And just like that... MAFS is over

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8pz1k4r2lo

It was coming. You dont get good reality TV without people suffering.

This news however is awful. Bloody awful.

If it was a BBC programme people would be hungry for blood from the whole channel. I’ve always hated shows where they move people in together. In that handcuffed one they were sleeping in the same bed, showering and going to the toilet together!! There’s no way you can assure safety in those circumstances.

If it was a bbc, we'd have the tory party calling for an immediate abolition of the licence fee 😬

Yes, I agree - the original series were horses of a different colour. It changed when it went global and presumably to a different production company.

Outside of these revelations there has been an awful lot of gaslighting, bullying and borderline coercive control .

At the same time, I am not sure about BBC gleefully presenting it as their top story and promoting Panorama tonight. Proper investigative journalism is great but they are sensationalising it themselves.

it’s way completely really enjoyed the first series years and years ago

the recent Australian one was an absolute shocker miles away from the original concept of the program

Bloody hell. This is horrific. Those poor women; despite signing up for “reality” telly, there’s no way they could have had even an inkling that this was possible. Who are the producers of this sh@t? Surely they are complicit.

(I’ve never watched it or anything similar, and am so glad I haven’t - think I’d feel manipulated and tainted if I had.)

I remember the original shows and it had a scientific feel to it. I only watched a few, but most split up within weeks. There didn’t seem to be anything bad happening, but it did feel odd that anyone would want to do this based on a few tests and random strangers deciding you would be a good match. I haven’t watched any of the new ones though.
Feel for the women involved in this latest scandal.

According to Wiki there were 5 series shown on Channel 4 between 2015 and 2020 and then "After the success of the Australian version, the Australian format was adopted."

Wonder if any of the women on the Australian version will have anything to say.

I think that someone who was on the UK version did a Q and A type thing on mumsnet once. I don’t think she stayed with her match.

I’ve heard reports from MAFS OZ of coercive, controlling production teams, but this has really shocked me.

These are appalling allegations. I did watch the show for a couple of seasons of the old format, when it featured nice normal people. I stopped watching when they turned it into another sow-shull meeja twatfest.

Is there any indication of why the women went to a rival media organisation to publicise the alleged offences rather than reporting them to the police?

I watched Shona being bullied and controlled by Brad. He was obviously a really nasty piece of work. They removed the couple from the show, as they obviously knew some of what was going on. It’s anybody’s guess whether the producers knew the full extent. His behaviour was shocking and worse than any of the viewers knew about.

Other women coming forward to say they were raped is also absolutely shocking. The format attracts people wanting to be on the show and the shows have very high viewing figures. The makers of the show have clearly failed to protect the women taking part. Dreadful.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

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.

They're not really married. Its a dating show

.

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.

Nice bit of victim blaming there.

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.

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.