Weird Allo Reality Shows 3

Transcript Transcribed by Hannah E.

Courtney: Hello, everyone, and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I am here with my spouse, Royce. And together, we are The Ace Couple. And today, we are back for another fiery round of Weird Allo Reality Shows. That’s right: I’ve once again suffered tremendously for you.

Royce: I was trying to remember what shows you went over in the past. We’ve done, technically, three of these before, although one was entirely focused on one show.

Courtney: I don’t even remember. All of these shows are a blur to me.

Royce: I had to Google a couple of them. I couldn’t remember if you watched — or, I guess, for which episode you watched the traffic cone one, but that was Too Hot to Handle.

Courtney: Ah, the traffic cone. Our beloved Asexual traffic cone. [laughs]

Royce: I forgot that Dated and Related existed as well. That was the one in our last episode that was worst concept and led into, I believe, one of the shows that you watched in preparation for this one.

Courtney: Yeah, so I did — for all of you who have been waiting with bated breath, I did watch MILF Manor. I hope you all are happy. I watched the entire first season, beginning to end. And here’s the thing, though. I made notes for all of these, because I don’t just slam and binge all of them at once. I need to space them out.

Royce: You also are constantly doing something while the show is on.

Courtney: Oh, yeah. And that’s part of the problem. Because I can’t just sit and watch this being my only form of activity, so I’m either, like, painting or crocheting or doing something, hair work, what have you, with this on in the background. And I actually ran into a problem because one of the shows I tried to watch for this was Singles Inferno, which I believe is a Korean show, and so I, like, couldn’t do it while multitasking because I had to watch subtitles. So I put a pin in that. Maybe I’ll watch it for a future episode, if these continue.

Courtney: But yeah, I would say, all of the episodes we’re going to talk about today — or all of the shows we’re going to talk about, I’ve been watching in a staggered fashion, probably since the last episode of this that we released. Which, again, my mind is protecting me from the trauma of these shows. I do not remember all the shows I have watched and talked about.

Royce: Well, the last “Weird Allo Reality Show” was in April, and the one before that was in May, so it seems like we’re on an approximately 11-month cycle.

Courtney: There you have it. That’s how long it takes me to watch a few of these shows. [laughs] Which is also why I have to make notes, because I only have things fresh in my memory from maybe the last show or two. But I’m going back here. So today, the ones we’re going to talk about are Love Island USA, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Later Daters, and, of course, MILF Manor.

Royce: I forgot you watched these. These do really just all bleed together.

Courtney: They really do! They really do. I feel like probably, while I was watching Love Island, there were elements of it that reminded me heavily of another show, as if I’ve watched a very similar show before, but my brain just couldn’t grab it. I was like, “I don’t know what show this is like, but I feel like I’ve kind of watched this before, but maybe with some new twists.” But Love Island was your typical, like, “Hot, sexy people looking for love.” But here’s the thing that I immediately thought was weird about this one, as opposed to some of the other ones, is that this one had a prize of $100,000. So, like, the winner of the show gets money.

Royce: Winner or winners? Is it one or a couple?

Courtney: Probably a couple, probably the the two, because you win by, like, finding love, right? [laughs]

Royce: I was going to say, it would be odd to have a single winner in a show that is supposed to be about coupling.

Courtney: Yeah. Actually, there was kind of a really funny twist about the $100k. Because I think when they first announced, like, “There’s prize money,” I think I was already, like, asking kind of the same questions you are now. Because, first of all, is it evenly split? Are they… Because this show, and a few others that we’ve touched on, don’t have the, like, actual stakes of marriage, as opposed to, like, a Love Is Blind or a Married at First Sight, where, theoretically, by the end of the show — or the beginning of the show, in the case of Married at First Sight — you are marrying someone. So there are financial implications to that, there are lifestyle implications to that, all these things. But then there are some just like general dating shows where they often try to pretend, like, “Oh, yeah, we’re totally going to stick together,” but there’s no actual stakes in it at all. [laughs] And especially when you throw in, “Oh, there’s prize money,” then it’s like, that’s just further incentive to play the game, which might involve manipulating someone else or acting and playing to the camera. So, immediate red flag that like I’m already taking you less seriously than I take some other shows, and I already take those shows pretty unseriously. [laughs]

Courtney: But here’s how it played out. So they had five ladies standing there, right? And one guy comes out. And they just, like, assess them — like, look at this, you know, presumably conventionally attractive man in front of them. And then they have all of the ladies step forward if they’re attracted to him. And then they’re asked why they did or did not step forward. So everyone speaks. They go down the line and they’re like, “Oh, you stepped forward for this guy. Why?” And then the ones who didn’t step forward, they also have to say why.

Royce: So, great introductions. Okay.

Courtney: But then it’s the guy who gets to pick which lady he wants. And — regardless of whether or not they stepped forward, too. Like, if he really wanted to pick someone who just admitted to his face that they aren’t attracted to him, he could. But they play this weird song-and-dance first [laughs] where they’re, like, just creating drama, and the women say, outright, “Yes” or “No,” “I’m attracted to you,” but the man is the one who’s like, “That’s going to be my woman” — or, I guess, preliminary woman.

Courtney: But then they just do this again. So after that first one, it’s like, alright, so the woman he picked, go stand next to him, whatever. But then, new guy comes out, and same deal: new guy can pick the woman he wants. But they’re doing, like, Secret Santa rules with whole-ass humans, because you can steal a woman from another guy if you want.

Royce: That’s interesting, because I was just trying to think, where did the producers come up with all the games and the mechanics of these things?

[Courtney laughs]

Royce: And someone was probably in the back room like, “Let’s do Secret Santa.”

Courtney: “Let’s do a white elephant exchange with sexy ladies.” [laughs] No! It was ridiculous. And the way they say it, too. It’s like, “Oh, you can pick a woman even if you’re in a couple, or even if they’re in a couple.” So, like, they haven’t actually dated each other yet, but they’re kind of just like, “Yep, we’re a couple now, until further notice.”

Royce: Mhm.

Courtney: Like, “Maybe the couples will change, but this is what we’re saying.” It’s very, very weird. And the people — most of them… And, like, the sound bites that they give for a show like this: completely insufferable to li’l old Asexual me. Like, I put this one down as a quote: “I’ve slept with 99 different girls, but now, I’m looking for the one… hundredth.”

Royce: Why?

