billed as a “radical dating experience.” Individuals go out on dates while naked and…that’s about it. Apparently the whole naked thing is to help people connect as their open selves, honestly and without distraction. And for ratings. Mostly for ratings.
The most obnoxious thing about Dating Naked is that the contestants (daters? fools?) are not really naked. I mean, they are to each other and to the camera crew, but this is VH1 so they can’t show anything other than butts on air. Basically, this show was created to entertain Tina Belcher.
We meet Joseph and Wee Wee (yeah, I know) who will go on two naked dates with other people after they go on a naked date with each other. So here’s where the format is weird: The protagonists of the episode go on a naked date together, which also includes a romantic, fully clothed dinner date, before they go on naked dates with two more people. It seems inevitable that the would have more of a connection, or at least be more comfortable together having spent normal-ish, one-on-one time together. Then, the whole group of six stays together in a house creating a sort of battle royal of naked dating.
Joe quite boldly announces that he doesn’t want “just beauty and looks.” Well, Joe, might I suggest online dating instead of a show that instantly boils down to beauty and looks?
I was very irritated by this faux-respectful bullshit everyone was putting on by not staring directly at each other’s goods. That is literally the whole fucking point, isn’t it?
Joe’s second date is with Jasmine, a very beautiful Israeli attention whore.
Poor Wee Wee ends up with Jack, the guy from your Econ class who you exchanged numbers with so you could study together but on Friday nights texted you to hang out like you were real friends.
And then there were two black people, Justice and Chrissy, who no one really paid much attention to because VH1 just had to be able to say that there was some diversity. I say this only because neither of them was a remotely good match for Joe or Wee Wee.
A semi-interesting love triangle breaks out between Joe, Wee Wee and Jasmine. Jasmine, who clearly wants nothing more than to be naked in front of the world so we can drool at her flat stomach and perky butt, declares that she likes to be “chased.” So she nakedly (literally and figuratively) flirts with Joe while poor, down to Earth Wee Wee looks on sullenly. Is this perhaps what Wee Wee, a grown adult woman, gets for calling herself Wee Wee? I digress.
Joe kisses Wee Wee, then he kisses Jasmine because Joe is an intoxicated, naked guido surrounded by two naked women who want to kiss him.
In the end, Joe displays a fair amount of maturity and chooses Wee Wee because he feels a connection with her despite being more attracted to Jasmine.
I have to say, I love ridiculous TV. The human response to absurdity is pretty compelling when done correctly. It’s why I can’t turn away from a show like Catfish. But Dating Naked is just a destination dating show with butts. And frankly, from the network that brought us Flavor of Love, they can do better than this.