‘Naked Attraction’ Review: Body Conscious
The British dating sensation 'Naked Attraction' makes bizarrely riveting TV by capturing human mating behavior at its realest.
No matter how much television you’ve watched, you’ve never seen a show like Naked Attraction (★★★☆☆). You might never want to see a show like Naked Attraction, the exuberant British dating series where a lucky “singleton” in the show’s parlance gets to choose a date from six contestants who are presented fully nude on-camera, standing inside colored pods.
Under the helpful prodding of quick-as-a-whip host Anna Richardson, the chooser whittles down their picks to a final two, based purely on physical attraction and other visible attributes, like a confident stance or a cheeky smile.
Initially, only the bottom half of each contestant is revealed, prompting the first pass of detailed, often brutal, sometimes basic, sometimes clever, always amusing assessments of the parts on display.
Choosers, with a kid in a candy store grin, regularly exclaim, “Wow, I’ve never seen so many penises/vaginas staring me in the face!” Some contestants sound more credible than others making such claims.
But somebody’s got to go.
“Bye, Red. I like a little more hair down there.”
“Sorry, no date, Green. That’s too hairy for me.”
In round two, torsos are revealed, and the boobs and pecs talk commences. Next, faces, then at the final three, the contestants speak, their voices and regional accents never failing to reveal volumes more about each person’s character than the size of their feet or folds of their genitals.
Along with the well-staged gradual reveals of naked bodies, each episode offers the slow reveal of an array of personalities and predilections. Richardson — a clergyman’s daughter, by the way — also hosted years of Channel 4’s The Sex Education Show, and provides dubiously sourced but generally funny tidbits of sex ed info and survey results about the bedroom preferences of the British.
Richardson also snarks hard at — and with — the choosers and contestants, who, over the show’s several seasons so far, represent seemingly every city, village, and township from Glasgow to Newquay.
The place names and accents provide their own exotic amusement, especially when Richardson is ushering off the rejected daters like game show prizes you won’t be taking home: “She is a 21-year-old care worker from Middlesbrough! A 20-year-old illustrator from Gillingham! A 28-year-old artist from Frinton-on-Sea!”
At the final two, the chooser gets naked. So, the tables are turned, with those finalists allowed to judge the guy or girl doing the choosing. And, as Richardson asks at the top of every episode, who’s doing the choosing? There are straight women choosing men, bisexual women choosing from both, gay men, lesbians, one nonbinary pansexual, and, in a season four episode, a trans-Muslim woman proud to add visibility for her community, and eager to hook up with a hot man.
More than one contestant lineup includes an amputee or person with some other disability. One bisexual woman has a threesome-seeking couple in her lineup. Literally all body types are represented. The show seemingly doesn’t discriminate.
The choosers, however, do, just not based on whatever persona the contestants put on in their daily lives — other than their tattoos and piercings. There are so many tattoos and piercings!
And, speaking for a portion of the gay population, I can credibly say that I really have never seen so many vaginas staring me in the face, and the endless variety is illuminating. The human body really is a wonderland, John Mayer!
Yet, Naked Attraction ends each episode with the chooser and their pick both clothed and on a date in public. Remarkably, this segment usually is the most revealing of who these people perceive themselves to be, based on their attire and their attitude on the date.
Some gain confidence from having been picked, and pour on the charm. Some people, as in life, just want to be picked, and cease to be charming immediately after they’ve won the date.
The ratio of hits to misses in these romantic hookups is about forty-sixty, and the chemistry is never exactly the same. Somehow, despite the show’s repetitive format, the choosing and the dating stays fresh. Even the contestants who themselves make repeat appearances have very different experiences each time.
That endless variety has fueled this show since 2016, launching versions in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Poland, Finland, Russia, and Denmark.
Meanwhile, the Brits have been plying U.S. viewers with baking shows, mysteries set in tweedy villages, and “prestige TV” about cops and crowns.
Finally, this entertaining dose of raw reality has hit Max, which was smart enough on this occasion to drop six seasons at once, so the naked dating party never has to stop.
Naked Attraction seasons 1-6 are available for streaming on Max. Visit www.max.com.
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