MAFS Australia 2024: The Onscreen Queerness No one is Talking About
Married At First Sight (MAFS) is a juggernaut reality TV franchise which began in Denmark and has since been sold internationally, including to Network 9 here in Australia, where it has aired every summer since 2015. MAFS is now the highest rating TV show in Australia, reaching 2,461,000 viewers.
MAFS IS AT LEAST 5–10 YEARS BEHIND THE TIMES
Despite all the frank chatter around sex, fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol, and the omnipresent spectacle of cosmetic surgery, lip filler and bare skin, MAFS is a socially conservative show.
Although the franchise now includes a gay or lesbian couple each season, this is a carefully calibrated move to seem inclusive — though not alienating — to less liberally-minded viewers. As we might expect from a show with ‘marriage’ in the title, MAFS remains committed to depicting traditional, monogamous relationships, though we might also expect MAFS to start depicting polyamory and consensual open relationships as soon as they figure that a profitable proportion of the Australian public will serve as the perfect (meaning: profitable) amount of outraged/intrigued without switching off.
MAFS has yet to feature an openly and visibly transgender or non-binary Participant, possibly because trans and non-binary people would be at far greater personal risk from appearing on the show and would never be so reckless as to apply. However, I suspect Producers wouldn’t recruit anyone from the trans community even if a trans person applied.
Evidence? They’ve had the opportunity to star someone with a marginalised identity, and chose not to. MAFS has never yet featured an openly asexual or aromantic participant, but not for complete lack of applicants. At least one demisexual person has applied. After talking with producers in 2019, Nicole Seifert revealed later to media how she was ghosted. It remains unclear whether she was dropped because she told them about her demisexuality, or for some other reason entirely. What we can safely deduce: If MAFS were interested in any sort of positive queer platforming, they’d have jumped at the chance to tell the story of a marginalised identity for educational purposes, which is partly why this particular demisexual applicant applied in the first place. Instead of recruiting Nicole for their 2020 season, MAFS ran for the hills.
However. As an aspec viewer of MAFS myself, I believe aspec people have appeared on the show, more than once, across previous seasons. This isn’t surprising. After all, MAFS producers actively seek to recruit at least one sexually inexperienced Participant each season, partly for prurient spectacle, and partly in the hopes that Participant will experience a sexual character arc. Such a recruitment process will inevitably attract a disproportionately high proportion of aspec people as applicants. Although aspec people are rare, we are — ironically but not surprisingly — less rare on MAFS. And we’re not as rare as widely touted stats would seem (1%), because many aspecs (short for asexual/aromantic spectrum people) don’t realise they’re aspec.
Sadly, frustratingly, it’s likely the case that MAFS producers filter out any aspec applicants who understand their own aspec identities, but favour instead aspecs who count as aspec by widely-accepted definitions… so long as those aspec applicants don’t know it or reveal it.
If my interpretation is on target, this says something terrible about everyone involved in the production of MAFS. When calculating the magnitude of evil, I urge you to consider a scenario in which MAFS producers behave like this towards applicants they have privately decoded as gay: “Sure, we’ll have you on our show, gay-seeming dude, but only if you don’t appear to know you’re gay, and are happy to conform to the heteronormative conservative standards of our funding model. We’re partnering you with a woman, and we’ll expect you to fall in love and have sex with her within the first few weeks, otherwise we’re sending in our sexologist to hurry things along.”
This would never happen because gay men know they are gay these days. That’s not yet the case for the so-called invisible (aspec) orientations, in which many aspec people have never encountered their own community, or the language around it. The older you are, the less likely you can accurately describe aspec identities. The older you are, the less likely you are to identify as aspec. That’s not down to a sudden explosion in aspecs.
THIS IS SEXUAL COERCION, AT BEST
Shows like MAFS don’t help in the quest to get people understanding how their own attraction works, aspec or not.
In fact, MAFS Producers actively stand in the way of aspec people understanding themselves, and being understood by others.
MAFS Producers and Relationship Experts do not even accept aspec identities as legitimate orientations in the first place and, when faced with a Participant who does not want to have sex within a few weeks (for whatever reason), they step in to shame Participants into performing partnered sexual behaviours. When applied to straight people, we call this sexual coercion, which sits on the assault spectrum. When applied to queer identities, it is very much this, and also, troublingly, conversion therapy.
No coincidence: MAFS is filmed in Sydney. As of 2024, New South Wales still has some of the worst laws in the country for LGBTIQ+ people. Queer residents of NSW remain subject to conversion practices, as well as discrimination in religious institutions. ID laws for trans and gender diverse people are significantly outdated.
Why spend time critiquing this show?
Precisely because of its influence. If you’re not in the MAFS bubble, you may not know it, but viewers into this show are Really Into It. MAFS provides water cooler conversation. With more fragmented media these days, how rare is it to be watching a show that people at work are also watching? A handful of shows fill that hole: MAFS is one of them. (In Australia, cooking shows, house renovation competitions and similar fill that gap — Reality TV creates conversation, if nothing else.)
Like any entertainment with an audience that skews female (73% in this case), viewers of MAFS are too often considered vacuous tabula rasa, unable to tell the difference between reality and “Reality” as manufactured for Reality TV. I’m keen to avoid doing that.
While viewers may underestimate the extent of behind-the-scenes manipulation, I believe viewers, as a corpus, do understand that they are watching a production. Emphasis on produced. In fact, the biggest fans are more likely to understand the extent of the manipulation, because avid viewers will be most likely to seek out interviews and various paratextual material about Participants, many of whom are on record about the rules and realities of appearing in the show. Media love to publish stories from former MAFS participants who ‘tell all’ about behind-the-scenes experiences. So we know it’s not ‘scripted’ in the way fiction is scripted. We do know that Participants are ‘coached’. They are plied with alcohol and told that Drama must happen before dinner parties are allowed to wind down. Perhaps most of all, narrative is created in the editing: What is left in, versus what is left out.
Reality TV is all about the narrative, but it doesn’t create narratives in the way that groundbreaking fiction can do. No, Reality TV only works when audiences already understand an existing cultural narrative. Otherwise it just doesn’t work. Viewers will feel they’re watching a random collection of clips. This is important: MAFS (and similar dating Reality TV shows) both reflect and reinforce existing cultural narratives around sex, relationships and romance, whatever those may be. And because a mass audience must understand these narratives, Reality TV skews hugely conservative. There’s nothing new to be found in Reality TV.
Even if audiences fully understand they are not watching reality, can a Reality TV show still be damaging?
Of course. MAFS can be hugely damaging, depending on how it’s watched. (Critically, or wholesale?)
The degree of fictionality is tangential, because a narrative does not require a foothold in reality to have an impact on society.
To side-step complications regarding Degree of Reality, for the purposes of this critique, I’ll be treating MAFS as entirely fictional. The show is neither pure fiction nor observational documentary, but sits somewhere in between. Let’s focus on its narratives, which are very real, regardless of whether the Participants (their lives, their dialogue etc.) are ‘real’. MAFS is popular precisely because its narratives (around love, sex and relationships) play into the dominant cultural narratives of contemporary society. These narratives are so very dominant, they remain invisible to most people (especially most allosexual, cisgender, heterosexual people) most of the time. And precisely because MAFS is so very over the top in its depiction of narratives around sex, love and romance, this show provides a window into what many viewers have absorbed without interrogation. If watched through a critical lens, even a reality TV show such as MAFS can lay bare what is normally cloaked.
Contra to its popularity, each year more is written about problematic and outright damaging aspects of MAFS.
SUMMARY OF MAIN CRITICISMS OF MAFS
The entire set-up makes a mockery of marriage; Participants are there for clout and to kickstart influencer careers, not to find a long-term partner; The Relationship Experts behave unethically while touting themselves as professionals who have Participants’ best interests at heart; Very few pairings last beyond the show, illuminating its inefficacy as a partnering machine, and also illuminating the real intentions of the producers, which is to create entertainment, not love.
At best, the Relationship Experts have a poor filtering system. Each season, personality disorders are on full display. Each year, a misogynist. It would seem a Misogynist Archetype is specifically scouted for Drama purposes, alongside the Heart-on-her-sleeve, Tell-it-like-it-is woman who appears abrasive and alienating at first but later becomes audience fave; The Pretty Young Woman who stands-by-her-man until she finally sees she’s been paired with The Misogynist (we hope); The Shy Virgin Guy; the Hot but Airhead Guy(s)… Watch a few seasons and the character archetypes soon become clear.
Worst of all, MAFS is a coercively controlling franchise. Aside from recruiting coercive Relationship Experts, and the requisite coercively controlling partner, I argue that the franchise itself coerces and controls by mirroring the coercively controlling environment we live in, otherwise known as our culture of compulsory sexuality. For more on the specifics of that, read Sherronda J. Brown’s excellent book Resisting Compulsory Sexuality.
THE PREMISE OF MAFS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T SEEN THE SHOW
If you’ve managed to avoid MAFS and the corpus of publicity around it, here’s the premise in a nutshell:
Three Relationship Experts* work together to field applications from hopeful Participants. They explain to the camera why X would be a good match for Y, and conduct interviews with candidates.
