Essay

Culture

Romance

23 March 2023

11 min read

It’s complicated: dissecting dating shows

From evening entertainment to essentially influential, TV dating shows define how many relate to each other. As a new series of Love is Blind drops, Lauren Windle explores their attraction and how to survive them.

Lauren Windle

Lauren Windle is an author, journalist, presenter and public speaker.

Looking down onto two rows of octagonal illuminated skylights over pods.

Looking down over the pods that are central to Love is Blind.

Netflix.

If you thought that my vicar’s emphatic sermon explaining why we should stay away from the likes of Love Island would stop me watching series 1-9 of the UK version, two vintage celeb series and a decent chunk of the Australian spin-off – you would be sorely mistaken.

On the face of it, reality dating shows, packed full of unobtainably attractive people using dubious techniques to secure a partner, don’t seem compatible with a life of devotion to Jesus. But, I’d like to put forward the case – with strong caveats – for us all enjoying the occasional escapism of a dating show.

A brief history

As a tabloid journalist, I’ve pretty much seen it all. My love affair with reality TV started when, as an 11-year-old, I sat inches away from the screen every weeknight just to soak in the excitement of the Big Brother house. The volume was low, which meant my mum couldn’t hear the housemates’ diary room confessions but that often I struggled to as well. I didn’t care, I just wanted to be a part of it. The most eagerly anticipated element to the claustrophobic 1984 spin-off were the love stories, Mel and Randy Andy from series one or Jade Goody and PJ from series three. We were all waiting for a romantic storyline to captivate our attentions.

Dating shows had been around for a while. We all remember the happy hattrick of ITV’s Baywatch, Gladiators and Blind Date on a Saturday night. The nation cosied up on the sofa to watch Cilla and Our Graham introduce a new couple. On the more youthful side, Davina McCall had been dashing around shopping centres and high streets trying to get people on impromptu dates on Streetmate since 1998. But with little follow up and no opportunity to immerse myself into the narrative of the love story, these held less interest for me.

That all changed with the introduction of Love Island. It started in 2005 as a show most won’t remember. In its original iteration, the tropical set hosted celebrities with a £100,000 prize for the famous pair who survived several public votes. The fame levels were modest at best, with a smattering of 90s popstar and soap actors and the mediocre-level entertainment was enjoyed for two seasons before ITV, its broadcast channel, axed the show due to disappointing ratings. I, of course, watched and enjoyed it, although 18 years on, I can only remember fan favourite Paul “Danger” Danan kicking up a fuss about something trivial.

The famed programme made a dramatic reappearance in 2015 but in the ten years between, other production companies had caught on. Novelty shows like Farmer Wants A Wife, Beauty and the Geek and Take Me Out cropped up. While others feigned interest in authentic connection like Undateables and First Dates. But still, nothing followed the relationship journey from first sight to break-up and all the messiness in between.

In order to get the press coverage required for the relaunch, the producers included one contestant who was, at best, fame-adjacent.

When Love Island came back, they had downgraded to ‘regular members of the public’, albeit the aesthetically elite, and slashed the prize fund to £50,000. In order to get the press coverage required for the relaunch, the producers included one contestant who was, at best, fame-adjacent. In the first series that was Lauren Richardson, a woman who had been at the centre of a cheating storm between One Direction’s Zayn Malik and Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards. For series two, it was Miss Great Britain, they then moved on to little known popstars, landing more recently with family members of celebrities like Tyson Fury’s brother Tommy, Michael Owen’s daughter Gemma and Danny Dyer’s daughter, also called Danni.

The first series gained some traction. There was coupling-up, heartbreak, a lot of sex and even a marriage proposal. But the show really blew up after Miss Great Britain, Zara Holland, was stripped of her pageant crown for performing a sex act on a fellow islander in series two. International media swarmed around the controversial incident and Zara was chastised for the night of passion. Alex Bowden, the male participant, was celebrated for his seduction, despite confessing to having no feelings for the model. This was when my perception of reality dating shows changed. No longer was I consuming them as an entry-level escape from reality, but because they had become influential. I realised Love Island wasn’t following the zeitgeist but setting it. Zara’s public dethroning became a feminist issue that was publicised in media outlets all over the world. From then on, ratings went through the roof and stayed at an eaves-busting level for years after.

