The VH1 program “Dating Naked” went to air on Australian TV channel 11 last night – Thursday the 9th of October, I had not seen the program before but I had read some revues by Naturist friends as well as on the Young Naturists America website.

I had deliberately shied away from watching the show online because I didn’t feel it was worth watching… besides I don’t really like reality TV shows that much anyway… well except for Naked and Afraid… oh I also got hooked on the Bachelor Australia this year…. (ended up hating Blake the bastard who proposed then walked out on Sam GRRRRRR LOL )

So I was curious what the Aussie Nudey’s as well as my non Nudey friends on Facebook would think of the show, so I posted on my Naturist News page as well as my personal FB page a request for reviews of the program…

What I was really interested was whether exposure to non sexual nudity on TV would relax peoples views on Nudism, it is a theory (hope) that by people being exposed to non sexual nudity that they will accept the Naturist/Nudist lifestyle better and not think we are a bunch of perverts… And then hopefully this will have a roll-on effect of accepting people who choose to go nude and help more people to “come out”…. yeah I know I’m dreaming 😦

I watched the program last night and to be honest I was a bit “meh” perhaps it’s because I’m biased against reality TV shows? While I was watching I checked on Twitter and Facebook for peoples reactions and found it was being greeted with the same mixed feelings as I had, there was comments such as “Naked Dating?… but why is it blurred?” and “Just another Yank reality show”

In case you missed the show, they had a male and female (Joe and Wee Wee… umm it’s her nickname) going on naked dates with three other people of the opposite sex where they engaged in getting inside a giant inflatable ball (WTF?) as well as boogie boarding and body painting and even bird watching naked, then they all met up at a “clothing optional villa” afterwards, this is where it ended up a bit tense as one of the female dates (Jasmine) was very friendly with Joe which made Wee Wee upset because earlier he seemed to like her, but then Jasmine showed her true colours by cracking onto one of the other guys which made Joe see what she was really like…

There was a few people who commented on Twitter that the program was disgusting and shouldn’t be allowed, but on whole it seemed it was more comments about the characters than the nudity as such, the only parts un-blurred were the backsides anyway…

This morning looking over all the comments on my Facebook timeline and on my Naturist News page as well as chatting to the few at work who watched it the consensus was “why advertise it as naked when they blur?” and “Silly American show about dating”

The only good take away I could see for Naturists is that there was some positive comments about the freedom of nudity and how good it felt, there was a couple of dubious moments like when a couple were engaged in nude boogie boarding in the sea and the guy commented that it was bit sexual with the girl laying on the board with her butt in the air…

So will I watch it again?…. quite probably, it’s on again next Thursday night on ch11 at 8:30PM and there is 10 more episodes to watch!

Review on the YNA website: http://youngnaturistsamerica.com/review-dating-naked-episode-1/

Michael Connolly
Published
10/10/2014