*Following complaints from working psychologists, the MAFS “Experts” no longer call themselves “psychologists”. However, John Aitken, Trisha Stratford and Mel Schilling are/were trained in psychology outside the show. (Trisha Stratford, clinical neuropsychologist, died in 2023 aged 72; Mel Schilling has a psychology diploma which takes 4 years of training; John Aitken is a clinical psychologist, which takes 7 years.) This article explains why the ‘Relationship Experts’ no longer call themselves psychologists.
Since 2015, the Australian public has become more tolerant of same-sex couples on screen. The long fight for marriage equality was finally won in December 2017. Like American show (not so) Modern Family, which refused to show any sort of affection between their married gay characters, MAFS refused to include gay couples until after the LGBTQIA+ community had fought for marriage equality.
Participants are not getting legally married. But apart from the exact legal language during the wedding ceremony, everything else about the day emulates a wedding day, followed by a honeymoon paid for by the show.
Directly following the wedding, Participants move into a small apartment, where other MAFS Participants also live. They are expected to share the same bed. Some Participants have sex the first night; others keep wearing pyjamas and putting up pillow walls. Some move onto the couch. If things really start going downhill, Participants can temporarily request a separate apartment.
Relationship Experts intervene if couples are not behaving as expected, according to the dominant cultural script. Participants are expected to be lovers, not friends. After psychologist Trisha Stratford stood down from the show (after Season 7, citing unethical practices), producers recruited clinical sexologist, Alessandra Rampolla, as replacement. Especially since 2018, if MAFS Participants are insufficiently sexual according to the (unspoken but very clear) rules of the show, Alessandra is sent in to encourage overt and partnered sexual behaviours.
Alessandra has conveyed to media: “One of my strongest core beliefs is that sexual expression and compatibility are vital in building, nourishing and maintaining healthy romantic relationships, and it is my pleasure to help guide our participants in balancing this important factor in their brave quest for love.”
However, as is typical for certified sexologists, Alessandra Rampolla seems to believe that More Sex equals Healthy and Good Relationship, Less Sex equals Unhealthy and Bad. This view very much suits the producers of MAFS, because (alloromantic*) audiences love to see sexual behaviours on screen. If sex happens privately in the dark (as it usually does), Participants can at least talk about it on camera afterwards, and do. As we can see from social media commentary running alongside the show, audiences love to witness that twinkle of eye, and to vicariously enjoy the sexual spark happening between hot and overtly sexual people.
*Alloromantic means not aromantic, just as allosexual means not asexual. The vast majority of the population is alloromantic and allosexual, meaning their experience of romance and sexual attraction is normative and expected, whether they are straight, gay or bi+.
And when the initial spark of attraction wears off — as it mostly does in this show — audiences can now experience the equally engaging flipside of attraction — relationship conflict. Cue schadenfreude.
Every week the Participants sit down on a couch where they face either congratulations or lectures from the three Experts. This all depends on how well they are able to perform sexuality and romance for them and for the audience. If the couple appear to be smiling and loved-up, they get pats on the back. If the couple are not having sex, they are asked, “Why not? What’s wrong?”
AN UNLIKELY(?) HISTORY OF ASPEC MAFS PARTICIPANTS
In the case of Timothy and Tristan from the 2024 season of MAFS, Producers clearly hope for character arcs towards the sexual, and away from the (possibly) aromantic and asexual (or, as I’m about to argue, the demisexual).
The bigger the arc, the better the ratings. However, MAFS has never achieved (forced) a sexual arc yet.
For each of the show’s aspec Participants I have privately identified while grimacing at former seasons, the show has done no aspec Participant any good whatsoever; if anything, MAFS only appears to have exacted psychological harm on any unwittingly aspec Participants, hoping for help finding love.
DEMISEXUALITY AS DEPICTED IN MAFS AUSTRALIA 2024
Insofar as I recognise my own kind, I have reason to think that the 2024 season of Australian MAFS features one, two or possibly even three* demisexual Participants, all of them men. Regardless of identity, MAFS Experts pushed four men to have sex before they were ready.
There’s not much to say about Collins. He didn’t stay long. “So you are feeling those feelings” Expert Dr. John Aitken says to Collins, referring to “butterflies” — Collins’ word for sexual or romantic attraction, a widely understood metaphor for sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or both. “It took you a while to get there,” John continues, accusingly, perhaps referring to Collins’ ‘slow’ rate of attraction or perhaps referring to his reluctance to talk about it. Abruptly, Collins and his Wife left. If neurodivergent Characters appeared on the show this year, that was one or both of them.
Since MAFS is entirely at odds with accommodating demisexual Participants, this show serves to illuminate how demisexuals struggle to find love and sex in a world geared entirely at the normatively attracted population, and the very reason for the need of demisexual as an identity label in its own right.
By ‘normatively attracted’, I refer (mostly) to allosexual people who experience sexual attraction regularly and unambiguously, to people they encounter briefly, or perhaps not at all (as in the case of attraction to celebrities).
As I discuss below, in the case of Jack, not every non-normatively attracted person is on the asexual/aromantic spectrum. Allosexual means not asexual, and is the widely used term within apsec circles.
Demisexuals, by contrast to allosexuals, can only ever experience sexual attraction after forming a close emotional bond with a partner.
I believe demisexuals are far more common than most people realise, without also being normative in the slightest. By ignoring the needs of people whose attraction grows slowly and over time, the appointed MAFS Relationship Experts do a disservice to not only the demisexual Participants, but also to the wider asexual spectrum community.
I’m against pushing queer identity labels onto real people. I have no idea who the people behind the characters on MAFS really are, or whether a queer, demisexual label fits. Audiences receive only the backstory that fits the show’s manufactured Narrative, no more. Audiences see an edited, manipulated and controlled version of real people, to the point where I consider Participants Fictional Character Archetypes, regardless of whether they use their real names or not. (Some don’t, e.g. Lucinda Light.) Influencing my choice to regard Participants as fictional characters, a high proportion of Participants come from acting backgrounds, and 2024 is the first year a recognisable actor has been recruited to the show. By including a Home and Away actor as an ‘Intruder’, MAFS producers are this year making a statement about the manufactured nature of the show. Long-term viewers already know from paratextual media (the press, social media, podcasts) that, in previous seasons, at least some of the Participants have been head-hunted, probably because they have The Reality TV Look. As of 2024, MAFS producers have even included subtle cuts showing audiences production equipment and even shots of the producers themselves at work. This is a deliberate choice to break the fourth wall, reminding audiences that we are watching a Production, with the probable aim of fending off accusations MAFS is selling entertainment while marketing it as observational documentary. They want us to know, without a doubt, that we are watching Entertainment.
THE CASE OF TIMOTHY
51-year-old Timothy (who is called by his full first name to distinguish him from a younger Participant shortened to ‘Tim’), is an unambiguously demisexual Character. When defending himself from charges of ‘having a wall up’ or some kind of ‘block’, he informs the Experts, Lucinda and the audience that he takes his time in relationships.
“All of my relationships have started with a good friendship,” Timothy tells the normatively-attracted Tori at dinner.
“I don’t have a … type,” Timothy further explains. “If I connect with somebody over a period of time, we connect.” He says this after being accused of dating women much younger than himself before coming onto the show. He defends himself by explaining that he has dated “women between the ages of 53 and 23.”
If Timothy is the sort of person who only experiences sexual attraction after forming a deep, emotional bond, he does have a ‘type’, but not in the sense meant here. His type is fully in line with what we might expect of a demisexual: Timothy is attracted to people with whom he has developed a close emotional bond. In Timothy’s case, he happens to be oriented towards women, on top of that. If he told me he is a hetero-oriented demisexual, I’d know immediately what he meant and I’d respect his orientation. It fits, perfectly. I wouldn’t expect someone like this to apply for MAFS, unless he was at his wits’ end. Which he clearly is.
Lucinda sums up their early relationship like this: “We’re in friendzone right now. Tim isn’t even attracted to me … I’m not really sure where to go from here. We are doing the worst out of all the couples.”
Lucinda is doing what many Participants do, encouraged by the Experts — comparing the speed of ‘Falling In Love’ to the speed of other couples.
Faster does not mean better. We should all interrogate this. For an inverse example of Lucinda and Tim’s ‘slow burn’, contrast the other older couple on the 2024 season of MAFS: 62-year-old Richard, paired with Andrea, 51. The pair enjoy an instant sexual attraction which only later turns to sh*t. The great sex they were having blinded them to the reality that they’re not all that well suited at all.
At the first Commitment Ceremony, Timothy is required to explain why there’s been no kissing and cuddling. He once again describes himself as a ‘slow burn’. He also tells us that ‘all’ of his previous relationships have gone like this. The more someone pushes, the more he pulls away. He also describes himself as “a grind” on other people. The Expert John chastises him by saying, “If that’s your mindset, then you will be.”
Timothy is a guy who knows himself, to an extent. He won’t be bulldozed. Like the culture at large, the show is doing its best to bulldoze him into submission, though. They need this guy to have sex.
This is why the ace community has our own shared vocabulary for sexual and romantic ways-of-being in the world. According to The MAFS Expert, Timothy’s slow burn is ‘a mindset’ that can and should change rather than an inherent, unchanging, and completely healthy part of himself.