Courtney: Boo. [laughs] Because they’re also trying to say, like, “Ooh, they’re looking for love, they’re actually looking for the one, their soulmate.” Like no, no, you’re not! You just did a Secret Santa / white elephant exchange [laughing] with hot women!

Courtney: So they keep doing this for all the guys that come out, and they awkwardly couple up. And most of the time, when asked why they didn’t step forward, they’re like, “No, he’s really sexy. Like, he is, he’s hot. I just… I worry he will break my heart.” And I’m like, “Are you just lying? Are you just trying to be polite?” Because, I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Well, A) I don’t understand either. I don’t understand how you can look at someone for the first time and be like, “Yes or no attractive.” That’s something I don’t have in my brain. I didn’t get that wiring. But also, looking at someone and just being like, “Oh, no, he’s a heartbreaker”: like, is this a fundamental component of the allo-gorithm that I haven’t yet hacked? Because it’s… The only way I could have possibly thought about this is in a scenario where it’s just like, you’re doing the very superficial thing — like, he looks like a male model, he looks like — he’s got the ripped abs, he’s got the chiseled jaw, the very conventionally, societally attractive stereotypes, and in your head, you’re just being like, “Oh, that kind of guy is a heartbreaker. Like, that kind of guy isn’t looking for something serious.” But, like, all of these guys in this show are that guy. So I don’t understand why some of the women are like, “No, I’ve got a bad feeling about that one. He’s going to break my heart.” I feel like they’re lying!

Courtney: But that also gave me a really funny thought as I was thinking through this process, because they’re using the primary attraction — the things that are immediately available upon your first time interacting with someone. And so many of them are like, “Yes, I am physically attracted to this person. I am sexually attracted to them.” But they’re like… They’re almost saying, “I’m not romantically attracted to him.” And I’m like, “Do you all secretly actually have this little split attraction thing happening inside of you?” [laughs] Upon first glance? Of course, no one would actually admit to that, and people on shows like this probably wouldn’t actually think too deeply into it to ever get to that point. But I was very confused. And I still kind of feel like maybe they’re just lying. Because it is very awkward to put people on the spot, on camera, in front of a person, and be like, “Explain why you’re not attracted to this person.” Okay.

Courtney: But then they play all of the, like, weird allo party games. They’re getting, like, these prompts for things that they have to do. And one of the prompts is like, “Kiss the islander you find the sexiest,” which is weird, because it’s after they decide they establish these, quote, “couples.” [laughs] So they’re in couples, for whatever that means on a show like this, and then they’re in a large group, and they’re like, “Yeah, kiss the one you find sexiest,” and it’s like, that doesn’t have to be the one you’re in a couple with. And one of the prompts was like, “Turn on the islander you think is sexiest without touching them.” In the first episode alone, I made a note, and my note said, “Only one episode and I’ve already seen too many lap dances.”

Courtney: But then, after all these weird allo party games, two new guys get introduced and they say, “If you’re not in a couple, you have to leave.” And, like, most of the games where they have rules like this, they tend to have more men than women. So the women kind of then ultimately are the ones in these situations who can decide who they want to be coupled up with, assuming there’s at least two guys after them. And they don’t do the same, like, “Oh, the guy gets to pick someone to be in a couple.” Now they’re just, like, unleashing them into this group of people to exist and talk and whatever. And they say, “In 24 hours, the new guy will pick a girl to couple up with.” Oh! So I actually had that backwards. The guy does pick a girl, but they have a day to do it, so they get to actually kind of meet them a little bit more. But that does leave two men single at the end, who then get kicked off of the show. And I once again question why they’re calling these people “single” and “couples.”

Royce: Yeah, it’s playing a lot more like a game show than a reality dating show.

Courtney: But they’re here to find the one! They’re here for love and $100,000. But yeah, they all dress in, like, pseudo rococo attire to play a game where there’s, like, risque sex secrets, like, “This person got handsy under the table at a restaurant,” or “This person likes to make sex tapes,” and everyone has to guess who that belongs to. But you pick someone — like, you decide who you think it belongs to by kissing them. [laughing] And it was at this point that I made a note in all caps — because I apparently didn’t look at this before I started the show — I just said, “Why are there 29 episodes???” with three question marks.

Royce: Ohhh.

[Courtney laughs]

Royce: You watched this a long time ago. I remember you starting to speed through some of it once you realized how long it was.

Courtney: So long! So long! And I was already so over it in the first episode. [laughs] But yeah, then I did make another note that’s like, “The girls don’t seem to have a choice when a guy decides to couple up with them.” So, like, if a guy’s like, “I’m gonna take that woman away from that other guy,” they don’t seem to have the option to be like, “No, I’d rather stay here.”

Royce: And was this something that continued throughout the entire show, or did the dynamics change as it went along?

Courtney: There was some changing. So, like, after they’d done this a little bit and a couple of guys got kicked off, and etc., then they did have a, like, “Ooh, at the end of the week, all islanders will participate in a recoupling. But here’s the twist: in the recoupling it’s the girls that get to pick!” So, you know, that’s what we call gender equality. [laughs] They refer to one girl, at one point, as “stunning stolen goods,” and I want to vomit!

Courtney: So, occasionally, they do actually have a couple go on a date, just the two of them. And my note about it is, “All the dates on all of these shows range from boring to baffling or somehow both.” [laughs] And I have long forgotten the context for any of these. But I do have a couple other fun quotes. I imagine this is a man picking a woman, but one of the quotes was, “Like a stoner in front of a vending machine, he faces an impossible decision.”

Royce: And this is what the narrator basically was describing the scene as?

Courtney: I think so.

Royce: Okay.

Courtney: I think so. There was another quote: “Welcome to Feel-adelphia.” They weren’t in Philadelphia.

Royce: No, they were on an island, right?

Courtney: [laughing] Presumably, or they were at least pretending they were. There was a beach involved.

Royce: Famous Philadelphia Island.

Courtney: Feel-adelphia Island. I think this means all Aces need to move out of Philadelphia immediately. [laughs] We are not welcome there. And here’s an earnest question that I found myself asking a couple of the times, because there were instances where they were outright telling people to kiss each other, to do lap dances, to, you know, all sorts of things. What is the definition of softcore porn?

Royce: Isn’t the famous quote by some conservative justice who refused to make a hard line stance on what to classify as illegal pornography was, like, “I can’t tell you what pornography is, but I can identify it when I see it”?

