Will we look back on programmes like Naked Attraction and Love Island and think wtf?

[VeloVixen]

at the risk of sounding like Mary Whitehouse I think that now to be honest.

in the Russell Brand fall out I saw a clip yesterday of him and Alan Carr getting the female, single audience members of Alan Carr’s show to stand up while Russell walked round deciding which ones were “nice”. The theme been that Russell was picking who he was going to take back and shag after the show. That went out on channel 4 with everyone laughing and thinking it was ok.

Will we look back at current shows which objectify women and men, judge them on their looks, their penis size, their pubic hair, whether they are in a couple or not and think what the hell were we doing letting stuff like that be broadcast? Remember stuff like Kanga on Big Brother masturbating while drunk with a beer bottle in the garden. What on earth were the tv executives doing letting stuff like that happen to drunk, vulnerable youngsters? We had Jeremy Kyle exploiting vulnerable people and look what happened. But it continues to some extent.

Oh, did they? I hadn’t realised that, I obviously don’t try hard enough to keep up with sleb gossip!

Of course. There is no way that any of the production team would do these shows themselves. And of course they have a good laugh at how dumb the contestants are. The meetings where they pick the participants are hideous. I mean they are looking for people who are basically narcissists or with low self esteem and put them together.

I think he’s vile. I read he once referred to a group of models as cunts.

@Blossomtoes - not much of a sleb follower but shamelessly fancy Sue Perkins so was interested!

Totally get that. I kind of fancy her too and I’m straight!

Embarrassing Bodies is another one - imagine your family, friends, neighbours, enemies and randomers on the street knowing all about something you're embarrassed about.

I know it had some educational value in that others with the same embarrassing problem could be helped by solutions offered on the programme.

There was another one lately with glamorous identical twins presenting a show dealing with digestive disorders.

I don't know if it was Embarrassing Bodies I saw tears ago, but I saw a woman having some procedure on her nethers ON CAMERA. How on earth could she have gone to work and faced colleagues the day after that was shown?

I mean, it's great to highlight and de-stigmatise embarrassing problems, but I'm not sure we need a close up of such things!

Humans will always watch other humans being humiliated, hurt or abused.
It's why drivers slow down to gawp at car crashes, why humans read the gossip pages, why there's an audience in the execution Chambers, to this day.
Humans actively enjoy others pain, be that physical or emotional.

We're rather scary.

We are capable of not being like this! One of the reasons that we stopped showing executions in public before getting rid of the death penalty or we don't allow dog fighting or badger baiting.

Sex, and the pushing of people into it is perhaps our generation's social poison in terms of public spectacle.

There was a good piece by Marina in The Guardian which referenced the toxic laddish culture in the 2000s which Brand rose in.

She is the woman that lots of otherwise straight women fancy. It's so weird.

Oh, agreed.

We're more than capable. These people are making an active choice.