Meanwhile, his Wife Lucinda describes wanting to be closer to him physically. She underscores her sexual attraction to Timothy as the other couples look on with fond smiles and giggles. She describes him as a “spunk” and jokes that she likes to take him out and about and enjoy a “perv”.
On the MAFS couch, the partner who craves fast connection is good and healthy and emotionally intelligent. The partner who requires time and emotional connection before sexual connection can begin to occur is considered bad and unhealthy and stuck.
It doesn’t help when the other older male participant, Richard, declares that he is enjoying sex with his new wife at a rate of between two to four times a day, or so he announces to the audience of millions — to the chagrin of his mortified wife. (This kind of talk proves very unattractive to his wife, and is the beginning of Richard’s undoing.) Richard reveals that, on Bucks’ night, it was Tim who declared he would “absolutely” have sex with his new Wife on the very first night.
What men say in the presence of other men, and how men actually are, are sometimes two completely separate things. This outright lie is entirely in keeping with the pressure men feel around other men to present as supersexual. It would make sense if a demisexual man — who does not have access to the aspec community and language — were to inflate his own sexuality for the sake of appearances and prestige.
“It’s a little bit of a bullsh*t thing,” Timothy confides to Lucinda later, royally caught out. “Sometimes you say something at a boys’ night.”
“Attraction can build,” he continues, to non-listening ears.
“What advice and feedback are you going to take on board?” Lucinda presses, keen to know what Tim is “going to do differently to forge forward in an interesting, dynamic way that is not the same as last week.”
Once again Tim asks for some time. Lucinda asks Tim to confirm that once again it will be her who does the “compromising”. Tim walks off, announcing that he is pissed off. “I can’t handle this.” He feels cornered and pinned down. He clearly feels forced to have sex he isn’t ready for.
Let’s imagine for a moment that the genders were swapped. What would we think of a man pressing a woman to have sex before she is ready? Feminist activism has in recent years highlighted the many ways in which women are coerced into sex, assaulted, and raped at astonishing, alarming rates. It’s time to talk also about how men are likewise coerced into having sex they do not desire. What if it were Timothy following Lucinda around the apartment, constantly trying to flirt by telling her how sexy and beautiful she is, then complaining to the audience and to everyone in the show that Lucinda isn’t giving him sex? I wager audiences would still blame him. Whether Timothy’s sexual desire is below or above that of his wife, he’s doing something wrong.
Although we more readily associate sexual coercion with men coercing women (and for solid, statistical reason!), women, too must consider that men don’t always desire sex. We are still, as a culture, stuck in this old-school thinking in which women are ‘complex’ and men are ‘simple’. By ‘simple’, we mean that men are always after sex, that they are frequently and easily sexually attracted, and if they ever say ‘no’, this means something is deeply, terribly, irreparably wrong with the relationship at a deep level.
Lucinda, like all modern women, has been taught by the dominant culture that her desire for sex trumps Timothy’s need for bodily autonomy. But demisexuality is real. It is so frustrating to see something happening which no one can identify because too few people accept demisexuality as an orientation. Most people haven’t heard the word. Those who have, frequently dismiss it out of hand as a ‘bullshit label invented by kids who are way too online’.
This is how the show frames Tim as the problem. The aptly named Lucinda Light is framed as the beam who can show him the way to sexual enlightenment, if only he can unpack his ‘baggage’.
“Having lost much of his family already, Timothy puts up a wall to protect himself,” says John the Expert over a montage of Tim sitting alone at a bar and Lucinda walking alone along a beautiful Byron Bay beach. “We’re hoping that Lucinda is one of the few people kind and patient enough to help him break down those barriers and help him embrace love.”
Lucinda tells the crew that she wants to be “celebrated, enjoyed and respected”. For her, to be desired sexually equals general respect. (Later, when we meet Lucinda’s father, we’ll see that Lucinda learned this conflation from her own father.)
After Tim cools off at a nearby gym, Lucinda tells Timothy that she understands why he “cracked it”. “You were overwhelmed, underslept. It was too much, you know?”
No one in this situation understands anything, yet. It is impossible to understand each other and ourselves unless we all, as a culture, accept and understand aspec sexualities.
The problem is not lack of sleep. The problem is a simple mismatch between how Tim and Lucinda’s attraction works. But so far we’ve heard only slivers of information about Lucinda’s baggage. Still single in her 40s, we can assume she has some backstory that could easily be mined for the show. But no, the narrative is all about Timothy and his baggage: his tragic backstory of loss and now, his tendency to get overwhelmed. Now the poor guy is even failing to achieve sufficient sleep. As long-term partnered people may know, once the sex goes wrong, you can’t do anything right.
Later, it is revealed that Tim wasn’t entirely thrilled about Lucinda getting into bed with him topless. On top of everything else that’s gone down, he interprets Lucinda’s nakedness as pressure to perform sex. He asks if they can peel it back and hit the reset button. As part of this request, he asks Lucinda to come to bed with a shirt on.
Lucinda feels roundly accused. She points out the hypocrisy, familiar to women everywhere: Her nakedness is sexual, whereas Tim’s nakedness is neutral. Tim has been wearing only undies. She normally sleeps naked at home, and had only been wearing full pyjamas as a compromise. Lucinda tells Tim that the double standard is “rude” and now she goes one further. Lucinda points out that Timothy “has boobs as well”.
“Wow,” says Tim, perceiving the emasculating insult exactly as it was intended. “She just pissed in my cornflakes.”
“I think self-romancing is where it’s at, at this point,” Lucinda tells the camera.
I want to talk about that boobs comment, because it seems no one else is. I completely understand where Lucinda is coming from. Her naked chest is read as sexual, whereas Timothy can simply go to bed without a shirt and be comfortable. (Australia is hot, in case anyone didn’t know, and many Australians sleep naked or mostly naked all year round.) Timothy is personally oblivious to the reality that Lucinda finds Timothy sexually attractive, no matter what he’s wearing or not wearing. As a non-normatively attracted person, Timothy doesn’t get this at a fundamental level. (It’s something I’ve noticed many aces take a while to get. When you don’t experience high levels of sexual attraction yourself, it’s more difficult to understand that other people — allosexual people — constantly do.) Timothy also has low self-esteem when it comes to body image.
This is why Lucinda’s boobs comment needs interrogation. For a man, to have boobs pointed out is not only feminising, but also fat-shamey. This insult is perfectly calibrated to retain plausible deniability on Lucinda’s part. After all, isn’t the put-upon Lucinda simply pointing out an historical imbalance? When we say Lucinda is ‘emotionally intelligent’, this is what we mean. Lucinda has dished that insult perfectly. ‘Boobs’ is a femme-coded word. It’s complicated to criticise her for saying it, because boobs aren’t bad. The reason boobs aren’t bad? Because women aren’t bad. Also, ‘boobs’ are kind of funny, right? Especially with the gender-swap ‘humour’ that happens when we talk about boobs on men. It’s like a hat on a dog.
That’s what I mean by plausible deniability. With this under-the-radar insult, Lucinda beckons the Australian viewership. She has viewers on side.
This is what happens when men ‘fail’ to have the requisite amount of sex with their female partners. Even from ‘emotionally intelligent’ women, men who don’t prioritise sex have their masculinity called into question, either subtly, like this, or much more harshly. (What might Lucinda have said if cameras weren’t rolling?)
Regardless of how Timothy, or any other man, feels about his chest tissue, this comment did not come out of nowhere. It comes hot on the heels of Lucinda complaining about lack of sex from Timothy. There’s a reason why she said ‘boobs’ and not ‘your sexy chest’.
Clinical sexologist Alessandra intervenes to ‘get the couple back on track’. “No pressure no pressure,” she says, “but at the same time I think we can jump start this a bit.” She suggests a hugging challenge called The Melted Hug, in which two people start with an ordinary sort of embrace and then fall into each other.
“Tim’s not really into hugs,” Lucinda says.
As sad piano music plays, Tim explains between meaningful edited pauses, and cuts to close-ups of his uncomfortable hand gestures, that his father never used to hug him. If ever little Tim went in for a hug his father would push him away. Apparently this is why he doesn’t like hugs to this day. Fear of rejection.
“There are so many beautiful things that come out of hugs,” Alessandra the sex expert says, “and one of them is the ability to form close connection with someone.” She explains how hugs function as a way to “get in sync” with another person and provide comfort.
Like the eye contact challenge, everyone, allistic (non-autistic), Autistic or otherwise, feels their own way about hugs. I myself get nothing out of hugs. This actually makes me an outlier in the asexual community and also in the Autistic community. I would say most asexuals and also a goodly proportion of Autistics enjoy or even crave hugs. However, understanding my own sexuality and neurotype has alerted me to the existence of other asexuals and Autistics who feel the same always as I do about physical touch. And there’s nothing wrong with us. This is how we are built.
It’s entirely possible that Timothy (or some other hypothetical person) on MAFS isn’t into hugs either, and you don’t need to share my neurotype and sexual orientation before being ‘allowed’ to not really get much out of hugs. Some people just don’t. I say this with the full acknowledgement that the rules of hegemonic masculinity teaches men not to need hugs even when they’d otherwise love hugs. It’s possible Timothy and his late father are both in this category. The fact is, we’ll never know, because “not needing hugs” is not an option within a relationship. If someone happens to not need hugs, this in itself is considered evidence of an unhealthy person and a stalled relationship. The reason for the stall is always the same in our culture of compulsory sexuality and compulsory physical affection: The non-hugger’s lack of hugging is the issue, not the hugger’s need for hugs.
