“If you wanna know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss.” -Cher
The Shoop Shoop Song is one of a very few diva anthems that does not feature as a needle drop on I Kissed A Boy, BBCThree’s new gay reality dating series, but the show’s creators clearly concur with the lyrics’ sentiment. I would’ve loved it if Cher had flown into the Puglian masseria by helicopter, a la Mamma Mia 2, to oversee the proceedings. Instead we’re granted a diva of somewhat lesser wattage (Dannii Minogue) who warmly coos as matched couples of boy and boy face repeated kiss-offs to test and continually re-seal their affections.
I should say right up front that I have never watched a minute of ITV’s reality dating juggernaut Love Island, which bombards Britain’s airwaves every summer with more firepower than the Luftwaffe (do they really broadcast six episodes a week?!???!??). Such is its cultural dominance, though, that I’m aware of the show’s general format, featuring buff and bouncy bed-hopping heteros who employ ‘bants’ and ‘graft’ to keep coupled up and win £50,000. My sense is that the real name of the game on Love Island, as in most reality shows, is advancement in the attention economy and that successful Islanders court controversy as a means to accrue followers, endorsements and the like.
I’m also aware that two years ago one of Love Island’s producers stirred up a miniscule controversy of his own in response to calls that gay contestants be included on the show, calling it a ‘logistical difficulty.’ As wiser voices said at the time, this was one battle for integration that was not worth fighting. Why should gays insert ourselves into this format of rampant, relentless heterosexuality when we could just create our own dating show? The BBC was listening.
I Kissed a Boy, which aired its finale on Sunday just in time for Pride month, is far from a Love Island knockoff. I doubt that any of the straight Islanders have ever taken time to deliver an emotional PSA about the realities of testicular cancer, as lovely Liverpudlian Mikey does in episode 2 of IKAB. Fear not, license fee-payers! This is still the BBC, so participants get no prize money. Instead, their dating dramas and past traumas are aired for the advancement of what the Beeb calls social and community value, ‘enabling the UK’s many communities to see what they hold in common and how they differ.’ To a surprising extent, the show delivers on that mission – and still remains a bit of summertime fun.
[This write-up avoids any major spoilers for the series — which doesn’t have much suspense anyway — but do hold off reading if you want to experience it like a virgin!]
One can imagine a sluttier version of a gay dating show that turns Love Island’s sexual strategising into three-dimensional chess, with every guy a possibility, and contestants flipping and throupling from partner to partner in surprising combinations. It’s possible that IKAB’s producers were hoping for more man-grabbing when they devised the format: the boys arrive in match-made pairs and then lone wolves called ‘heartstoppers’ are inserted at key moments to turn heads and threaten budding romances. One of these, livewire Vitor, announces upon arrival that his first relationship at age nineteen was with an older married couple. His subsequent behavior, though, like that of the rest of the cast, does nothing to challenge what sociologists have dubbed the ‘Tenacity of the Couple-Norm’.
In classic BBC fashion, the selected contestants hail from all over the UK and represent a diversity of ethnic and national backgrounds, and even somewhat different body types. (Though, for the most part, they pair up in physically like-with-like fashion.) Perhaps the biggest distinguishing factor amongst them are their relative levels of dating – and, by extension, reality game-playing – savvy.
Scottish Ben seems schooled in the Love Island playbook, talking about how he’d put on his ‘grafting gloves’ to win over some newcomer. (I had to use Google Translate to interpret the oft-repeated phrase ‘He’s a bit of me.’) It’s no surprise that Ben becomes a useful apex in the various triangles that do get created: one senses that he knows that vacillations will keep him at the heart of the plot. Garrulous Gareth, from East London via Northern Ireland, never wavers from his initial coupling but easily earns his keep as our reality show narrator, serving one-liners for days.
