Alex Casey reads through the complaints against Naked Attraction, the very rude show that aired on TVNZ last year.
Everybody knows that absolutely nobody has genitals. In fact, nobody has ever been naked. Before birth we are prepped with an in-utero uniform of jorts and a high vis vest, gifted to every growing foetus from Cape Reinga to Bluff. It is in this climate of proud, nation-wide never nudes that Naked Attraction came streaking onto screens last year, raking in over 500 complaints to TVNZ and 13 complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority. It’s porn! They shrieked, layering on their 13th t-shirt. Think of the children! They muttered, rolling on a third pair of socks. THINK OF THE BUMS they hollered, hoisting up their 18th century bloomers.
Yesterday, the BSA ruled against the complaints, but accepted that Naked Attraction required a more detailed warning outlining the nudity and sexual material. The show itself is a dating competition that lines up contestants behind a frosted screen, which slowly lifts to reveal their Earth Suits. The singleton in the centre of the nudie cabinet then decides who they want to date. “This is all part of the ‘pornification’ of our culture led by broadcasters and advertisers,” spat Family First in a press release, “with the watchdog asleep at the wheel.” Very cool that our watchdogs can drive now, does this mean Campbell Live is coming back?! Huge if true.
The organisation was allegedly “swamped” with complaints that expressed horror at “how the standards of free-to-air television have hit rock bottom.”
First of all: you just said bottom. “Naked Attraction is saturated with full-frontal nudity… It is shocking that a state broadcaster is trying to outdo sites like PornHub and porn magazines.”
Second of all: very funny to name-check a very specific porn website and then try and cover it up with a vague and innocent “porn magazines”. Who me? I have never seen a single porn in my life! Not in “porn magazines” OR on so-called sites like pornhub.com/premium/iloveporn/pornfanswhocantgetenoughporn!
But Family First was not alone in their outrage. Here are more of the official complaints made against the show, as summarised in the BSA ruling:
I am truly, madly, deeply in love with the idea of someone who is Very Cross sitting down with a tally chart and a MySky remote, frantically pausing and rewinding every rogue peen, vajeen, and everything in between. Also: nobody tell Family First what happens if you jumble up the total number of female genitals, because oosh.
Ah guys, you just blew it! The young teenagers, they haven’t found out about the internet yet! Anyway, I’ve heard that pornhub.com/premium/iloveporn/pornfanswhocantgetenoughporn is pretty good. That’s just what I’ve heard.
You know what gives me body issues? Almost all advertising. My Instagram feed. The mannequins at Glassons. You know what doesn’t? The revelatory feeling of seeing a bunch of naked people who are jiggly and curvy and not in a Dove campaign kind of way, but in a weird tattoos, body hair, random scars kind of a way. These are normal people, the kind of people you don’t get to see naked in an unnamed porn magazine or anywhere else in popular culture.
Beyond body positivity, Naked Attraction has been praised for the inclusion of a pansexual contestant, as well as trans men and women appearing as prospective dates. Yes, it’s an absolute garbage conceit for finding love (unlike the very successful Married at First Sight and The Bachelor) but, even if it is trash TV, at least everyone’s invited to wallow in the muck.
Slippery? Live sex shows will show you slippery. And then everyone can get mad at all of those too.