Courtney: “I know it when I see it”! Yeah, that definitely did happen. Because I genuinely was wondering, because there was a moment where they are, like, making out in front of each other in lifeguard costumes and role-playing as lifeguards and making out with each other, and at one point, another contestant, just watching these other contestants go at each other as lifeguards, was like, “Phew, we should have to pay for that show!” And I was like, “This could be considered pornography, right?” [laughs]

Royce: I bet if you could take this episode and put it on people’s televisions in different areas of the world and in different time periods, you could find somewhere it would be considered softcore. Like, if you just blasted this episode back on TVs in the ’60s or something like that.

Courtney: Oh, could you imagine? [laughs] But yeah, it just seemed… Like, it seems so… deceptive to me that they’re putting on this show being like, “These people are looking for love,” and then doing things that do not help people find love — if anything help throw a wrench in finding love — because you’re coupling up and making them make out with other people, or at least giving them the opportunity to make out with other people, and you’re giving them these prompts and these scenarios where they’re showing all these very spicy interactions, they’re doing these lap dances, they’re role-playing as lifeguards, they’re doing a whole Baywatch thing.

Courtney: And trying to think of it as a viewer who is watching this for fun and genuinely enjoying the show. Because we already know, we’ve already established, I don’t like watching scenes like this. That’s why I can’t just, eyes glued to the TV, just watch these shows. It helps, when people are getting a little too handsy, that I can just look down at my project, whatever I’m working on, for a little bit. But I really don’t know what — genuinely don’t know what viewers who are the target demographic could get out of this, except for, presumably, some kind of arousal. Or, like, at least there’s a drama element — like, if you like really, really messy, sexually charged drama, if someone’s making out with someone who, like, isn’t their, quote, “couple,” maybe you just like the drama of that. But I don’t know.

Courtney: Because even the part of the contestants — like, the contestants know they’re getting filmed, and they’re trying to turn on each other, and, presumably, also the audience, to some extent. Right? I struggle to find a reason [laughing] in these reality shows that isn’t trying to arouse somebody, whether it’s the person you’re actually in the scene with or the person who’s watching the scene, you know?

Royce: Yeah. I mean, we’ve talked, in a variety of different shows, just about the nature of fanservice and how a lot of fanservice is sexual in nature.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: Because it works for a lot of people. And, I mean, that’s the whole point of the show is to get viewers so they make money. So, getting as close to the line of what can air on wherever this aired at would have been a goal of the producers. I feel like shows for a long time have pushed up against that line as close as they could without getting canceled.

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah. Like, when I asked the question — like, could this be considered softcore pornography? — I’m not saying that because I want it banned or I think they shouldn’t be able to make shows like this. I just kind of want to be able to call it what it is. [laughs]

Courtney: But yeah. Then there’s this moment — because, like, a new guy comes in again. And a girl, in a confessional, is like, “This is so needed.” And all of the girls are like, “Whew,” and they’re, like, fanning themselves dramatically. And when they’re all going to meet this guy for the first time, he tells them that he’s picky, because he wants something real; he doesn’t just want to mess around, because he wants to find his best friend who’s also his perfect match. And the other contestants applaud. And I just thought that was the weirdest interaction [laughs] I have ever seen. There was something so weird about them applauding him just being like, “I want to find something real. I don’t want to just mess around.” Why applause? [laughs] Why the applause?

Royce: So how many episodes did you say there were of this?

Courtney: 29.

Royce: Okay, so you must have watched Season 3.

Courtney: Did I watch Season 3? So I made a note here because I had apparently forgotten. I watched five episodes and then I skipped to the last one. [laughs]

Royce: Okay. And didn’t miss a thing.

Courtney: I couldn’t do it anymore! Because then, after this weird moment where they’re applauding in this guy’s face, they do the same, like, blindfolded noise-canceling headphone kissing game that was in Perfect Match, which I had to make a note of because I don’t remember watching Perfect Match. [laughing] I wouldn’t have been able to pull out that anecdote right now if I didn’t make notes. But I said, and I trust past me, “Except instead of a simple number rating, they say how much money it was worth, from $1 to $10.” So they are blindfolded kissing each other and you have someone literally be like, “That kiss was worth $5.” [laughs]

Royce: That’s a strange metric.

Courtney: And now I’m like, “Prostitution?” It’s a weird metric. It’s very weird, right? Because the implication is, like, if you had money in your pocket, this is actually how much you would pay to get this kiss. So then my note is, “So now I’m skipping to the end, because this is just Perfect Match with a more formal, quote, ‘matching process.’”

Royce: The reason I brought up the episodes was because most of the seasons, most of the six seasons, have different episode counts. So if it was 29 episodes, it was definitely 3. The longest season had a full 38.

Courtney: Why? Oh my gosh! I couldn’t make it to Episode 6 without being like, “I can’t, I can’t do this anymore.” Because while they’re doing this, like, kissing thing and trying to decide how much money kiss is worth while blindfolded and kissing a lot of people, like, I don’t remember the name of who this was, but someone was like, “Oh, last up, so-and-so fires her tongue torpedo,” and I want to vomit. [laughs] That doesn’t even sound pleasant! Does that sound pleasant to the sexuals out there? [laughs] To the allos?

Royce: It just makes me think of some kind of, like, creature horror movie. I don’t even… I’m pretty sure it aired at some point in time when I was a kid. But some kind of alien creature disguised as a woman kills a man by sending her tongue, like, through the back of his skull.

Courtney: So that’s kind of interesting. [laughs] Yeah, that… Yeah, okay. Okay. So, that was the first five episodes, and then I skipped to Episode 29…

Royce: To figure out how they divided the money?

Courtney: …where I learn that apparently, all in all, there were 34 people, and four couples remained by the end.

Royce: Is this the show where, if they broke the rules, money would get taken out of the pot for the victory for the winners, or was that a different show?

Courtney: No, I think that was the one with the Asexual traffic cone.

Royce: Ohhh.

Courtney: Because wasn’t the… The stated goal of the show was, like, “Don’t be horny. Don’t have sex. You’re all addicted to sex, so we’re going to try to make you not that way.” But then, like, the winners weren’t the people who did the best.

Royce: Mhm.

Courtney: They were the people who they said made the most progress toward actually finding love instead of just having sex, or something. Something like that.

Royce: Yeah, so we were analyzing that, saying, oh, with that in mind, people could gamify it pretty easily by just being objectively or, like, metrically bad —

Courtney: Yeah!