The lexicon of love

It’s fair to say my 11-year-old rationale for consuming the easily-digestible reality TV was ill thought through, but into my 20s I knew exactly what I was doing. Love Island began to dictate the trajectory of relationships and the everyday language we use to describe them. Suddenly everyone was adopting ‘islander’ terminology like: “getting pied” (being rejected in a way that the receiver could deem embarrassing), “grafting”, “laying it on thick”, “Factor 50”, “being on job” and “putting in a shift” (all meaning courting the object of your affection), “turning your head” (being involved in some capacity with a person but transferring your attentions to another) and being “muggy” (generally disrespectful).

Another bizarre phenomenon that evolved off the back of the show is the new, previously unstated, stages of dating that I find both baffling and unnecessary. In days gone by, you met someone, you dated and you decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend, engagement and marriage may or may not have followed. These days, it is not that simple.

Its complicated

First you confirm that you’re “getting to know each other”. No longer platonic, this term signifies that you are evaluating your potential mate for compatibility but in a very loose handed and non-comital way. Next you are “seeing each other” this is where you have graduated past getting to know each other and are now dating. Reader, please note you are still not exclusive. The next stage in the marathon that is commitment, is that you say your “head wouldn’t turn” this means that, theoretically you only have eyes for the other person. Again, only the foolish would consider this a commitment. The statement can be retracted under the, not unlikely circumstances, that your head does in fact turn. If you survive this period without whiplash from all the erratic neck movements, you are in the territory of exclusivity. You are no longer “open to getting to know” anyone else and have “put your eggs in one basket”. But don’t, under any circumstances, use the term boyfriend and girlfriend at this juncture for fear of being an over-enthusiastic simpleton who doesn’t understand the social etiquette. You are still in a low commitment and decidedly fragile stage.

It’s often after this that people will say “I love you”, apparently far easier to pronounce than “girlfriend” or “boyfriend”. And finally, when the couple are sufficiently established, one party (often the male in heterosexual couples but not exclusively) will stage an elaborate proposal-style event in order to pop the all-important boyfriend/girlfriend question. Candles, rose petals, treasure hunts and any manner of other paraphernalia have been known to be involved. Exhausted? This 34-year-old wants to curl up in front of an episode of Last of the Summer Wine with a cup of Horlicks just thinking about it.

But am I pleased I understand it? Absolutely. This is how the younger people in our lives are now operating. No longer are people turning to teachers, parents or churches for advice (if they ever did). They’re take tips from bikini-clad hotties on the box. It’s the blind leading the blind.

A few years ago I was in my church and the children and youth pastor was heading out to run a Bible session at a nearby girls’ secondary school. As she left, she told me that they would be talking about Love Island. A few weeks prior, one of the female contestants had lamented the sexual relationship she had had with one of the men before he promptly “turned his head” for a new arrival. She had assumed that their shared physical intimacy was implicit of commitment and he disagreed. The teenage girls had discussed, in depth, how that would have felt under the same circumstances. They debated how to know that you are in an “exclusive” relationship and therefore able to step up your sexual contact.

Having just seen a woman desperately upset at her treatment, they were far more open to hearing about the emotional consequences of rushed intimacy. It was one of the most powerful, teachable moments she’d had with these young women, who were far more primed to learn from the regret of the influencers they admire than the “square” church leader who joined them once a week.

No, really complicated

More recently, two more shows have joined the heady heights of Love Island’s impact levels; Love Is Blind and Married At First Sight. The former is an American Netflix series where individuals are put into pods and can’t see their dates. They have ten days to romance the 15 members of the opposite sex sight unseen. Contestants only progress to the next stage, where they meet and go on holiday together, if they decide to get engaged while still in the pods. In Married At First Sight, which has a UK version but is revered mainly for its explosive Australian series, a couple is matched by an expert panel and they first meet at the altar. In response to the most frequent of all the FAQs around this show; the wedding is not legally binding so couples who choose to stay together will often have a second, legitimate ceremony. Equally the vast numbers of pairs who don’t work out, do not need to file for divorce.

We are all in a position of influence, whether that be at work, online or even just in our own homes. Therefore, surely we have a responsibility to understand the other forces that shape our world. Genuinely, whether a young person watches it or not, Love Island and these other programmes will affect the tone and expectations of their relationships, particularly romantic.

