It is striking that in a country where sex is considered more dangerous than firearms, more and more perverse inventions are being made for dating shows. Too hot to handle is still consistent with prudish American values: ten adults are put together in a house for four weeks. There are penalty points for kissing and touching, the same for masturbation. Winner is the one who refrains from any physical contact. Temptation island is a bit more challenging, with couples testing their relationship by exposing themselves to seducers on location 24/7. In Ex on the beach do candidates date each other’s or their own exes, or both of course. Loveisland is still the most manageable game show – male seeks female or vice versa – but that is originally a British program.
Aside from sex, it’s the least attractive urges that make date shows attractive to viewers. Competition and jealousy, deceit and humiliation, remorse, revenge and sometimes genuine sorrow. But even hatred, envy and (sometimes) fighting can become monotonous, so an extra inciting element was fine. One gay candidate in between maybe? No, don’t exaggerate right away. The Americans found something else taboo yet spicy: older women with much younger men.
By MILF Manor was already disgraced before the first episode aired Thursday on TLC. Was it because of the ‘intergenerational’ dating, the age difference of twenty years or more between the boys and the ‘mature’ women? Also. But what really caused a stir, also among the participants themselves: the eight single women appear to share the luxury resort with their sons and the idea is that they conquer each other’s sons. And that produces a whole new kind of emotion palette. Shame, disgust, and a kind of Darwinian primal urge in which one boy wants to prevent a peer from burying himself in his mother’s womb. In MILF Manor they call it one cockblock when the son drives a wedge between his mother and her date.
Otherwoman’s sons
I’ve quite radically locked my own fantasy, especially not to think about other women’s sons. That helped. Then I looked at eight women between the ages of 43 and 59, one even more toned, polished and plump than the other. One, Charlene of 46, was the most natural and of course she felt like the ‘ugly duckling’ who had to wait and see if someone’s son would like her. In the pre-recorded introductory interview at her home, Charlene said she was participating because her daughter would like to. She had died less than a year ago, aged 27. I don’t know what else to think about this.
After their initial horror – „awkward” – the eight American mothers overcome their reservations and the sons also cautiously explore. First assignment for the mothers: touch the bare torsos of all the men blindfolded and pick out their own son. They will share their bedroom with the chosen one in the coming weeks, even if the choice falls on the ‘wrong’ son. We were already given a glimpse of future discomfort. Mother Kelly (50) had a first date within six hours, but did her 20-year-old son have to leave the room or could he just as well stay?
We saw a mother with one of the sons playing plane on a surfboard, she said herself that she used to like to do that with her son. That son was meanwhile busy with the mother with the largest mouth and breasts. And Stefany, 46, trusted God, she said. He would appoint her a suitable son as a date. Oh yes, that was still missing, this love game went according to “God’s plan”.
Do I need to go further, or is it obvious?