Royce: — at the beginning, just to show improvement.

Courtney: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because then I felt really bad for, like… I vaguely remember one guy who followed all the rules and, like, played it perfectly by the rules as they were stated to him. Like, he didn’t do anything to get points taken away or anything. But then someone who won got a lot of points taken away, and I was like, “That’s not fair! He did what you told him to!”

Courtney: But it was at Episode 29 where I learn America votes for their favorite couple. So it’s a little American Idol, it’s a little So You Think you Can Dance. This isn’t trying to find objectively the best couple. This is finding America’s favorite couple! And I don’t know. Maybe — in the many, many episodes that I skipped — maybe they did whittle it down fast enough and gave enough airtime to some of these developing couples that you actually started to see them develop, like, real chemistry in any way that is tangible. Because what I was seeing for five episodes was incredibly superficial.

Courtney: And that’s another thing that bothers me out of shows that are this type. At least I feel like, in something like Love is Blind, you get to see a lot of sides of the contestants, and you get a lot of time with them. And they’re in the same couple, so you also get to see how the couple changes and how they, you know, start making decisions together. So at least you have some amount of, like, “Here’s a well-rounded person and here’s what their couple dynamic is.” But what I saw of this show and what I’ve seen on other previous shows, I know hardly anything about the individual people, and I see hardly anything of substance in the couples themselves either. It is all superficial, from the attraction to what they talk about to what we know of their interests. Because so many of them just come on and they’re like, “I love sex!” And it’s like, okay, that’s fine. And I’m sure, I’m sure, there are plenty of people who are just trying to get famous and are quite superficial going on shows like this.

Courtney: But I’m also sure there are plenty of reality TV stars who, in their own lives, are very interesting people. I’m sure there are well-rounded people out there. I’m sure some of them I would find interesting if we could actually have a real conversation and sit down together. But at least what… The combination — because it’s always the two things: a combination of what they’re putting forth in front of the camera and what the producers and editors actually put in the final edit — it’s so superficial. And it’s like, I don’t care about any of these people. I don’t care about any of these couples. I’m not buying any of these couples as couples. So that’s why I’m like, “Who is this for? Who is watching this?” [laughs] It’s really, really baffling to me.

Courtney: So, America votes for their favorite couple. But after the voting is done and the favorite couple is selected, this is what they do with the prize money. They do this, like, pseudo prisoners’ dilemma thing, where they each pick an envelope. One has $0 and the other has $100,000. And the one who has the $100,000 gets to decide to keep the money or split it. And [laughs] the way they phrase it is, “It’s time to decide if you were really here for love.” And so… I don’t know, man, I guess they decided love costs approximately $50k. [laughs]

Courtney: So yeah, the winners, I think, did say they were going to stay together, but they broke up, like, very shortly after the show, so I guess they probably just got to each split the $50k. And it looks like the guy in the relationship set up an OnlyFans. And looking up articles and, like, Reddit posts, so many people are like, “It was so obvious that this relationship was contrived and meant only for TV, and I didn’t see them having any real chemistry,” and lots of people being like, “I don’t see them lasting a month.” So I want to know how America chooses. [laughs] Because if these were the winners and everyone from back then and all these articles are not actually buying them as a real couple, then clearly everyone else was also bad, right?

Courtney: So they split really quickly after the show, but not at the finale of the show. And this guy, on his Instagram, said, “When we were on Love Island, everything was perfect, and I can say that was honestly the happiest moment of my life. Unfortunately, that’s not real life, and in the real world, we’re now faced with real-world challenges, some that we couldn’t overcome.” And, I don’t know. I’m so cynical with these things. Like, did both of these people genuinely and truly feel like, once the show’s over, this is going to be their lifelong relationship? Or was one of them, or possibly both of them, in the back of their head, being like, “Oh yeah, this is just for TV. We’re going to get famous, we’re going to get the exposure, we’re going to get the prize money, but that’s mostly what this is.”

Royce: I have to assume that a lot of people who sign up for reality TV shows go into it with that mentality — specifically considering this one did frame itself more like a game show than —

Courtney: — some of the other ones, yeah.

Royce: I mean, even some of the ones that at least frame themselves as more of a matchmaking thing are questionable.

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah, okay, next up: different kind of reality show, but I’m still going to put it in the camp of “Weird Allo Reality Shows”: Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

Royce: Oh, yeah! I was kind of surprised when you brought that one up when starting this episode.

Courtney: Well, I got baited-and-switched. I don’t remember which streaming site it was on.

Royce: But didn’t you think this was actually, like, a documentary about the Mormon Church or something?

Courtney: Oh, not the Mormon Church, but a scandal that I had not heard of. I was not familiar with the scandal that is MomTok.

Royce: Oh, right.

Courtney: Which, watching just the little, like, trailer that was on the streaming site, it was talking about this big MomTok scandal, and it sounded great. I was like, “I want to know what the MomTok scandal is!” [laughs] But —

Royce: It’s not uncommon for us to put on some kind of Netflix documentary in the background, and this seems like something that would have been produced. And some of them are of variable quality. Some are more interesting than others.

Courtney: So I felt cheated going into this show because… I don’t know. Like halfway through the first episode, I was like, “Mm-kay, this is not a documentary about the MomTok scandal, whatever that was.” Basically what was said in the trailer alluding to the MomTok scandal was all they really talked about. Instead, it was just a Real Housewives-style, follow these individual wives and what they’re doing with their life. And it was just Mormon women post-MomTok scandal, and, like some of them were more involved than others in the MomTok scandal.

Courtney: And here’s why I wanted to know more about what was going on with MomTok. Because I know that there are wealthy Mormons who just have a chokehold on a very specific, like, couple of corners of the internet. Like, I know the type, I know the phenomenon. But apparently, this whole scandal came out when all these groups of, like, Utah influencers had sort of been getting big on TikTok, gaining a following, like, millions of people, and would collaborate with each other and show up in each other’s videos, and, you know, share audiences that way and stuff. And one of these influencers made an announcement that she was getting divorced after, like, swinging within her friend group. And so I guess this divorce happened because one of these women claimed to have fallen in love with someone she was swinging with. And apparently, it was messy. Apparently it was like, yeah, all of the Mormon influencers are just swinging with each other all the time, and then all the other Mormon influencers are like, “No, we absolutely are not!” So, like, drama — high drama.