When not to watch

There is a key and very sensible argument for those of all faiths and none to avoid these shows. My vicar’s reasoning was, and still is, completely valid. What we fill our eyes, heads and hearts with is what we become. No one is immune from influence by the things they engage with. Christians are encouraged to let a lot of that stuff be good, Godly things. And to focus on that which builds us up and enhances our relationships with Him and with each other. Realistically, it’s unlikely we’ll find this enhancement through the medium of dating shows. There are a few circumstances under which I think people are best giving dating shows a wide berth.

When it comes to placing the right level of importance onto romantic love, these shows aren’t helpful.

If you are all consumed by the idea of being in a relationship and this longing is affecting your daily life – do yourself a favour and stay away. We mustn’t allow the lie that romantic relationships are the be-all and end-all to soak in. And we’re on dangerous ground when we start to believe intimacy is to be rushed to win popularity and a prizes. When it comes to placing the right level of importance onto romantic love, these shows aren’t helpful. They don’t celebrate the incredible joy and value of being single – if you don’t “couple up”, get engaged in the pods or decide to stay in your first-sight marriage, you’re out. That’s not what, as a Christian, I believe.

Being single is not a stage to “graft” your way out of. You’re not less valuable if you’re not picked to “couple up”. The Bible is really clear that whether for now, or for your life, being single comes with benefits and, in many ways, is preferable to being in a relationship. The key role-models that Christians hold dear as examples in our faith; Paul, John the Baptist and even Jesus himself, were single. Getting into a relationship isn’t “winning” or “levelling up”, it’s exchanging one state with its perks and challenges for another state with its perks and challenges. Being single does not demonstrate inferiority or unattractiveness - and those in relationships are not superior.

Second – if you are struggling with your body image. Be kind to yourself and do your best to avoid the taut and toned bodies on reality shows. The scantily clad contestants prancing about in their swimwear are unlikely to introduce genuine perspective into your thinking. Dating shows do make people feel that their, perfectly normal and healthy, body shape is in need of a crash diet and weightlifting session. You don’t need to be super thin and magazine-cover ready to find love. We all know this, in theory. But there are plenty of people who still feel that they’ll be more successful once they’ve shifted those last few pounds, finished Invisalign or toned up their abs. This is nonsense and these thoughts must be rejected every time they creep in.

Getting on top of intrusive thoughts is something people talk about all the time. But it’s scientifically proven that the more you try to supress a thought, the more you focus on it. Google Wegner's white bear if you want to check the receipts. I use a different framework for stopping unhelpful beliefs from settling in; taking those thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. This may sound like an airy-fairy, spiritual message but it’s straightforward and practical. If a thought comes to my mind that I know is damaging, rather than letting it fester or attempting to fight it, I acknowledge it. I pray to God telling Him that I’m handing that thought over and I reject it from my life. It’s as simple as that.

Finally, kindness must be a priority in a way that these shows don’t demonstrate. “Being true to yourself” is all well and good, but it is often used as a blanket excuse for poor behaviour. We see this time and time again on Love Island – when a contestant justifies their wandering eye by saying they “have to do what’s right for them”. Sometimes – you don’t. Sometimes, you have to do what’s most considerate for the people around you. I’m sorry did I say sometimes – I meant all the time. That doesn’t mean staying in a relationship that isn’t right for you, but it means having an open and caring conversation with that person before your “head turns” or you’ve “pulled someone else for a chat”.

Maybe we should all watch reality dating shows from time to time. But when we’re taking our lessons on body-image, self-worth, relationships, and love from these shows, that’s when we’re going wrong. Personally, I prefer the Bible.

Article

Assisted dying

Care

Culture

Death & life

13 November 2024

8 min read

The deceptive appeal of assisted dying changes medical practice

In Canada the moral ethos of medicine has shifted dramatically.

Ewan Goligher

Ewan is a physician practising in Toronto, Canada.

a doctor consults a tablet against the backdrop of a Canadian flag.

Once again, the UK parliament is set to debate the question of legalizing euthanasia (a traditional term for physician-assisted death). Political conditions appear to be conducive to the legalization of this technological approach to managing death. The case for assisted death appears deceptively simple—it’s about compassion, respect, empowerment, freedom from suffering. Who can oppose such positive goals? Yet, writing from Canada, I can only warn of the ways in which the embrace of physician-assisted death will fundamentally change the practice of medicine. Reflecting on the last 10 years of our experience, two themes stick out to me—pressure, and self-deception.

