And just like that... MAFS is over

Exactly this. I remember watching the original couple of series and they were really good. It was a completely different format to the current set up. It used to be just two couples who were followed for the whole series. More of a documentary style and much more in-depth in terms of how the experiment was working. The format then totally changed to include more couples, drunken dinner parties, rage baiting, group activities- all set up to make drama and blazing rows (e.g. your standard Big Brother/Love Island/Jeremy Kyle spectacle).

I have always hated these types of programmes, they exploit vulnerable people and attract the sort of men who should be on some sort of list.

In the future we will regard this sort of stuff with the same horror and shame as we do Victorian freakshows or the custom of charging people to gawp at patients in mental health institutions.

Finally, this low brow reality TV is going to be scrapped. You can take love island with u as well. Television has sunk to an all time low with this drival.

Yeah love island I could never take to. But the degree to how it's cut through with school age kids is really grim. It's all the ultra skinny / buff stuff as well

Tv pandering to the lowest common denominator.

So depressing that these shows are so popular

You could always try living in the moment in your actual life?

I’ve always wondered about Naked Attraction and how the contestants are kept safe. These type of programs make me feel so old. I just don’t understand. Whilst flicking through the channels one evening Love Island was on. All the male contestants were blindfolded and the women were snogging them one by one and rating each other out of ten. Is this entertainment? Is this ‘Love’? It really has to stop. There are so many amazing documentaries out there to watch instead. We live in an age where education is so easily accessible and yet people choose to watch this shit instead?

Your post is sociopathic.

I agree.

I watched the first few series of Big Brother and decided it had stopped being an interesting bit of social observation and was becoming a voyeuristic shitshow and have watched precious little of it since. (I quite like "Traitors", which has a very different vibe about it, imo.)

I like to think that the airtime will be taken up with decent dramas and documentaries, but I'm not holding my breath.

SC fi TV writer Nigel Kneale wrote a play in the late 60s called the Year of the Sex Olympics that essentially foresaw love island and the drive for ever more extreme content for viewing

Good I hate these low quality exploitative type of programmes , I used to hate channel 5s rage bait benefits programmes too, thankfully they have given up with those . You sign up to something with no editorial control and what they portray doesn’t always paint the true picture and it might be available forever to watch.

I saw this thread hovering in the trending list and ignored it. I thought ‘Oh well, the death of another reality TV show’ and ignored it. But then I read the news this morning (lead story on BBC News app) and realised it was a bit more than just another show running out of steam. Most shocking is the OP’s attempts to back pedal. Almost every time she says how awful it is, she then starts bemoaning the demise of the show. Is that how hardened some people are to exploitation and sexual assault? Oh yeah, yeah I know it’s awful, BUT …

Unbelievable. Or maybe not.

Totally agree.
Married implies there'll be sexual activity. How can anybody fail to see that?!

How can anybody fail to see that the type of narcissistic man who goes on these shows is going to see sex as his right?

Like hell he's going to take no for answer.

I've got to leave this thread now.
I really do have contempt for those who:
A, Watch it.
B, Are shocked by these revelations.

The first 2 series on Channel 4 only featured 2 or 3 couples & were more documentary like & actually very good.
Unfortunately we picked up the Australian format with the alcohol fuelled dinner parties & terrible 'experts'. The deliberate mismatching for drama has made it completely false & just attracts people desperate to get Instagram blue ticks & sponsorship deals. So much of our tv has gone this way.

It's so grim, even more so that there are a number of men whose behaviour was overt enough on camera to think it could have been any one of them. And that's the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure there were the ones appeared outwardly charming on the surface could have been awful when the filming stopped

Never watched Virgin Island just find the whole thing abhorrent.

I have no idea how these programmes ever got made, never mind how anyone could watch them?

It’s obvious they would be exploitative just from the name and premise.

And people refer to watching as a ‘guilty pleasure’?

Just unbelievable

I think more women will come forward now. And hopefully they will be taken seriously.

to kick start their career as a TV presenter / influencer.

I do feel tainted and dirty for watching it.

I can make a guess at some of the men but I won’t name them here. There is abusive behaviour, including emotional abusive behaviour from women to men. The forcing of people to be intimate with someone they don’t fancy is pretty awful, eg Sarah to Dean and maybe even Adam to Polly etc.

Anyway, I recognise that I am part of the problem by watching it. So in the words of some of the participants in the most recent Aus series, ‘I am done’.

I agree. And why, just why would anyone willingly go on the show?
All this reality tripe needs to be stopped. End of.

I agree it is a weird concept. I would find it difficult to meet someone and sleep in the same bed, share a life immediately but my best friend has done this three times! Met him, bed him same night and moved in. I was horrified as you don't know the other person.

My heart goes out to them and I hope they get help/justice.

As someone else said upthread, it is real life for women in different cultures.

Totally agree.
I just can't see why anyone is surprised.

The men on this show are likely to be highly narcissistic, it is obvious to me that, given the circumstances, they're going to feel entitled to sex.

I honestly - honestly! - cannot for the life of me comprehend why this is a shock to anybody.

I'll go further those that are shocked by it piss me off.
I'm no intellectual snob but there is something about this level of naivety that winds me up.
I can't even think of a name for it.

Take people who want to be on tv, possibly hoping for a career in the entertainment industry, in a show which appears to be an accessible way in despite the very dodgy premise. Remove all usual sources of support and give access to “experts” advising them, throw in pressure to make the show entertaining, include talk of marriage (which implies commitment and intimacy). Hint at what you agreed to when you signed the contract and your duty to your “spouse” and it’s going to take a particularly strong person to walk away.

I imagine not being able to speak to family and friends, and the closed environment that these types of show have created a micro-environment where you just can’t think clearly. It’s designed to disorient participants and move them away from their usual decision making process and their usual checks and balances.

I’m not really surprised!

I mean, what happened for all those centuries when people were married off to those they didn’t or barely knew? What happens in countries that still do this?

I realise that rape was/ is legal in those situations but TV producers/ companies should use their common sense.