Courtney: But also, like… And this wasn’t even necessarily coming from the show. I had to Google this, because I wanted to know what the initial scandal was, and this was just people living their lives after the scandal, which isn’t what I signed up for. I almost clicked away and stopped watching, but then I was like, “Wait a minute. I kind of feel like this could be a weird allo reality show, so I put it back on. But apparently, her definition of “soft swinging” was that the whole group was intimate with each other, but no one went all the way unless their spouses were in the room, which doesn’t sound very soft to me.

Royce: [laughs] Getting into definitions again. You’ll know it when you see it.

Courtney: I mean, I don’t claim to know much about the Mormon swinging community. [laughs] Which is why I wanted to watch a very educational documentary on the matter. [laughs] And so I made a note. I kind of wish I made more notes here, because I feel like they’re… I just said, “a whole hot mess.”

Royce: [laughs] Yeah, Notes that are that short are only… They only work if we record soon after you watch it, not, like, eight months later.

Courtney: I was just so baffled with the direction a lot of this was going. Because they had, like, the woman who broke the MomTok scandal — she was there. She’s now divorced. She has the kids. She’s like, “Oh, getting divorced in my 20s wasn’t what I had in mind.” And so, like, a lot of the other women really resent her for sort of starting this whole thing. And then there’s a woman who’s like, “Well, I’m still trying to keep MomTok together.” And like, mind you, these women are getting very wealthy off of influencing. They’re getting brand deals. They have a lot of followers. So, like, this is a job of theirs. And at least what was presented to us, some just seem to care about it a lot more than others.

Courtney: But the reason why I decided to declare this a Weird Allo Reality Show is twofold. So there’s the hot mess side of things where, alright, this very religious community was caught swinging, which is only a big story because they’re very religious. Like, [laughs] there are swingers who are very open and proud about being swingers, and they could find their own audience online, and it would not be a big deal to their audience. So there’s, like, that religious aspect that makes it so juicy. But then, this 20-something Mormon woman who was swinging and got a divorce and now has started — on camera, in a reality show — dating another guy. At first, I, like, really hated the guy. I was like, “I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he’s, you know, treating people.” But then I started really hating her. And I was like, “She’s not treating anybody right either.” So I kind of just hated both of them at the same time. Like, they were terrible individually, but also terrible toward each other.

Courtney: But then, like, there was domestic abuse, there was arrests. Like, the woman who broke this MomTok scandal in the first place — who’s now divorced and dating other people — like, got arrested for throwing shit at her boyfriend. And they, like, showed her arrest on camera, and I was like, “Oh my God, okay!” But then I was like, “Well, surely, they’re going to break up now.” Because I was also kind of rooting for them to break up even before that happened, because — I don’t remember what it was, but there was something about the guy where I was like, “Mmm, don’t like that.” And their goals were not aligning. They were having conversations in, like, a restaurant, I vaguely remember. And so it just wasn’t good.

Courtney: But then after that arrest, like, there was a little bit of a time skip, and now she’s pregnant — and it was an unplanned pregnancy — with that guy’s child. And so they’re staying together for the child and this unplanned pregnancy. And now she’s like, “Not only am I a Mormon who’s divorced, but now I’m a Mormon who’s getting pregnant out of wedlock, and I’m keeping the baby, of course.” And so, like, there was this whole thing! And it’s like, we saw abuse and arrests and general assholery, and now a baby’s being thrown in the mix. So there’s, like… there’s a lot going on there. There’s a lot going on there.

Courtney: And then you have these elements of Mormonism, because you have so many different women who are, like, practicing to various extents. They all consider themselves Mormon, but some seem to be a little more, like, culturally Mormon than really devout.

Royce: Yeah. I mean, any religious community is going to have different levels of — or different kinds of interpretation and adherence.

Courtney: Yeah! Like, they were joking about garments at one point.

Royce: Mhm.

Courtney: Which is not a thing that you see very often depicted on TV, because you just don’t normally see Mormonism depicted to, like, that level of detail. So, like, those elements I found interesting. And…

Royce: Weren’t a lot of these women also — by virtue of running their very lucrative TikTok influencer careers — already not exactly all that orthodox in, like, how they were practicing their religion?

Courtney: I mean, not all of them. Like, some were to a higher extent than others. Like, I feel like there was someone with a Temple Recommend, which is like very, very Mormon. There were, like, conversations about, like, “Oh, we only drink soda instead of coffee.” Like, soda was a big deal. So yeah, to varying levels, but still extremely Mormon, community-wise.

Courtney: But there was a moment where I think one couple bought a house, and their realtor left a bottle of champagne for them or something, and they were like, “I’ve never had alcohol before!” But they’re on camera, having both admitted, like, “We’ve never drank a drop in our life,” but they’re like, “Let’s try it.” And so they open it up and have, like, a single drink and they’re like, “Oh, it’s terrible!” [laughs] Which is — it’s kind of fun to see, like, a full-grown adult have their first drink of alcohol and see their reaction to it. So, like, there’s a level of entertainment in that alone. But it’s also so interesting that it’s like, you have intentionally abstained from alcohol for however much of your entire adult life there has been so far, but now that there is a camera following you in this reality show and a realtor left this bottle here…

Courtney: And, like, also — I was also just like, I would expect in such a heavily Mormon area like Utah that that wouldn’t be something a realtor would just do as a go-to, like, “Congratulations, you closed on a house” thing. Because I know some do in various places, but I would think if they were not Mormon themselves, they would be very aware that a lot of their clients would be.

Royce: It would surprise me if that didn’t come up during the house-buying process.

Courtney: Mhm.

Royce: Because, I mean, some realtors are going to be more hands-on or more involved than others. But I feel like that’s something that could very easily come up during small talk. Like, in a community like that.

Courtney: “We’ve been trying to sell the house. Oh, you go to this church? Well, it’s right down the street.”

Royce: Exactly.

Courtney: Yeah, I don’t know what the situation was there, but whatever the deal was. Or maybe… oh, I should have taken better notes. Was this actually the couple that kind of like moved away from Utah? I think someone was like, “I’ve got to get out of Utah for a while.” Maybe it wasn’t them. I don’t remember. But yeah. So, really fascinating.