I still remember quite distinctly the day that it dawned on me that the moral ethos of medicine in Canada was shifting dramatically. Traditionally, respect for the sacredness of the patient’s life and a corresponding absolute prohibition on deliberately causing the death of a patient were widely seen as essential hallmarks of a virtuous physician. Suddenly, in a 180 degree ethical turn, a willingness to intentionally cause the death of a patient was now seen as the hallmark of patient-centered doctor. A willingness to cause the patient’s death was a sign of compassion and even purported self-sacrifice in that one would put the patient’s desires and values ahead of their own. Those of us who continued to insist on the wrongness of deliberately causing death would now be seen as moral outliers, barriers to the well-being and dignity of our patients. We were tolerated to some extent, and mainly out of a sense of collegiality. But we were also a source of slight embarrassment. Nobody really wanted to debate the question with us; the question was settled without debate.

Yet there was no denying the way that pressure was brought to bear, in ways subtle and overt, to participate in the new assisted death regime. We humans are unavoidably moral creatures, and when we come to believe that something is good, we see ourselves and others as having an obligation to support it. We have a hard time accepting those who refuse to join us. Such was the case with assisted death. With the loudest and most strident voices in the Canadian medical profession embracing assisted death as a high and unquestioned moral good, refusal to participate in assisted death could not be fully tolerated.

We deceive ourselves if we think that doctors have fully accepted that euthanasia is ethical when only very few are actually willing to administer it.

Regulators in Ontario and Nova Scotia (two Canadian provinces) stipulated that physicians who were unwilling to perform the death procedure must make an effective referral to a willing “provider”. Although the Supreme Court decision made it clear in their decision to strike down the criminal prohibition against physician-assisted death that no particular physician was under any obligation to provide the procedure, the regulators chose to enforce participation by way of this effective referral requirement. After all, this was the only way to normalize this new practice. Doctors don't ordinarily refuse to refer their patients for medically necessary procedures; if assisted death was understood to be a medically necessary good, then an unwillingness to make such referral could not be tolerated.

And this form of pressure brings us to the pattern of deception. First, it is deceptive to suggest that an effective referral to a willing provider confers no moral culpability on the referring physician for the death of the patient. Those of us who objected to referring the patient were told that like Pilate, we could wash our hands of the patient’s death by passing them along to someone else who had the courage to do the deed. Yet the same regulators clearly prohibited referral for female genital mutilation. They therefore seemed to understand the moral responsibility attached to an effective referral. Such glaring inconsistencies about the moral significance of a referral suggests that when they claimed that a referral avoided culpability for death by euthanasia, they were deceiving themselves and us.

The very need for a referral system signifies another self-deception. Doctors normally make referrals only when an assessment or procedure lies outside their technical expertise. In the case of assisted death, every physician has the requisite technical expertise to cause death. There is nothing at all complicated or difficult or specialized about assessing euthanasia eligibility criteria or the sequential administration of toxic doses of midazolam, propofol, rocuronium, and lidocaine. The fact that the vast majority of physicians are unwilling to perform this procedure entails that moral objection to participation in assisted death remains widespread in the medical profession. The referral mechanism is for physicians who are “uncomfortable” in performing the procedure; they can send the patient to someone else more comfortable. But to be comfortable in this case is to be “morally comfortable”, not “technically comfortable”. We deceive ourselves if we think that doctors have fully accepted that euthanasia is ethical when only very few are actually willing to administer it.

We deceived ourselves into thinking that assisted death is a medical therapy for a medical problem, when in fact it is an existential therapy for a spiritual problem.

There is also self-deception with respect to the cause of death. In Canada, when a patient dies by doctor-assisted death, the person completing the death certificate is required to record the cause of death as the reason that the patient requested euthanasia, not the act of euthanasia per se. This must lead to all sorts of moments of absurdity for physicians completing death certificates—do patients really die from advanced osteoarthritis? (one of the many reasons patients have sought and obtained euthanasia). I suspect that this practice is intended to shield those who perform euthanasia from any long-term legal liability should the law be reversed. But if medicine, medical progress, and medical safety are predicated on an honest acknowledgment about causes of death, then this form of self-deception should not be countenanced. We need to be honest with ourselves about why our patients die.

