It was described as a “meat market” and a “Blind Date in a brothel”, but Channel 4’s nude dating show, Naked Attraction, rose to the occasion and drew more viewers than both BBC2 and Channel 5’s Big Brother on Monday night.
Naked Attraction, presented by Anna Richardson, featured copious full frontal nudity, like Sex Box but without the box (or the sex) or, if you prefer, How To Look Good Naked without the tiresome clothes shopping trip with Gok Wan.
The new series began with 1.4 million viewers, a 9.1% share of the audience, from 10pm on Monday.
It had the better of Channel 5’s Big Brother, which drew 1.2 million viewers (7.9%), also from 10pm, and BBC2’s Rhod Gilbert’s Work Experience, which lost its shirt with 400,000 viewers, a 2.6% share, between 10pm and 10.30pm.
Naked Attraction did better than the first outing of Mariella Frostrup’s Sex Box, in which couples had sex in a box and then talked about it, which drew 1.1 million viewers in 2013.
The Daily Mail’s reviewer said the show was “like Blind Date in a brothel”.
“Anyone who doubts the poisonous influence of internet porn has only to watch five minutes of Naked Attraction to see the damage done,” wrote Christopher Stevens.
“For an entire generation, constant exposure to clinical sexual footage has ripped the soul out of erotic love.”
In a similar vein, the Daily Telegraph said it was “Blind Date with knobs on” and “reduced human attraction to a kind of game show meat market. How low can this Channel 4 dating show go?”