Courtney: But… so, there’s just, like, the general messiness of obviously sexually active people living in a very conservative culture and the sort of, you know, I guess, scandals that go along with that, that’s just like hiding this part of their life that once it got leaked, like, not everyone wanted to be associated with that. And I still don’t know to what extent a lot of them were. There were several who were still very adamant, like, “I was never a swinger. We never did the swinging.” And it’s like, yeah, it’s just one person’s word versus another. So in that situation…

Courtney: But they would have these very, very basic, like, “Introduction to sex positivity 101” kind of conversations. That was just so baffling to me. I think one of them, as an influencer, had, like, a brand deal or inquiry from a sex toy company or something. And she was trying to explain, like, to her family and to her mom, like, “Yeah, why shouldn’t women be empowered to have a vibrator? Or, like, if a couple is married, why shouldn’t we be able to bring a toy into the bedroom for the sake of, you know, the woman’s enjoyment?” And it’s like, the conversations that were being had had an air of weight about them. Like, this woman really feels like she’s breaking down barriers. [laughing] She really feels like she’s doing something.

Courtney: Whereas for me as a viewer — and I imagine for a lot of other viewers who are either not Mormon, did not grow up in any other conservative religious group, possibly even ex-Mormons, possibly even people who left their very conservative upbringing — but, like with all the conversations of sex and sex positivity and sexual freedoms and different ways to build your life and different relationship structures, it seemed so basic to me. So 101. So intro. But just the editing and the emphasis made it seem like, “This is a whole big thing and I’m a trailblazer!” And it’s like, I don’t know, maybe you are a trailblazer in the still-active-in-Utah circles, but I’ve absolutely talked to ex-Mormons who have had conversations about sex that go way deeper and more nuanced than what you’re giving me. [laughs]

Courtney: So that was just really, really interesting, and was another kind of moment for me where I had to step back and say, “Who actually is the audience watching this show?” Because I imagine very active Mormon audiences would probably be appalled to watch this show and are either hate-watching it or not watching it at all. I imagine this sort of like, “Ooh, look at these Mormons being a little bit spicy” is more for non-Mormons than Mormons to consume, I think. Right?

Royce: That was my assumption.

Courtney: So, yeah, I thought that choice was just a little bit odd.

Courtney: So now, I do want to talk about Later Daters. [laughs] I saw the trailer for this one, and my main interest in it is because there’s a video game called Later Daters. And I was like, “Ah! Plagiarism! How dare they?” We actually played a little bit of Later Daters on the Aces Playing at Attractions stream. Was that for IAD or was that Pride Month? It was some sort of event.

Royce: I don’t remember what time of year that was, but yeah, we only played one session, and we didn’t get very far.

Courtney: I really want to play more because it was very interesting. But we kind of got sidetracked because I had to teach you all how to play Cribbage. [laughs] And so we ended up playing Cribbage for far too long before actually getting into the story, because I love me some Cribbage.

Courtney: But the premise of Later Daters is, like, older folks dating. Most of them were married, had a relationship; if not married, at least had like a child; like, they’ve had other relationships in their life, and now they’re looking for someone to maybe spend their golden years with.

Royce: Which does change the dynamic a bit, because a lot of these other dating shows — it’s like, it’s a big deal for someone to bring up, in the dating pool, like, “By the way, I have a kid,” or “By the way, I’ve been divorced,” or something like that. And going into this one, it’s like, it’s expected.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: You kind of expect you’ve been married before. You probably have kids. You’re not trying for more children at this point.

Courtney: Yeah! Like, everyone understands, like, you have a whole life, you have a whole history, so it is a lot more focused in the here-and-now, which was very interesting to watch. And I will say, just the different dynamic than what is normally shown in dating shows was refreshing.

Royce: It was odd that the entire dating pool seemed to be abnormally wealthy.

Courtney: They did all seem very wealthy. I remember bringing that up because I think you were in the room for some of these episodes, at least, and —

Royce: I was in and out, yeah.

Courtney: When they were, like, going to each other’s houses, or — they had a dating coach, which I’ll talk about in a second, because that kind of rubbed me the wrong way a couple of times. But yeah, their houses were enormous, everyone whose house we saw. And I don’t know if that’s just the area they were in. If it really is… Like, statistically, the ages that they were are, for most people, the wealthiest you’re ever going to be in your life. Like, right before retirement —

Courtney: Royce Oh, yeah.

Courtney: — you kind of have the most net worth you’re ever going to have. But even within that, like, there’s levels, right? There are people who, even at that age, are not going to have a house like that, and so there was an element of that. But it’s so funny to see… Because I’ve experienced this in my own life with friends or family members who are older, who have already had kids, if they were going to have one, or have already had relationships and do want to get back out there. So many of them are so very specific about what they’re looking for — sometimes to the point of really nitpicking. And there’s a line, and that line might be different for everyone. I don’t think it’s inherently bad to have the, like, “No, this is what I’m looking for.” But some of them did get very, very weird.

Courtney: Like one example that I remember specifically from this show was a woman who was super into sports and she’s like, “If I’m dating a guy, he has to like the same sports team that I do.” But she met a guy who was not a fan of that sports team. He was actually, like, a fan of the opposite team, but he was like, “For you, I will wear your team’s jersey and I will sit with you at this game.” And he was like, “My friends are gonna roast me when they see this.” And he was like, “I’m really sticking my neck out here.” And so, to me, I thought — I mean, I’m not a sports person, so I don’t understand sports dating dynamics, [laughing] let alone allosexual dating dynamics — but I was like, “Wow.” I’ve definitely seen some sports people who would not be caught dead in the opposing team’s jersey, would not do this even if they were in love with someone. I’ve known some couples who just support different teams and they’re like, “On game day, we are not friends. [laughs] We’re just going to fight on game day, if that’s how it’s going to be.” So in my mind, I was like, “That’s so sweet of him.” I was like, “Is this romance? Is this sports romance?” I was like, “That’s very cute.” But she, like, broke up with him, and she was like, “No, not good enough. He doesn’t actually like my team the way I need him to like my team.” And I was like, “What more do you want from the man?”

Royce: Yeah, wasn’t she — in her own words — basically like, “I like everything about him except he’s a poser”?

Courtney: [laughs] It was… Yeah. So that was interesting. Because there’s a good and a bad element. There is a, like, “I could genuinely have a really strong connection with this person, but I’m nitpicking something that really doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, that could be a possibility.” But there’s something that, in an older demographic like this, is a lot more common.