There has also been self-deception about whether physician-assisted death is a form of suicide. Some proponents of assisted death contend that assisted death is not an act of deliberate self-killing, but rather merely a choice over the manner and timing of one's death. It's not clear why one would try to distort language this way and deny that “physician-assisted suicide” is suicide, except perhaps to assuage conscience and minimize stigma. Perhaps we all know that suicide is never really a form of self-respect. To sustain our moral and social affirmation of physician-assisted death, we have to deny what this practice actually represents.

There has been self-deception about the possibility of putting limits around the practice of assisted death. Early on, advocates insisted that euthanasia would be available only to those for whom death was reasonably foreseeable (to use the Canadian legal parlance). But once death comes to be viewed as a therapeutic option, the therapeutic possibilities become nearly limitless. Death was soon viewed as a therapy for severe disability or for health-related consequences of poverty and loneliness (though often poverty and loneliness are the consequence of the health issues). Soon we were talking about death as a therapy for mental illness. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so is grievous and irremediable suffering. Death inevitably becomes therapeutic option for any form of suffering. Efforts to limit the practice to certain populations (e.g. those with disabilities) are inevitably seen as paternalistic and discriminatory.

There has been self-deception about the reasons justifying legalization of assisted death. Before legalization, advocates decry the uncontrolled physical suffering associated with the dying process and claim that prohibiting assisted death dehumanizes patients and leaves them in agony. Once legalized, it rapidly becomes clear that this therapy is not for physical suffering but rather for existential suffering: the loss of autonomy, the sense of being a burden, the despair of seeing any point in going on with life. The desire for death reflects a crisis of meaning. We deceived ourselves into thinking that assisted death is a medical therapy for a medical problem, when in fact it is an existential therapy for a spiritual problem.

We have also deceived ourselves by claiming to know whether some patients are better off dead, when in fact we have no idea what it's like to be dead. The utilitarian calculus underpinning the logic of assisted death relies on the presumption that we know what it is like before we die in comparison to what it is like after we die. In general, the unstated assumption is that there is nothing after death. This is perhaps why the practice is generally promoted by atheists and opposed by theists. But in my experience, it is very rare for people to address this question explicitly. They prefer to let the question of existence beyond death lie dormant, untouched. To think that physicians qua physicians have any expertise on or authority on the question of what it’s like to be dead, or that such medicine can at all comport with a scientific evidence-based approach to medical decision-making, is a profound self-deception.

Finally, we deceive ourselves when we pretend that ending people’s lives at their voluntary request is all about respecting personal autonomy. People seek death when they can see no other way forward with life—they are subject to the constraints of their circumstances, finances, support networks, and even internal spiritual resources. We are not nearly so autonomous as we wish to think. And in the end, the patient does not choose whether to die; the doctor chooses whether the patient should die. The patient requests, the doctor decides. Recent new stories have made clear the challenges for practitioners of euthanasia to pick and choose who should die among their patients. In Canada, you can have death, but only if your doctor agrees that your life is not worth living. However much these doctors might purport to act from compassion, one cannot help see a connection to Nazi physicians labelling the unwanted as “Lebensunwortes leben”—life unworthy of life. In adopting assisted death, we cannot avoid dehumanizing ourselves. Death with dignity is a deception.

These many acts of self-deception in relation to physician-assisted death should not surprise us, for the practice is intrinsically self-deceptive. It claims to be motivated by the value of the patient; it claims to promote the dignity of the patient; it claims to respect the autonomy of the patient. In fact, it directly contravenes all three of those goods.

It degrades the value of the patient by accepting that it doesn't matter whether or not the patient exists.

It denies the dignity of the patient by treating the patient as a mere means to an end—the sufferer is ended in order to end the suffering.

It destroys the autonomy of the patient because it takes away autonomy. The patient might autonomously express a desire for death, but the act of rendering someone dead does not enhance their autonomy; it obliterates it.

Yet the need for self-deception represents the fatal weakness of this practice. In time, truth will win over falsehood, light over darkness, wisdom over folly. So let us ever cling to the truth, and faithfully continue to speak the truth in love to the dying and the living. Truth overcomes pressure. The truth will set us free.