Other boys in the initial lineup are less skilled – notably Josh, who is not only a Turkish-British gay man from rural Wales but also a newly out, lapsed Mormon who says he’s never even kissed a boy before. As he ogles his new housemates, he exhibits the frenetic expression of a starving man who’s just stumbled upon a smorgasbord. I suspect I was not the only viewer simultaneously pleased that he was living out his authentic desires and worried for his survival as he swam in the deep end of the dating pool.
It’s not only the audience who feel protective of these boys. Despite her glamourous gowns, Dannii Minogue behaves more like that straight female co-worker we’ve all had who wears her LGBT ally badge with pride and can’t wait to hear the goss of how your date went last Friday. She professes pain at any blip in the harmony between the boys, hoping earnestly that they’ll all settle down with their perfect match.
One can also imagine a less audacious, ‘love-is-love’ version of this show pitched squarely at the straight viewership that Dannii stands in for, preaching that cuddly gays have feelings just like the rest of us. Thankfully, the show mostly sidesteps that. The boys’ conversations feel authentic, without overly catering to mainstream audiences: early on we get frank appraisals of ‘power bottom’ status and an extended discussion of ginger Ross’s douching technique. A ridiculous glory hole game prompts compliments on Ollie’s ‘back arch.’ Any straights still with us better be taking notes in order to keep up.
The producers of I Kissed A Boy have attempted a high wire act, and the programme hits most of its targets. The UK’s first gay dating show is neither overly salacious, nor overly sanitized. As on the gay dating scene itself, there are a lot of boxes to tick: be sexy but smart, well-rounded but not overly worthy. The boys speak of the pressures they feel on the scene and the show itself is under a pretty big burden, too. Being the sole representation of gay romance on reality TV, it’s got to be good at everything, delivering sauciness and social value, tears and memes.
In this regard, I Kissed A Boy sometimes feels like a manifestation of another classically gay phenomenon: Best Boy Syndrome. Just take stunning-but-sensitive Matty, one of the last heartstoppers to arrive. Not only does he have chiseled abs and a square jaw, he also works in climate change!! What a catch. But as we spend time with him, it’s clear that he’s far more comfortable opening his shirt than his heart to other boys. For all the boxes that he ticks on paper, Matty breaks down discussing the self doubt and shame that boils beneath the surface.
One hopes that his time in the masseria will help Matty loosen up and become more comfortable with his gayness. One hopes the same for this show, as it, too, gets to know itself. The first series of I Kissed A Boy barely put a foot wrong, and that’s where it still has room to grow. Surely the show would’ve benefitted from keeping some of those fun-but-unkissed boys around longer. (Bobski, we hardly knew ye.) As in IRL gay spaces, the atmosphere is always enlivened by a bit of ‘chaotic twink’ energy.
The final episodes ultimately lacked surprise as the final (mostly predictable) couples met one another’s loved ones and professed affection in a wedding-like final Kiss-Off. I was happy that none of the remaining boys set too much store in the significance of tying the knot legally. Gareth, in particular, is withering about the excesses of some gay marriages: ‘Girl, calm it down. We don’t need swans at a wedding.’
It’s refreshing, also, that the show is not a competition per se, with a pair crowned as the One Couple to Rule Them All. In fact, the only sour note comes in the penultimate episode when the boys have to vote another couple out for being ‘least likely to survive in the real world.’ Modern dating is a gauntlet and the pressures for queers are even more acute. These boys get to know one another off of the apps but also with a wider queer community around them.
I Kissed A Boy is clearly a hit, and the BBC has already announced a girls-only version. Dannii’s end-credits theme tune ‘We Could Be the One’ is a catchy would-be banger. I’ve only just clocked that the elision of singularity and collectivity in the song’s title may point toward a further queering of romantic possibility.
The joy in this show is not contained solely within the bounds of coupledom. It’s also the joy of queer social circles, where you date people who end up your friends and remain there to support one another as the dates come and go.
What if, in looking for ‘the one,’ we could be the one we needed all along?
As this franchise continues to develop, I hope to get even more of that sentiment, please. And no fucking swans.