Courtney: But I also think it’s just more common in Ace and Aro communities. Because there’s sort of an underlying, “I know that I can be fine alone, so I’m not going to waste time on a relationship that isn’t what I need it to be,” and that can be very healthy. So it’s a fine line. But I found myself thinking about that line a lot in watching this. Because I’ve known lots of people in my life who have been like, “I’d rather be single than in a relationship that isn’t what I want it to be, and I would be fine with that.” Even if they are actively looking for a relationship, they’re like, “It needs to check all these boxes or else it’s not worth it.” And that tends to be either Aspec people and/or older people. So I kind of feel like that is a life lesson that a lot of people do learn, if they’re given, you know, the circumstances.

Courtney: And in this case, it’s not just “it’s an older person,” it’s an older person that either went through divorce or they’re a widow or widower. At some point down the line, the person they thought was going to be their lifelong person is not there anymore, and they still have more life in them, so — which is obviously going to be a much different experience than someone who is still with their spouse later in life and they are both healthy and they are still together and they are still happy. Then, maybe, you aren’t going to be sort of pushed into those harder times that’s going to make you really assess what you want out of life. But I think it just comes down to different areas of introspection, because that’s one scenario where a combination of age and experience and specific circumstance sort of makes you do that assessment.

Courtney: But then there’s this element of our Aspec brand of queerness, where a lot of us often — not always, but often — at a much younger age also have these really deep thought experiments and assessments of what we value and what’s worth it and what we want or what we do not want. Which is very much the opposite of what you see in shows like Married at First Sight or Love is Blind, because most of those people come on to the shows being like, “I’m ready for a spouse. It is the time. I am of the age I should be married, and I haven’t met someone on my own, so let’s try this,” which is a very different experience than someone who sits and decides, “I don’t need a partner to be happy, even if I want one.” So that is another element of why I like watching shows geared towards older people. It’s just a very different mentality in that way.

Courtney: But on the lines of, like, being stubborn versus selective, there was one line that had me cracking up. There was a guy who, like, did not want to drive too far to hang out with this woman that he really liked, and someone outright asked him, “Are you really going to let Atlanta traffic get in the way of finding love?” And he just very seriously, very deadpan, said, “I will.” And I was like, “Goddamn.” [laughs] Honestly, respect to that man. I don’t personally mind traffic. I don’t mind driving. I know a lot of people do. But for that to be on your, like, “No, my life is better if I don’t have to deal with Atlanta traffic, so I’m not going to compromise that [laughs] for the possibility of finding love. Not at this point in my life. I’m too old for that shit.” [laughs] Very good.

Courtney: But then there was this really fun element of, a lot of these people have not only kids, but grown kids. A lot of them have adult children who are in these confessionals with them, who are talking and interacting with them, who even — to some extent — are, like, coaching them on how to text someone that you kind of like. [laughs] It was very funny. There was one woman who started calling the guy she was dating “Big Willy” because his name was Willy. And she’s like, “Oh, does anyone ever call you Big Willy?” And so she started doing that. And later on, she said “Big Willy” while her adult daughter was in the room, and she’s like, “Mom, do you know what that means?” And she had to explain to her mother, “That is a slang term for genitalia.” She had to… They were, like, explaining emojis to their parents and, like, elements of sexting, I guess. Like, they had to explain what the eggplant emoji means. [laughs] And it was good. I liked those bits of it.

Courtney: But, unfortunately, as you often find with shows like this — this is not exclusive to Later Daters; you see this in others with younger people saying it all the time — there was quite a bit of the comments that are like, “Of course I’m looking for love, because I’m human, and everybody’s looking for love. Every human wants that.” So you do get those comments where it’s like, [groans] not great to watch as an Aspec person because they do the whole blanket, “This is everyone and this is what makes us human.” So, even though there were elements I enjoyed, I’m not giving it a full pass by any means.

Courtney: But then some of the, you know… there were some charming instances. Like you said, Royce, they — like, they know you have a history, they know you have a family, they know you’ve had other relationships. They kind of show the audience that, too. Like, we see them as they are now, talking, and what they want out of dating at this age. But they also show their younger photos, and… I don’t know. I like that. I like seeing old photos, and I like seeing old photos of people, and so that just sort of helped connect the dots when they’re talking about their histories and whatnot.

Courtney: But I said I’d talk about the coach, because I really did not like the coach. They brought in a much younger dating coach for these people. And sometimes she was the voice of, like, “Hey, don’t be too picky.” Like, “Really, you’re going to let traffic get in the way?” or “Really, the sports team?” So sometimes, she was, like, trying to be a voice of reason — like, “If you really want a relationship, you can’t be that picky.”

Courtney: But I was so upset with some of her advice. There was one woman on the show who was fabulous. She was a strong woman, she was an independent woman, she had a career. She was even talking about, like, “Yeah, I’m open to dating other people, but there’s a guy I’ve met through work that I kind of have a crush on.” So she was sort of getting advice on, like, “Should I make a move on this guy? And this is what he said to me. Do you think he’s interested? Or is this just professional politeness?” And this woman had a fabulous style, and, she had, like, really funky glasses — like, really unique frames. And this young dating coach telling this elderly woman who’s out there trying to date, like, straight up told her that her glasses are too much. And she’s like, “Maybe you can tone it down a little bit,” and kind of saying, like, “Guys don’t really like this. They won’t know what to do with this. It’s a little too much color, too much personality.” And I was like, “How very dare you?” [laughs] I was so upset. But then, when the credits rolled, it was like, “Produced by Michelle Obama,” and I was like, “What?” [laughs] I was really taken aback by that.

Courtney: Okay, audience. It’s time. [sighs] It’s time to talk about MILF Manor, which I have to say was — even though I did watch the entire season of this one, unlike the one that I skipped most of — it was probably the most insufferable one.

Royce: That was the assumption going into it, because — I brought this up during our last episode when you were mentioning Dated and Related — I was like, “Isn’t there a worse one that I’ve heard about, somehow?”

Courtney: Yeah. So, it’s bad. And the thing is, all of the charming elements that I liked about Later Daters were not in MILF Manor. Because, first of all, early scenes, first episode, the women were being really aggressively competitive with one another and, like, body-shaming each other before they even met the guys. Like, some direct quotes were, like, “She was probably hot when she was younger,” or “She’s got nothing on me.” So, awful, terrible.