After participating in the challenge, Timothy says he enjoyed the hug despite expressing reluctance to do it. Lucinda feels “hope has been restored”.
Regardless of how Timothy feels about (coerced) hugs in general, he is clearly happy to have made Lucinda happy. However, this doesn’t last. Here’s the thing about performing physicality for the benefit of someone else, even if that someone is your designated or chosen partner: It takes a lot out of you. Giving yourself physically is not a neutral act. It’s an enormous gift. Gifts have costs. But according to the rules of relationships, as imposed by the dominant culture, you’re being stingy or closed-off or problematic by saying no to it. I put it to you: Timothy’s need for personal space is no less important than Lucinda’s need for physical proximity. Lucinda is never going to teach Timothy to love hugs. I don’t care why he doesn’t like them. He just doesn’t. Let’s flip the question. No one’s going around asking the likes of Lucinda why she needs them so much. If Lucinda were in the sexual minority instead, all of us aces might instead be asking, “What is wrong with you, needing all these hugs all the time? Please explain your insecurity.”
On the couch Timothy demonstrates that he has absorbed this narrative about himself, and I’m sure his trauma (so far mostly unexplained to viewers) explains some of that. He tells us he has many walls up. In previous relationships he has shared himself and “women have run a mile.” By his own description, Timothy has “more baggage than Qantas.” This sound byte is played a number of times across the season.
Lucinda wants to “unpack” baggage whereas Timothy wants to leave it in the past. “That’s just how I get by.”
To laughter, Lucinda initially said, “Let’s get in there. Let’s excavate!” The experts remind Timothy how emotionally intelligent she is. Could he find anyone better at helping him unpack his baggage?
This story about Lucinda Light as ‘emotionally intelligent’ has been swallowed hook, line and sinker by the wider viewing public. “This woman is honestly a gem,” writes Alexandra Koster for a MAFS Recap at Refinery 29. “Australia’s queen. I need her to give me a personalised lesson in emotional intelligence, please.”
I agree that Lucinda has significant emotional intelligence. But emotional intelligence can be deployed for evil as well as for good, as she demonstrated in her funny-not-funny “boobs” put-down. Timothy, on the other hand, has already shown us that he is yet to break out of the ‘man box’ our society — especially, perhaps, certain parts of Australian society — slots men into. He has already demonstrated to us how he felt the need to present himself as supersexual in front of other men. He also keeps saying the phrase, “I’m pissed off.” Anger is one of the few difficult emotions men are permitted to express. This impacts what men themselves allow their bodies to feel.
Earlier, when asked to rank his priorities in life alongside Lucinda’s, the supersexual Byron Bay crystal-hippie marriage celebrant Lucinda Light was disappointed to learn that Timothy puts ‘sex’ right down the bottom. The Experts have done their usual thing: By pairing the demisexual (and possibly greysexual) Timothy with the supersexual Lucinda, who MCs at tantric sex getaways — that’s how sexual she is — they ‘hope’ that Lucinda will ‘bring Timothy out of his shell’.
The truth? Producers know this will create conflict. Conflict equals ratings. MAFS Experts also show their hand: They regard Timothy as broken. He is broken due to some unresolved trauma, and Timothy does have recent trauma. His father recently died. Worse (but great for The Narrative), right before he died, Timothy’s father told Timothy that he’d never really liked him. Timothy has also lost his mother and his brother and is completely without family.
This is known as ‘baggage’. And the narrative of baggage is convincing. It’s heartbreaking, actually. And MAFS requires heartbreaking. Heartbreaking will always win over ‘boring’, which is what apsec people are (to others) once we know and understand ourselves and settle down with, or without, a like-minded partner (or partners).
Of course, Timothy was chosen precisely because of this backstory, and because he has not disclosed any aspec identity to the producers. I doubt Timothy knows that his description of himself means he fits rather neatly into what we now call ‘demisexual’ identity, a subset of the asexual spectrum. I suspect Timothy has at times enjoyed sex, under the right circumstances, and would probably shake his head at any suggestion of the ‘A’ word (asexuality).
This is how the aspec community misses so many cis men. Here they are. Regardless of whether the real Tim is aspec or not, here’s an example of what those invisible cis male aces look like. They are Timothy from MAFS. Regular guys who go to work, come home to their dogs, tell their dogs to stop licking them. They relax by playing console games on the TV. They go to bed in undies while sometimes forgetting to brush their teeth. They do all of these things. They go through the motions, rack up a string of failed relationships with women who feel dismissed and wind up wondering what the hell is wrong with them. They search around for answers, and inevitably find something. Even if Timothy’s father had been great; if his mother and brother were still alive, I bet Timothy would attribute his ‘lack of openness’ to something else. In lieu of complete information, we all have something in our history to blame.
As a 51-year-old Gen-Xer, Timothy came of age before the word demisexual existed. It’s highly likely Timothy has never encountered the word, and even if he had, he may write it off. As a tattooed, dad-bod Aussie bloke with no interest in sex with other men, a man like Timothy would not see himself represented in queer communities. He may dismiss the asexual community out of hand, even if he’d find solidarity with us immensely helpful. He assumes he’s completely straight. If you’re not gay, you’re straight. Right? (Aspecs and bisexuals share in common the issue of invisibility.)
After a few weeks of living together in the same small apartment, Lucinda tells the Experts that she and Timothy are “like friends”, and that she has lost most of her initial attraction to Timothy.
If allosexuals were as motivated to come up with words to describe the many various ways of experiencing attraction, they might have come up with a word to describe people whose sexual attraction is quick to form, but lost unless soon reciprocated. There’s a reason why things do and don’t have labels. If something does not have a name, that might be because it’s very rare, or it might be because it’s so normative no one has thought to name it. I suspect many, many allosexuals have attraction that works like Lucinda’s. Under most conditions, this is a prosocial and highly adaptive way to move through the world. It allows people to move on, for starters. However, in this highly contrived ‘Experiment’, partners are not permitted to simply ‘move on’. They’ve signed up for something sustained and substantial.
In response to Lucinda’s description of a platonic relationship with Timothy, Alessandra checks her understanding of the situation: “So, no progress in terms of an actual connection,” she says.
As is very typical for Alessandra the clinical sexologist, ‘connection’ is shorthand for one thing, and one thing only: sexual connection. To Alessandra, sexual connection is the only kind that matters. To her, connections exist in a hierarchy, with sexual connection at the top. This is antithetical to an aspec worldview, and illuminates how aspec identities are queer. Aspec individuals have no choice but to be relationship abolitionists. (By the way, abolition is not about destruction. Abolition is about building again from the ground up.)
Timothy does not rank sexual connection at the top of the hierarchy, and disagrees with Lucinda’s take. “We are moving forward,” he says. “We’ve had a great couple of days.”
Everything about the editing of this show encourages viewers to side with Lucinda, the poor, neglected woman who is doing all of the ‘work’ in the relationship, getting nothing in return from her emotionally stunted man.
Timothy needs space, even within their shared apartment. He needs mental space — far more than Lucinda needs herself. But Timothy’s need for space — physical, emotional and sexual — are usurped by Lucinda’s need for affection, affection and sex.
On the couch, Timothy writes ‘Stay’, indicating he’s not done with the Experiment just yet. Expert Alessandra responds: “It’s very confusing why you would write ‘stay’ in this experiment when the aim is to fall in love, five weeks in.” Now we know exactly the timeline Alessandra works to. The sexologist has put an actual time on it: Five weeks. Five weeks is officially too long if he’s not having sex yet. If Timothy isn’t sexually attracted to Lucinda at this point, there’s something wrong with Timothy, and he doesn’t deserve to take up a spot on the show.
It would be interesting to compare this hothouse-environment timeline to the unspoken, unwritten timeline rules held by normatively attracted people immersed in the dating world. If you watch other dating shows, participants will frequently talk about a ‘spark’. After one short date, normatively-attracted people will very confidently declare the existence or non-existence of a ‘spark’. For people on the asexual spectrum, a spark will never be there, not on a first date, and sometimes not ever. Whereas sex repulsed asexuals can be sure a ‘spark’ will never ignite, and act accordingly, demisexuals are left with a different but equally difficult dilemma: Demisexuals must either move forward (or not) without knowing whether a spark will eventually form (or not). It can take a lifetime to understand the inner-workings of your own non-normative attraction; it would take another lifetime to more accurately predict what sort of person you’re likely to find attractive in future. This is how a disproportionate number of demisexuals end up on dating shows such as MAFS; finding a partner as a demisexual is such a hurdle that experts are sometimes brought in. Outside perspective is sought.
After Timothy writes ‘Stay’, Lucinda reveals that she has written ‘Leave’. She says there’s no “spark of possibility for romance with this man”. At this point, Timothy tells her he feels thrown under the bus. In his opinion, they had a good three days. (Again with the good three days.)
