And just like that... MAFS is over

It was very uncomfortable. Sarah was basically piled on for not wanting to be physical with Dean, not wanting to hig him or kiss him...what happened to willing consent?

Useful background. Thank-you. All of this highlights my disquiet over Big Brother: reality TV cold-bloodly uses members of the public as fodder to make money.

how does this even work? You go off and live with a stranger?

before anyone accuses me, I genuinely don't know. You can see I have a massive posting history on here. I'm not being a bot

I don't watch reality TV and I honestly don't know how this show works. Put me in the box of "I don't understand the world anymore".

are they living with these men off camera?

Edit to add - if reality TV is dead, which I kind of hope it is, will be easier to actually get people to go out?! or is it that they're glued to the Internet all evening? I have been assuming the latter....

Most of these type of programmes are total sleaze. Young women having to dress in a certain way, expectation of some form of sexual contact if not full sex when you have only just met. That’s bad enough. But this sort of behaviour was bound to happen when boundaries can get blurred, and assumption by the males that sex was going to happen and assumed implied consent because the women appeared on a show where intimacy is expected. Obviously there needs to be full not implied consent, I am not excusing the men’s behaviour. And viewers all watching to see who has sex with whom. Each format of new programmes getting sleazier. Grim

I don't mind reality TV like Sewing Bee or Bake Off. The competition element, you have to be GOOD at something to win. It's not about who creates the most drama or who is the biggest bitch. I also love Race Across the World and The Traitors, neither of which has gone down the route of casting attention seekers.

I remember watching the original MAFS pre Ixperts and dinner parties and it was interesting to watch but not full of drama and arguments, a bit like how the first series of big brother was just a load of normal people not wannabe influencers. Social media has ruined reality TV because everyone going into it now is looking for an influencer jump start

This is awful, those poor women!

I stopped watching MAFS a few seasons back when a lesbian couple were 'married' (Eve and Charlie). Eve was absolutely awful to Charlie, but she played the game so well that she, and the professionals, gaslit Charlie into thinking she was in the wrong and she kept apologising. It was deeply uncomfortable.

Just watching Channel 4 news and they've mentioned MAFS UK. What on earth! Will definitely be watching Panorama at 8pm. For sure whatever behaviour happened on the UK show will have been mirrored in Aus and US.

Bradley Skelly was horrible and you could see how controlling he was with Shona. The Dean situation was horrible too - she was forced to endure him. I think all of us that contributed to the threads called this out.

I imagine they were under pressure to stay, I don’t know if they got paid to be on there but I can guess there was pressure to make the show interesting and entertaining. They will have had a contract that could be held over them and in the absence of usual supports who might encourage the women to leave, they’re left with programme makers and supports who have a vested interest in keeping the show going.

All of these types of show are deeply problematic and leave participants open to exploitation with safeguards clearly not in place.

Nice bit of victim blaming there.

I really hope reality tv is finished. We’ve had it for 25 odd years and it needs to be finally binned. I’m surprised people still watch knowing how far removed it is from the very early days.

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They're not really married. Its a dating show

I’ve never seen it but I’ve watched ‘Love is blind’ where they end up marrying (or not) after a few weeks/months. And even with that it feels a bit gross that they are sent off to a resort soon after meeting in person (having spent hours talking together unseen by each other) and on this holiday they are basically expected to have sex, and talk about it afterwards, as part of the show.

I've only watched the last couple of series but I really disliked how Ros was pressured to get on and have sex with Arthur by the 'experts'. There were red flags all over some couples and again the experts seemed oblivious. Last series Grace got such a hard time but I thought she had amazingly good boundaries. I've just read an article and whilst two of the women are anonymous I feel sure one must be Grace as the things said sound similar to things that came out about Ashley towards the end of the series. I was horrified by some stuff.

It doesn't surprise me sadly. I stopped watching MAFS UK a few years ago now after one of the judges was practically forcing a girl to have sex with her husband ( the girl didn't want to have sex at all) and the judge even turned up at her door with a bag of sex toys etc. Absolutely vile!!!

As much as I was hooked on Mafs UK the last series made me feel so uncomfortable I’m not at all surprised it’s been axed.

This is so sad, there may also be more victims that haven’t come forward yet. Watching MAFS was my guilty pleasure but I did feel uncomfortable about some of it, there were massive red flags with some of the contestants. The ‘experts’ encouraging sex even when there was no way that the women were interested (one expert delivering sex toys to couples that had known each other for 5 minutes was a low). But I had no idea that women were being raped, I feel sick that I ever watched the show.

Reality TV shows have an odd fascination, although morally they are repugnant. I was engrossed with the very first episode of Big Brother but felt grubby and like a voyeur watching the second so I stopped.

What's particularly upsetting in this case is that the women concerned didn't value themselves enough to walk away from the show. In some cases, the question of consent can be problematic but if you say no and the man continues, the lack of consent is clear.

Not a surprise, and certainly not a surprise that Shona was a victim.