The first kiss in Netflix’s same-sex Japanese dating show The Boyfriend arrives an entire eight episodes in. Two cast members, Shun, 23, and Dai, 22, who have spent weeks embroiled in a “will they won’t they” dance, finally go on a “sleepover date”. Shun sidles into Dai’s single bed. And then, in a scene that will have you holding your breath in anticipation, the two men gradually tip their faces towards one another and touch lips. You can almost hear the proverbial fireworks. Yeeessssss, I screamed at the TV, weirdly excited about the prospect of two people I’ve never met kissing. Finally.
Quite different, then, to the BBC’s same-sex dating shows, I Kissed a Girl and I Kissed a Boy, in which cast members make out instantly upon meeting. And that’s not the most out-there UK format. Dating Naked UK – an upcoming Paramount+ series presented by Rylan Clark – will see people strip off completely before going on dates. And let us not forget Channel 4’s Naked Attraction, in which singles decide who they’re into based on a row of faceless naked bodies, like a meat counter. The only place left for us to go from here would be watching contestants have sex immediately on air – oh wait, that’s already been done on Sex Box, which ran on Channel 4 from 2013 to 2016 and saw couples have sex in a box before chatting about it to a live audience.
There’s much to be gleaned about British dating culture via our dating shows – and, it stands to reason, about other countries’ via theirs. In the UK, it’s normal to get off with someone on a night out, or sleep together on the first date, before getting to know them later. But our longstanding tradition of being a bit weird and repressed about sex has seen commentators claim that British people have a strange dichotomy: often appearing more comfortable just “getting it over with” in the beginning, before doing the hard part – opening up, being sexually vulnerable, connecting emotionally – afterwards. It’s a generalisation, but it would explain all the extreme dating shows we’re prone to – which plenty of other nations are not.
“Compared to western culture, where a kiss on the cheek in greeting is considered normal, kissing is more of a special thing in Japan,” explains Durian Lollobrigida, a prominent drag queen in Japan and one of the hosts on The Boyfriend. The show’s first season has been notably restrained: there’s very little overt flirting, and certainly no sex. At one point, one cast member, Kazuto, 27, feels overwhelmed by the idea of a massage. But this doesn’t mean that no one is interested. “There may be some degree of influence from Japanese culture, where reading the atmosphere and between the lines is considered a virtue,” says Lollobrigida. In other words, what can appear chaste to the British eye may actually be much more charged, but only if you are skilled in kuuki wo yomu – an awareness of nonverbal cues; generally valued in Japan over more obvious displays of communication.
Another of Netflix’s non-UK focused romance series also makes British dating shows seem strangely over the top. On Indian Matchmaking, now in its third season, contestants date to marry, and it’s serious. Matchmaker Sima Taparia pairs each single person with a suitor based on her expertise and their preferences, as well as those of their parents. Which makes sense: this is a country that values marriage, with a longstanding matchmaking tradition (in a 2018 survey, 93% of married Indian couples said that theirs was an arranged marriage). This isn’t a so-called “social experiment” in the vein of Love Is Blind or Married at First Sight, nor is it a quickfire route to social media fame as with Love Island.
“Our cameras drop in on a real-world process, not a constructed format that gamifies romance,” says Aaron Saidman, executive producer of Indian Matchmaking, who is keen to add that while many of the cast members feel drawn to the process due to their heritage and parents’ support, some had simply grown tired of dating apps. Either way, no one on the show appears to treat marriage lightly. “The stakes are higher right out of the gate. The participants are always thinking about their match as a potential life partner, and that already distinguishes it from most other dating shows,” says Saidman.
What about the US? When it comes to wild dating shows, you might think the States would hold the crown. This is, after all, the country that gave us Milf Manor (a series in which mother-son duos date other mother-son duos) and Dated & Related (the same idea, but with siblings). But Dani Neumann, managing director of Spun Gold, the production company behind Milf Manor, as well as huge swathes of British TV, believes that though US audiences favour splashy, OTT concepts, they’re actually more conservative when it comes to sexual content.
Perhaps this also makes sense: a 2022 survey found that 28% of Americans believe that premarital sex is “morally wrong.” In the 2000s, when today’s reality stars would have been kids, plenty of the biggest US pop stars wore purity rings. Despite their shows having eye-popping concepts, might it be that UK shows are far more sexually forward than ones from the States?
“We make shows in the UK that no one would dream of making in America,” says Neumann. “We made a show for Channel 4 called, wait for it, My Massive Cock. You could never pitch that in America; they’d look at you like you’d lost your mind.” Neumann paints US dating shows as almost like a trojan horse: big and bawdy on the outside, with a low-key conservatism hiding beneath. “When it comes to anything sexual, the [American] audience don’t want that,” she says. “You can be bigger and louder, cheekier and noisier – just as long as it’s not in a highly sexual way.”
But surely British shows can’t be the most sexually promiscuous in the world? In Too Hot to Handle: Brazil – a Netflix series that sees a group of absurdly good-looking people holed up on an island, unable to have sex without risking their prize fund – the make-out sessions are constant. In the first episode, two contestants have sex within the first 30 minutes. Rarely does anything come out of their mouths that isn’t about wanting to have sex. It’s hard to deny that, in comparison to The Boyfriend, the sexual forwardness is unparalleled. But also, the point of the show is that – just as in the British version – they’ve cast a bunch of attractive, horny people not looking for anything serious. So it probably says less about Brazilian dating culture, or their approach to dating shows in general, and more about the type of people who’d apply for this specific fun, sex-based show to begin with – doesn’t it?
Caio Giovani, a cast member on Too Hot to Handle: Brazil’s opening season, whose first night included sexily biting fruit from a girl’s mouth, isn’t so sure. “Brazilians are much more open compared to [those in] other countries, always more willing to talk and get to know other people better; even more those who live in Rio de Janeiro,” he says. Castmate Brenda Paixão, however, says she’s spent a few months in the US recently and didn’t observe a huge level of difference when it came to sexual openness and dating over there. “I love the energy of Brazilians,” she says. “But I must be fair to say that there are many admirable Americans.”
Considering the fact that we’re famous in the UK for our “stiff upper lip”, it might seem strange that our dating shows are so offbeat. But to anyone familiar with the contradictions inherent to British culture – a nation more likely to snog while drunk than dance in public – it makes sense. Our dating shows can often feel like an extension of that: wild in the sheets, weird and awkward in the streets.
Even so, a dating show can only tell us so much about the nation it comes from. Going on TV is bound to be an odd experience, so contestants aren’t always going to behave in the way they might at home. This is something that Taiki Takahashi, a producer and casting director of The Boyfriend, is keen to underline: “Because this was an unprecedented show in Japan, the boys might have been cautious about how they would be portrayed,” he says. “This unique environment likely influenced [them] to behave the way they did.”
Sometimes, it can feel refreshing to watch something a little less in-your-face than a bunch of Brits getting their bits out. Some of us might want some good old-fashioned romance. “The beauty of Indian Matchmaking is that even though it’s documenting a rich cultural practice, it’s highly relatable,” says Saidman. “Everyone wants to fall in love, and everyone wants to fall in love with someone they can imagine being together with for the rest of their lives.”
Dating Naked UK is on Paramount+ on 23 August. The Boyfriend and Indian Matchmaking are on Netflix now.