Another (much younger) guy (Jayden, 27) interjects from across the room: “We’re in a marriage experiment not a friendship experiment!”
“I don’t need advice from you,” Tim says, increasingly annoyed.
“Actually, you do need to hear it.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
Later, in the official MAFS podcast, John Aitken will criticise Timothy for failing to hear what younger people say.
“What’s happening for you Timothy?” asks Alessandra. Then, stating the obvious: “You seem upset.”
Lucinda agrees they’ve been on “fun adventures” but brings up Timothy’s “man cave”.
The Man Cave is a widely understood metaphorical space and refers to a place in the house or shed where men take time for themselves. Feminists have said a lot about man caves, and studies have shown that men in heterosexual relationships frequently take more time for themselves, leaving woman partners with a disproportionate share of housework and caring responsibilities.
There are problems with The Man Cave, and many women — feminist or not — will understand The Man Cave as a negative thing. Lucinda does also suggest that if her relationship with Timothy were to continue, she would probably be lumped with an unfair share of the housework. Unfair amounts of leisure time is a real and legitimate problem, and something that men, as a group, need to address.
But aside from that criticism, it really does seem true that Timothy requires space. And this? We must respect it. Timothy requires more space than Lucinda — mentally, physically (including sexually) and emotionally. Housework unevenness aside, Timothy is not more wrong than Lucinda. These people are built differently.
“I thought we were moving forward,” Timothy says, “but I’m actually questioning why I wrote [stay] now.”
This is when The Bombshell drops. Each season, an out-of-context sound byte promises drama and conflict. This year, viewers learn at the beginning of episode one that Expert John Aitken will be asking someone to leave. This has never happened before. The shock. The drama. We’ve seen a lot of bad behaviour on this show, so this person must do something really, really bad.
Now John Aitken says it: “If you’re not going to do anything different*, frankly I’d prefer you to leave.”
*What does John mean by “anything different?” Sexual and romantic behaviours, of course.
Did he say it to the Misogynist who told another Husband to “muzzle” his woman? Did the experts suddenly realise they’d paired a young woman with a misogynist, and possibly put her in harm’s way, knowing full well that the most misogynistic men are also the most abusive? If they do realise that, they haven’t turfed the Misogynist out. No, Jack is too valuable to the dramah.
No, it’s boring old Timothy whose right to stay is officially called into question.
This show is no good for demisexuals. Nor is it any good for ratings. The show requires Timothy do something sexual with Lucinda. He needs to do it fast. Like everyone else recruited to this show, he signed on as an (unwitting, non-consenting) sex worker.
Cut to shocked faces from the other participants.
John says, “Tonight it’s dead in the water. I’ve got great hopes for you but you’ve got to break old patterns.”
But this is not “old patterns”. This is a way-of-being in the world. This is a sexual orientation. It’s the way Timothy is built.
Again, this is why people need access to and understanding of the demisexual label. Unless there’s respect for how someone’s attraction works, it will always be seen as a personal flaw. Potential partners will take personal offence and cut ‘slow burn’ relationships short.
To be clear, this is Lucinda’s right. If early and frequent sex is a non-negotiable for Lucinda, then this relationship is not for her. But without a fuller understanding of how Timothy’s attraction works, she is taking his lack of sexual interest in her as a personal sleight. We cannot know for sure how much this sleight is affecting her feelings towards Timothy. How would she feel if she knew, understood and accepted that he couldn’t find her (or anyone!) attractive at this point under any circumstance?
Since Timothy wrote ‘Stay’ on his card, Lucinda also has to stay for a bit longer in the ‘Experiment’.
With Timothy in a strop, the pair are driven to meet Lucinda’s elderly parents and also Tim’s best female friend and her husband.
The producers paint Lucinda’s dad Michael as a straight-talking slightly larrikin type.
Going by the dad’s canary yellow jacket and shirt, and also by his crystal-loving, Byron Bay daughter with an accent I actually thought was a bit for one or two full episodes, I’ve no doubt this guy is a bit of an outlier when it comes to ‘Aussie blokes’.
However. I put it to you alsothat, although Lucinda’s father is unusual for his straight-talking, the content of his speech shows an entirely typical way to think. We too often look at an elderly man like Michael and forget that Baby Boomers came of age during the original hippie/free love era. They’re not generally a sex negative bunch. Boomers rebelled against a sexually repressive culture, and collectively fought hard for the sexual freedoms that they did win. An unintended but inevitable consequence of this: Anyone who isn’t having/wanting plentiful sex is basically snubbing his nose at all the wins.
Lucinda tells her parents and Tim’s friends that they’ve had “a rocky week”, but as background to that, they haven’t had sex yet.
“He doesn’t find me sexually attractive,” she says, with obvious emotion.
Everyone at the table looks stunned and saddened.
Now Michael reveals his own Boomer hipster view on life, addressing Timothy: “Honestly, have you tried to work on that sexual attraction?”
Once again, this is why demisexuality needs to be considered as an orientation before people will start to respect demisexuals.
Imagine saying that to a gay man. You can’t, right? Unless you lived through the homophobic 20th century, and then you well might. Attraction isn’t something people can ‘work on’. Attraction simply is. Attraction is how we’re wired, and it tends to track across a lifetime (regardless of whether trauma is involved or not — plenty of traumatised men absolutely love and crave partnered sex, you know?)
This is how the dominant culture gaslights aspecs into having sex we don’t want or aren’t ready for. On top of that, the pressure to have sex derives from the pressure to not be boring.
I am sitting at a café with a friend, over an hour into our catch up. Within this hour, they haven’t once asked me a single question about myself. Not even a perfunctory “how are you?”. The topic that we’ve been discussing for the past hour — and I use the word “discussing” lightly, as it was more of a monologue — was their dating life.
Michael tells the camera: “[Timothy’s] a bit repetitive, I think. And a bit boring.” Then we see him telling Timothy that to his face, but in a half-joking way.
The ‘boring’ comment is in direct response to Timothy complaining that everyone has “jumped on Lucinda’s bandwagon” when it comes to supporting her desire for sex and his own desire to wait. Unlike in Spanish, English language makes no distinction between temporary and enduring descriptors, but I feel the old man is saying that Timothy is a boring person, in general.
This is the charge aspec people get frequently. In our highly sexualised society, with sexual pleasure at the pinnacle of all the manifold pleasures available to us, anyone who seems to reject that hierarchy of pleasure with sex at the top is regarded as boring. This is Othering, it is isolating, and I do not for one moment wonder why Timothy has faced so much rejection in his life. Perhaps he has faced rejection partly because he is demisexual?
Of course, that’s never the reason given. It’ll always be something like: “You’re too closed off. You’re not affectionate enough. You’re not man enough. You’re boring.”
Tim is ‘softening’ (a word his bff uses) after hearing Lucinda’s father talk. He’s trying to please Lucinda’s father, after all. Also, if he gets sh*tty about this, that would make him seem awful. It is easier, in the short term, to acquiesce.
“Yes,” he says to the attraction question. He has been working on it. Next, I see him once again trying to explain his demisexuality, except he doesn’t seem to have access to that word. “We’re just having a good time with no expectations. That’s what I got so shitty about. Like, we had a really great couple of days. We went to shows, and we were actually having a lot of fun.”
Cutting to Michael talking to the camera, Lucinda’s dad says, “He’s got my lovely daughter there, and what have you done to zhoush things up a bit?”
Cut back to Michael lecturing Timothy. “Don’t you think it’s time to not get pissed off so easily? You need to not get your tits in a tangle and pull your finger out.”
This makes Timothy laugh. Timothy might be laughing right now— I’m remembering the boobs comment.
Michael continues, addressing Timothy: “I want Lucy to be happy and I can see that she’s not. There’s a time frame on this show. Four, five weeks … You’ve got a lovely lady who’s attracted to you. So you need to maybe try a little bit harder.”
Does it feel a little creepy to you that Michael is pushing Timothy to have sex with his daughter? Much of the viewing public isn’t quite sure what to make of it, going by the paratext around the show, e.g. that Refinery 29 recap article which is titled: Lucinda’s Dad Asks Tim To Pls Bone His Daughter.
“Hey, it’s not for me to tell you what to do but we’d like to see a little action on your behalf. It could be a one night stand, it could be anything but just sort of try it.”
Again, this makes Timothy laugh.
Michael was half-joking, half-not. Lucinda learnt this from her father, I see. “He’s quite a pleasant sort of a guy,” Michael says to camera, “but he’s gotta at least try. I hope he does.”
Here’s where the narratives uncovered by Reality TV differ from narratives we get in fiction. Think of a father figure on one of your favourite TV shows. Not a comedy, a drama. If a fictional father said this dialogue on a TV show, what would you think of the writing? Might you think, “No father would ever say that to his potential son in law?!”
Analysis of MAFS is interesting because, actually, this is the exact sort of thing contemporary, hippie boomer parents say. At least, white ones do. The type I’m personally familiar with do say and think this way. Michael has been very clear: He wants his daughter to be happy, and the way for her to be happy is to have a man giving her sex. This older MAFS couple is past the child-bearing age, so Michael’s not about getting grandchildren. We are now at a point in our culture where ‘happiness’ is obligatory, and partners are responsible, because true happiness is garnered via partnered, regular sex, satisfying sex.
Partnered aspecs may already be familiar with the likes of Michael. Partnered asexuals come up against this attitude from in-laws, or fear it. Even after finding partners who are happy to have us no matter what, there’s often that question of, would the in-laws still accept me if they knew I wasn’t regularly boning their child? If the phrase ‘boning their child’ makes you wince, that’s because it’s not said aloud. Michael of MAFS is of interest mainly because he’s said it, for us all to hear. (Allosexual) parents expect their adult children to get boned. They actually think about it. Their minds go there.
Lucinda and Timothy get things back on track, largely because of Timothy’s largesse at being told he’s boring, repetitive and needs to work on his attraciton.
At the next dinner party, 27 year old it becomes clear that Jayden has decided since last Timothy isn’t treating Lucinda right. He’s not holding her hand. They haven’t kissed. Tori (Jack’s Wife) joins in, deflecting from her own Husband’s badness, calling Timothy “emotionally immature”. The young people think Tim is disrespecting them because they are younger.
Timothy overhears Jayden express these concerns to Lucinda, who has, to her credit, decided to just give Timothy his space. Young people against Timothy (for his perceived lack of affection towards the beloved Lucinda) forms the majority of conflict for the dinner party, and also brings out the worst side of Timothy, who at one point slams his hand onto the table and spills Lauren’s wine. Liquor doesn’t help anyone.
This show is made for drama and conflict, and is a whole scenario in its own right, but are we watching a microcosm hothouse version of conversations that take place all around the country when a demisexual person is “too slow” to offer physical affection? The allosexual partner’s concerned friends and family will frequently step in. “He’s not emotionally mature enough for you. He’s stringing you along. You deserve better.”
To her credit, Lucinda stepped back from requiring sex and overt romantic gestures from Timothy. Apparently she fully intended to leave but — as often happens — she was persuaded by Producers to stick it out because they could see Lucinda would be an audience fave. It seems clear to me that Timothy and Lucinda were able to gradually forge a deeper connection precisely because Lucinda quit trying to force things. She stopped making demasculising comments.
As John Aitken told Timothy on the couch, weeks later, “Lucinda is a very patient woman.”
There’s something a bit icky about all of this to me — subtext reading: “A lesser woman would not have put up with your slowness. Be grateful. This is one of the few women out there for you, and we found her. Don’t squander this opportunity.”
So the pressure is never fully off Timothy. And Lucinda gets all the glory and credit for working on this broken, damaged man. The feminist part of me is equally annoyed that women are so often relegated to the role of ‘fixing’ men, sacrificing their own needs. In this case, though, I believe the adulation Lucinda will receive from the MAFS watching public makes the Timothy Project worth it for her.
Finally, a nod to the behind the scenes machinations: Insiders have revealed to media that the break-ups are planned in advance to avoid the ratings-nightmare of a mass walkout. However, occasionally they get it wrong:
It is alleged that the couple the producers expected to fail fairly quickly was Timothy and Lucinda who, of course, have gone on to be fan favourites.
“That was always planned to fall apart after Collins and Natalie but producers changed their minds when they realised Lucinda was TV gold and continued to coordinate that relationship behind the scenes to keep them in the experiment as long as possible,” the source says.
— MAFS insider reveals surprising claim about Timothy and Lucinda’s relationship
In short, MAFS never meant for Lucinda and Timothy to stick together. They were set up to fail, and to provide us plenty of drama as a pair of absolute opposites.
THE CASE OF TRISTAN
Now to Tristan, who gets on with Timothy better than any of the other men on the show. There’s a reason for that: The two men are similar in many ways, despite the age gap. Tristan even calls Timothy ‘Dad’ and bought him a present on Father’s Day.
The character of Tristan is a more ambiguous case to deem ‘demisexual’, for the reason that MAFS is emphasising his trauma rather than interrogating how he experiences attraction. Until a person works through their trauma, it’s difficult to know whether they are experiencing a relationship ‘block’ or whether ‘slowly does it’ in relationships is simply how they’re built.
For reasons related to childhood fatness and implied bullying, viewers are encouraged to regard Tristan’s ‘lack’ of sexual intimacy with the lovely (normatively-attracted) Cassandra as a result of Tristan’s childhood trauma, rather than considering another point of view: That there’s nothing wrong with Tristan at all. He is simply demisexual, constitutionally incapable of feeling sexual attraction until he feels a deep emotional bond with a partner.
However, MAFS loves a trauma narrative. Tristan’s childhood fatness — an Ugly Duckling story, because Tristan is a good looking 30-year-old bloke — works beautifully for the purposes of mass entertainment. So many viewers can relate to being being bullied for their looks. Far fewer viewers are themselves demisexual. Creating narratives for Reality TV is partly a numbers game.
The real man who is Tristan may himself go with the trauma narrative rather than considering for a second that he might also belong in the queer community. Not everyone in the queer community ‘looks queer’; especially aspec queers romantically hetero. Besides, it is always easier to sit with a personal narrative (even if wrong) than to flail around without any narrative at all. Humans tend to seek Reasons whenever things don’t go well. Sometimes, we grab onto wrong reasons, which terminates further introspection. Narratives act as a salve, because introspection is painful.
If the Relationship Experts were worth their salt, they’d not be so quick to jump onto Reasons of Trauma for Tristan’s slowness of attraction to Cassandra. They’d accept that not everyone feels attraction within weeks. For some people, it takes years. The filming schedule does not have years; the production schedule is weeks. Ergo, demisexual Participants are gaslit by the Relationship Experts into not being demisexual. They must lose a fundamental part of themselves. After all, they signed on for this. If they don’t want to go at the Set Speed, what are they even doing here?
Mirroring the older Lucinda paired with Timothy, “I feel like I’m just a friend,” Cass tells clinical sexologist Alessandra, who has swooped in to ‘help’ the couple along. No wonder Lucinda and Cassandra have also hit it off. Cassandra speaks of Lucinda, her older mentor, in glowing terms. Both of them are dealing with Husbands who don’t (yet) wish to have sex with them. They find solace in each other. If they had access to more complete information about how their men work, they wouldn’t need to bond in this particular way.
“I wish it wasn’t this hard but the intimacy part is nerve-wracking,” Tristan tells Expert Alessandra.
“But the want is there. That’s something I can deal with! The first thing to do is ask questions about each other’s inner world,” recommends Alessandra. “Small things, daily and often.”
“Cass loves intimacy,” Tristan continues, conflating sexual intimacy with emotional intimacy, completely in line with the mistake the Experts themselves keep making. “So I need to start sitting on the couch, giving her some snuggles.”
Tristan understands exactly what’s expected of him, but he doesn’t manage it. At the next Commitment Ceremony, Tristan says, “I’m not feeling good. It was a really emotional week.”
Cassandra explains: “I woke up this morning and he was just distant. I don’t know what happened.”
Tristan says: “I’m a bit nervous that we’re maybe a bit more friends and that’s where we are going to stop, as friends … I may not be enough for her.”
Cassandra says, “He’s everything I would love in a husband. I have been validating him, hugging him, so I don’t understand.”
Tristan writes ‘Leave’, ostensibly because he doesn’t want Cassandra to be wasting her time and she deserves someone better. But no one really thinks he means it, except for, briefly, Cassandra herself, who covers her face and cries. She’s devastated.
The Experts tell Tristan: “Sometimes you get stuck in your own head. This week is about you doing the work, Tristan.”
Once again, a possibly aspec man is told to put in the ‘work’. He must change how he inherently is. If he fails, there’s something wrong with him. Not only that, he is some kind of ‘lazy’. If only he’d tried harder, he wouldn’t have messed things up with Casssandra… We don’t know where this one’s going yet, but the example of Tristan as compared to Timothy suggests that demisexuality in men is far more common than most people are prepared to accept, including the demisexual men themselves.
When Tristan and Cassandra meet their family, Cassandra’s lovable, clownish dad, who excelled at his Father of the Bride speech, albeit in a very heteronormative, daughter-owning kind of way (“If she gives you any trouble… don’t come to me!), the scene is edited to show Modi staring Tristan down, before immediately asking, “How’s the sex?”
I wondered if Lucinda’s father were an outlier; now I’m sure he’s not. Fathers really do seem very concerned about their daughters’ sex lives. Is this the new form of daddy-daughter ownership? Fathers are no longer concerned about preserving their daughters’ virginity. No, that would be very 20th century. Now it looks like this. Wouldn’t it be weird for a father to ask another man, “Are you giving my daughter orgasms?” But what is he really asking, if not this exact thing?
In contemporary Australian culture, the pressure to have sex comes from absolutely all directions. Once your inlaws start requiring you to perform good sex with their own child, you know there’s no reprieve.
After a few stern seconds, Modi appears to break out in a huge laugh, to indicate he’s joking, actually. But this guy isn’t ‘joking’. Cassandra knows it. “He’s cheeky,” she says quietly, pushing her hair behind her ears, looking down.
Tristan’s mother is concerned about Tristan rather than Cassandra, of course: “Tristan, sometimes I think you’ve got imposter syndrome where you think you don’t deserve what you’ve got.”
We should always listen to mothers. Mothers know their own children. Adding to this mother’s assessment of her own child, could Tristan’s imposter syndrome derive from lack of access to language which would describe his own identity? (Merged with his background of being bullied?? Whether we are talking about the autistic community or the queer community, until people know who they are, they mask. Miranda Fricker calls this hermeneutical injustice. The term describes the specific epistemic injustice of not having access to the words and/or concept to describe your situation. If you’ve ever had an invisible or undiagnosed illness but suffered much pain and discomfort, you’ll know at a deep level what this means. If you’ve ever been sexually assaulted but didn’t know at the time, or for years, that it ‘counted’ as sexual assault, then you, too, will understand the meaning of ‘hermeneutical injustice’. Aspec people who don’t know they’re aspec face this particular injustice. In fact, epistemic injustice is the main injustice faced by aspecs.
The other is testimonial injustice, in which you try to tell people who you are, and no one believes you or takes you seriously. We see this play out with Timothy, who keeps trying to tell everyone he takes relationships slow, that’s just how he is, but no one believes him.
A SIDE NOTE ABOUT STEPHEN
Stephen is the 27-year-old hairdresser paired with 34-year-old Michael, whose first match bowed out. This gay couple came in partway through the season.
On paper they look perfect together. But it seems the Experts forgot to ask a crucial question. Perhaps they thought it wasn’t okay to ask this, even though gay men themselves are pretty up-front about it between themselves: Do you prefer mascs or feminine types?
Unfortunately for Michael and Stephen, they are both pretty feminine, which isn’t a problem for Michael. He finds Stephen very attractive. But the Experts — and other cast members — look shocked and disappointed when Stephen reveals that he prefers less feminine men than Michael.
Next, Stephen says something very interesting, since we’re talking about people who take more time to feel attracted: “I hold all the power.”
He says this reluctantly, not narcissistically. He fully understands that his Husband is falling for him, and this makes his lack of attraction all the more painful to admit.
When mixed-attraction couples seek counselling, what too often happens is this: The less attracted person is accused of deliberately withholding. This is seen as a control issue, and if this were the case, it would say some pretty awful things about the person involved.
However, I don’t believe Stephen has any more control over his attraction than anyone else. We wouldn’t expect a gay man to eventually fall for a woman, so we shouldn’t expect a gay man to fall for another feminine gay man. Attraction does not fall neatly along gendered lines, because gender, like sexuality, is not binary.
Despite breaking up, the couples have clearly been persuaded by Producers to attend the Couples Retreat. Sitting around the outdoor firepit, other Participants react to the news that Stephen found a hairdresser instantly attractive, flirted obviously in front of Michael, and afterwards told Michael that he doesn’t experience that with Michael.
Honestly, Participants who appear on MAFS purely to advance their own careers as influences and SWers are the more clear-headed bunch. Those who hope the Relationship Experts have their best interests at heart and hope that they will develop a sexual attraction to whoever they’ve been paired with are the more likely to be gravely wounded.
My take: During the argument that led to Michael taking off his wedding ring, Stephen was trying (not very articulately) to explain to Michael that, sometimes, you just don’t feel attracted to someone, for reasons outside your control. However, he does feel platonic interest, and would like to keep Michael in his life as a friend.
Both Stephen and Michael have conservative values (most queers would avoid this show like the plague). At the same time, they’re not quite as conservative as, say, Cassandra, who takes Stephen to task from the other side of the firepit at Couples Retreat.
While Stephen has been trying to persuade everyone that he is simply not attracted to Michael, for reasons outside his control, Cassandra is the voice of many — that a ‘spark’ of attraction with that hairdresser is fleeting, it means nothing. She points out the difference between love and lust.
But this isn’t about any difference between love and lust. Everyone understands this by now. (I go into that more deeply in my analysis of a different, kinder dating show, Swiping America.) Stephen is getting increasingly frustrated that no one around him seems to understand that sexual attraction (“spark”) is either there or it is not. No amount of work will change how someone’s basic attraction works.
As an asexual person myself, I understand this far more clearly than many allosexual viewers. I have never experienced sexual attraction to anyone in my life, and not for lack of trying. When people say ‘relationships take work’, this is not what they mean.
If the straight, male-attracted Cassandra were paired with a woman, for example, how much ‘work’ would she put in before concluding that she’s simply not attracted to other woman, no matter how hard she tries?
Most people understand this when they do the thought experiment.
Around the fire pit, I also feel for Michael, who is shown to blow his fuse when another woman offers her opinion. Taken on its own, Michael’s reaction to Sara seems over the top. But there’s a wider context to consider. Conservative and “family oriented” as Michael is, as a queer person myself I can feel how annoyed he is about having a cis, straight woman telling you what’s what, and what to feel. The entire world is set up for people like Sara. Whatever the straights have to say to Michael (and Stephen) just isn’t going to fly.
It is a contrivance specific to highly produced dating shows like MAFS that Participants are expected to ‘work’ on their relationships until they feel sexually attracted to their partners. But do we see echoes of this attitude in the wider culture? To what extent to viewers genuinely believe that sexual attraction is something to ‘work’ on? When they talk about ‘sparks’, what are people really talking about?
THE CASE OF JACK
I don’t believe the likes of Jack belong in the aspec community. However, I also believe Jack’s attraction might be non-normative, depending on how we define ‘normative’. Icky as it is, we need to talk about Jack.
Jack, Jack, 2024’s overt Misogynist. Tattooed gym junkie and personal trainer, Jack is your classic Alpha Male. Paired with pretty, blonde, 27-year-old Tori, who prides herself on being a Strong Woman at Work because it’s her ‘literal job’ to deal with horrible men, Tori loses clarity and confidence once paired with Jack. She tells other Wives off-screen that she hopes to move to Queensland after the Experiment to live as husband and wife with her Husband. Oh yes, the pair are not having sex.
When Jack tells another male participant during a gym session — literal locker room talk — that he feels no sexual spark with Tori, and that during wife swap week, another Husband is welcome to have sex with his Wife because he’s just not feeling it — this starts a chain of drama which culminates in Misogynist Jack telling the husband of Loveable, Loudmouth Lauren over dinner to “put a muzzle on your woman”.
None of the men stand up to such misogynistic commentary, including Lauren’s husband who is disappointingly beholden to ‘the Alpha’ — as pointed out by Expert Mel Schilling. Later, John Aitken points out to all of the Husbands that they missed a chance to stand up to a public display of misogyny, thereby missing opportunity to send a message to Jack that such degrading comments are unacceptable.
This is the most useful thing I’ve heard out of Dr. John Aitken, and I suspect it actually came from Mel, behind the scenes. (The woman experts both defer to John on camera, possibly because he has higher qualifications than they do, and probably also because he is The Man, and misogynistic men will never listen to a woman telling them what to do — that’s the nature of the beast.)
So, we learn a few things about this Jack Character. One, he is not having sex with his wife Tori, even though Tori has expressed keen interest. Jack has apparently enjoyed an active partnered sex life, including with one “attention seeking” woman right up until the time of the experiment. (She went to press with it, calling him a lying cheater. For the record, I tend to believe women.) Two, when in the company of other men, Jack presents himself as supersexual. Without this supersexual persona, his masculinity would be called in question. He knows this, he intuits this, and the show itself confirms it.
Three, viewers have also seen, across several scenes, that Jack is “into some weird stuff”, as described by another Husband. When answering get-to-know-you questions with Tori, he expresses interest in sexual waterplay. Nothing is sexually off the table for Jack, in contrast to Tori, who is GGG right up to the waterplay.
What are we to make of Jack, as a Character? Is he unknowable because he is nothing more than a fake Persona, created for the show (partly by the Producers, and partly by Jack himself?) Or might be be illegible to us for another reason? Could he be illegible because his attraction is non-normative, actually, albeit it in a completely different way from Timothy and Tristan, who appear wholesome and loveable by contrast?
Jack, in contrast to Timothy and Tristan, is a f*ckboy. And I want to make this clear: That’s all he might be. These sorts of men are starting to call themselves ‘aromantic’, and ‘how dare you question my dismissive attitudes after one-night stands’, but it’s super important we don’t conflate aromantic with f*ckboy, which is a series of bad behaviours, not a sexual identity.
Autism and asexuality (especially aromanticism) can be misappropriated to excuse bad behaviour.
E.g. having sex with a woman without wanting a relationship. “What if he’s aromantic? Did you think of that?” No, chances are he’s not aromantic. And even if he is, if he hasn’t done the work to know this about himself, and has not communicated this to his potential partners, then he’s still acting badly. ‘Aromantic’ is not some trendy way of saying, “not ready for a relationship”.
By the way, the men who understand how their own attraction works are the least dangerous men to be around. If a man tells you he’s aspec, he’s more than averagely reflective. (Partnering folk: You want a reflective partner. Avoid the non-reflective people who have something to prove.)
What if — hear me out — what if Jack has never been sexually attracted to anyone, including to women, for the very reason he is required to be attracted to women? What if Jack is attracted instead to sexual situations? Not to the women he draws into his sexual scenarios, for the reason that he needs a good-looking woman to confirm his masculinity, both to himself and to other men? What if the thing that turns him on is dominance, not women, per se? What if it doesn’t really matter who he involves in his sex play, so long as it’s someone prepared to be his puppet? This is narcissism, not queerness.
Let Jack be a lesson to all straight, partner-seeking young women out there. Fortunately, the show has Leah, Tori’s (former?) bff who comes to the apartment to meet Jack. She’s got concerns, and voices what much of the viewing public will be thinking at this point.
Except… much of the Australian viewing public feels that Jack is sketchy because he’s not having sex with Tori yet.
Feminist bff Leah wants to know why Jack isn’t having sex yet with Tori because “sex is important.”
She’s right — sex is important, to Tori. “That’s unusual for you,” Leah reminds Tori.
Tori agrees. “You know me. I’m a very sexual person.”
“I’m actually shook,” Leah says to camera. The producer asks Leah if it’s a red flag. “It’s an orange flag. That’s all I’ll say. It’s an orange flag.”
Jack jumps in to explain himself in the face of Leah’s questioning. “Sex wasn’t even at the forefront of my mind as far as matching someone’s energy and values. Obviously, that would all come.” He also says, whether he means it or not, that he has “been through some advances [Tori’s] way and she’s been reciprocating. It’s so awkward to say, yeah I’m ready to do it. But I’m ready. There’s nothing holding me back now.”
Try to imagine — if you can — that Jack is a lovely guy. I mean, imagine a lovely guy. Not Jack. Now imagine that lovely guy saying that. Might you feel a bit different about him now? Might you respect his need to take sex slowly? My point is: Jack’s slowness to have sex might well be symptomatic of a personality disorder, but his slowness to have sex is not, itself, the problem. See the difference? This is where MAFS, even with a feminist and funny sh*t-detector like Leah on the screen, enforces sex as compulsory, no matter who they bring on for commentary and editorialising.
In a scene which hopefully made living rooms across Australia shout at the TV, Tori and Jack visited a tattoo parlour to get a ‘matching tattoo’. (Of a cherub, in case you’re wondering.) They each put it on their inner thighs, a sexualised part of the body.
Tori explains to the camera: ““If anyone’s questioning anybody this [matching tattoo] should put the question to rest. … “Every sh*t show that Jack and I are a part of just makes us stronger. I just feel like it’s gonna be okay.”
From the abuser’s playbook: Cause drama and hurt, as small and frequent tests of your partner’s loyalty. At some point she will switch over. At this point, admitting she’s with an abuser will be too difficult and shameful. By this point you’ve alienated everyone else in her life and she’s all yours.
On the back of Tori submitting to the branding, it is alarming to hear Tori’s bff from the outside world tell us: “Her whole demeanour has shifted completely. This is very foreign for me to observe Tori this way because she’s always very boss, on it, controlling the situation.” To Tori directly, Leah says, “This is the first time, on god, that I have ever seen you relinquish control. I’m shook.”
In contrast, Tori is not disturbed by Leah’s observations that she’s changed. She thanks her for the compliment. She had been meaning to relinquish some control. This is what’s gone wrong for her in previous relationships, obviously! Now she finally has Jack, a man who can teach her to submit.
Vom.
Jack tries to reassure the very suspicious Leah that he hasn’t tried to force anything, this is just Tori “submitting to the man, I suppose.”
This is why I suspect Jack is attracted to dominance (over women) rather than to women, as human beings. It’s a fine distinction, and imperative we all learn to spot it.
As the season progresses, we hear Tori say, time and again, that she’s “not stupid”. If she for one second thought Jack wasn’t “genuine” (the most overused word on Australian reality TV), she’d be outta there. Tori is unfortunately under the misimpression that if women are ‘smart enough’ they won’t find themselves with a coercively controlling man. What she fails to understand — what too many people fail to understand — is that coercive controllers are drawn to strong, intelligent women. That’s the challenge. It’s no fun to bring down a woman who is already down. That’s no net gain for them.
I’m not keen to put Jack on the asexual spectrum for this non-normative form of attraction — for very obvious reasons just described — but also because I’m not convinced this form of attraction is non-normative. It think it might, sadly, be the natural consequence of boys growing up in a hypermasculine culture which rewards narcissists for displays of aggression. If Jack is attracted to dominance, this isn’t how he was born. It’s not a difference of wiring. It’s at least partly how he was acculturated. That’s not how we conceive of sexual orientation and queerness. People are not acculurated into queerness, and aspec identities are queer identities.
Awkwardly, Jack gifts Leah a box of chocolates as a good riddance gift. He’s very clear to the camera what he’s about. The disturbing thing? He thinks he’s being funny: “I have my tricks and that was a perfect way to get her on side.”
Sooo, he’s a manipulator. (Also, why did he give Leah chocolates? Did Tori tell him she Leah a particular fondness for chocolate, or did he assume? Let’s not even get into that.)
We haven’t seen the last of Jack yet, but let the character of Jack serve as a cautionary tale. I have no idea who Jack really is and, let’s face it, nor do you. I wager not even Jack knows who Jack ‘really’ is.
People who do not know themselves are the most dangerous to be around. And in our patriarchal society where domestic violence is both gendered and rife, and where hegemonic masculinity is contingent upon sex with women, lack of information can be dangerous.
After the “muzzle your woman” comment Expert Mel Schilling looked at Jack quizzically. “Are you attracted to Tori?” she demanded to know.
“Yes, I am attracted to Tori,” Jack told her, as if reading from a script of Correct Answers. “She has a great face, a great bum, boobs, body. Tori is very attractive.”
(The way he breaks her down into meats is itself a concern, but Mel has bigger fish to fry.)
“But do you find her sexually attractive?” Mel presses.
“Yes,” says Jack. “I am sexually attracted to Tori.”
This interaction shows that Mel Schilling at least has a sense of what aspec people often call the Split Attraction Model (not really a model*) — a sometimes-helpful way of talking about how people can be attracted to other people beyond the sexual. Jack is aesthetically attracted to Tori. Mel wants to know if he’s sexually attracted, which is a different experience altogether.
*For starters, the split attraction model is not an exhaustive list. It could include many more forms of attraction e.g. being attracted to the way someone smells. There’s also ‘aural attraction’ a.k.a. ‘vocal attraction’, where one is attracted to someone else’s voice.
It’s possible Jack is normatively attracted, just not to Tori. Perhaps Jack’s attraction is more contingent on emotional connection than he, or onlookers, are prepared to admit, since manly men are supposed to be ready to ‘hit it’ at the drop of a hat.
Aspecs also have a word to describe people who are only attracted to strangers (fraysexual), and it’s possible Jack cannot feel sexually attracted to a cohabiting ‘wife’ because she is so very proximal and available to him.
It’s also possible in a buffed-up gym junkie that concoctions (and over-exercise) have messed with his sex drive. Many things are possible.
In any case, Jack is also being coerced by the show to have sex he doesn’t want. While I do not feel sorry for him, it still doesn’t matter why he doesn’t want it, or how horrible he is. No one should have to offer their bodies for the sexual pleasure of others, even if that other person is their designated spouse. Until everyone is free to do (and not do) what they like with their own bodies, no one is. If we are to afford Timothy and Tristan the right not to have sex, we must also stop expecting Alpha boy Jack to have sex.
Alessandra lectures Jack not about his muzzle comment but about his lack of sexual performance. Alessandra, by extension, lectures everyone watching the show by making a ‘universally true’ comment: “The one difference between being in a friendship versus being in a relationship is you want to have sex with that person. Either you’re boyfriend girlfriend material or you’re not.”
This is a binary, unhelpful, and black-and-white way of viewing relationships. In fact, very few things in life are truly binary. When it comes to humans, nothing is ever binary; not sex, not gender, not attraction. That’s why the aspec community has come up with the concept of ‘queerplatonic’. The word fills a linguistic hole, filled differently and variously by more dominant cultures: Perhaps you’ve heard phrases like ‘situation-ship’. Whatever language you use to describe that ‘less than lovers, more than friends’ scenario, the language exists because the relationship type exists. Some people stay with each other in that mode forever, and if they’re both fine with it, and everyone else leaves them well alone, they can be perfectly happy, in perpetuity.
It’s not possible to really know Jack, not even as Fictional Character. Nor is it possible to know how Timothy or Tristan work, until they individual consider all possibilities and then go public with it. (I don’t expect this; I wish for them both a happy life in relative obscurity, away from the judgey public.)
Here’s the point of my analysis of these men as Characters on a Reality TV show: If everyone — including the most manly of men — were afforded the hermeneutical justice of knowing that non-normative attraction such as demisexuality is a thing, and that having an aspec identity does not cancel your Man Card, who might they be then? Who might Jack be, especially, if he didn’t feel the need to perform Manly-man?
We are all better people when we know exactly who we are, and this includes knowledge about how our own sexual attraction works.
So I put it to you: By refusing to acknowledge non-normative attraction, MAFS actively not only seeks Misogynists for drama purposes, but also actively creates them, not just within the show but within actual society, by reinforcing to men (and also to the woman viewers who love men) that masculinity without sexual attraction is not legitimate masculinity.
And men with fragile, contingent masculinities are the most dangerous men of all.
Larre Bildeston is the author of a contemporary (aromantic) asexual romance The Space Ace of Mangleby Flat (2023), set in Australia and New Zealand.