Courtney: And then in their confessionals… I don’t know, and I really almost need to know, because I know there’s a producer behind the camera who’s likely asking them questions, trying to draw soundbites out of them, just letting them talk. I need to know what question or what conversation led to this sound bite, because it was before they really got into the swing of the show. One woman sitting there was just like, “I don’t think my son knows I have an extremely high libido.” And it’s like, out of context, that is a baffling thing to say. [laughs]

Courtney: But just as baffling as the soundbite is the entire premise of this show. So they apparently did not know what show they signed up for. Which is kind of reminiscent of the Asexual traffic cone show, which… What is that show actually called? I have forgotten already.

Royce: Too Hot to Handle.

Courtney: Too Hot to Handle.

Royce: They also claimed that the casting calls just said something vague about, like, a reality show. I think.

Courtney: Well, they thought it was about, like, sex and high libidos and sexy people having sex. And they were like, “Oh, yeah, sign me up.” But then they’re like, “Psych, you don’t get to have sex. You signed up for a show with lots of sex, and… don’t. [laughs] But if you do, it’s okay.” So… [laughs] So weird.

Courtney: So they apparently thought that these mother and son duos were going on separate dating retreats. So they thought these dating retreats had nothing to do with one another. They were going to totally different places. So they were, like, really shocked when their sons all showed up, and they were like, “Hey, sons, you’re going to be dating each other’s moms.” And they were like, “Wow, I had no idea! I thought we were on separate dating retreats, but turns out, our sons are the dating pool.”

Courtney: And, like, there were just goofy conversations that I found fascinating from, like, I don’t know, Nature Channel documentary level — like, “This is how the allos work.” [laughs] Because they were, like, debating the difference between a MILF and a cougar. Apparently, there is a difference worthy of debate. Now I know. The youngest guy was 20. Most of them were just in their 20s. But the women were all, like, 50s or 60s.

Courtney: And one of the women said this, and this is another thing that I will never understand. She said, “I need that fire to have a relationship. If it doesn’t have that attraction, well, I can still have sex, but I won’t kiss him, because that’s disgusting.” And I… [laughs] don’t understand. I don’t understand. It was just a lot of women being like, “Yeah, I can have sex with anyone. I want to have sex with lots of people, especially younger guys.” And alright, but what…? You need the attraction to have a relationship, but you can have sex without the relationship, but if you’re not attracted to him, you will have sex with him but not kiss him. I need, like, a conspiracy string board on my wall, to figure out, like, [laughing] how the sexualities of some of these people work.

Courtney: But they had — and, mind you, these like weird allo games that they play on these shows, the ones I mentioned earlier, the ones I’ve mentioned in past episodes, are always horrific, but there’s an added element of horrific in MILF Manor. Because in this first truly horrific challenge, they had blindfolded moms touching the shirtless sons to find theirs. And some women obviously getting too handsy — like, very clearly, “I’m not feeling to try to identify features. I am enjoying this, and I’m going to take my time and make this sexual.” And they had to be really confident that it wasn’t their sons, presumably, when they were doing that. But the winner of this just got better suites to sleep in than anyone else got, and the sons and moms, like, share a room together. But… why?

Royce: So that was your introduction to the series.

Courtney: Yes! That was the first challenge, was, “Alright, all the moms get a blindfold. All the sons take your shirt off. Alright, mom, go down the line and feel the shirtless body of all of these boys and see if you can pick out which one is your son.” No. No! No! And then, as this was happening, I just could not stop thinking about the fact that they allegedly did not know what show they signed up for, because I feel like this shouldn’t be legal. [laughs] I think, in a past episode, I was also like, “I don’t think this should be legal.” It was some of the things they were doing, and just considering basic consent.

Royce: Oh, you’re talking about that last episode with Perfect Match with a… something that you described as somewhat “Never have I ever / spin the bottle,” like, have to kiss other people kind of a thing.

Courtney: Mmm. It’s just… I want to know what these contracts are, because I think it is scummy to get someone on a reality TV show that they do not understand the full premise. Because I absolutely think there could be an argument to be made about potentially even coercion. If they did not know what show they were signing up for — and presumably, they have some kind of contract — I don’t know the extent to which they’re able to just walk away without any sort of, I don’t know, financial repercussions or what have you. Every show is probably a little bit different. But, like, in front of the built-in audience of other contestants and the producers and a camera, there’s a lot that is shady in there for sure. I think if you’re going to do shows like these, you have to be honest! People have to fully consent to what they’re signing up for.

Courtney: But some of the confessionals were really funny. Because they do these dual confessionals with the mom and her son, and sometimes they’d be, like, arguing with each other, and it was always very fascinating. Because one mom would be like, “This is a gift from the heavens,” and her son would be like, “Why are you talking like that? That’s not how you normally speak.” And she’d be like, “How dare you talk back to me? [laughing] I’m your mother!” And the producers would just leave that in to the final cut for our… pleasure?

Courtney: But there was, too… Like, these very sexually charged women at least were really honest in a way that I don’t think people were honest in, like, Love Island. Because one quote was, “If I find love here, that’s great, but mostly I’m going to have a lot of sex.” Like, alright! It’s honest. [laughs] That is honest.

Courtney: But I did find the difference between the moms and the sons to be really interesting, because there was, like, a 20-something son that’s like, “Yeah, I’ve been on the dating apps, and I have a range up to 60-something.” But meanwhile, his mom would be like, “I would never date a man in his 60s,” when it’s like, that man is so much closer to your age, and your 20-year-old child is like, “Yeah, I’d date someone that old.” It was really weird, because a lot of these women are, like, actually very ageist to their own age group. Like the way they talk about men their age was just dripping with disdain and why they could never do it. And then you’d get all these, you know, cheesy lines like, “I connect with younger men, especially in bed.”

Courtney: And there was this just, um, horrifically Freudian interaction. The son said, “My mom does get a lot of attention from here up, mostly because she doesn’t wear a bra and the girls are always popping out,” to which she said, “Well, it didn’t bother you when you were a baby sucking on them.” And he was like, “I needed the milk, mom.” And she was like, “Yeah, you were very thirsty.” Oh my God! Why? Why? Why are we doing this?

Courtney: So they played more games. One of these games was The Wall of Secrets — kind of reminiscent of Love Island, where they had to guess whose secret it was by kissing them. But this one was, everyone writes their secrets, puts it on a wall, and then you had to try to guess, like, which one is your son’s and which one is your mom’s. But the secrets are all sex-related, right? Like, some of the secrets is like, “I had a seven-woman orgy,” and one mom is looking at that on the wall and is like, “Yeah, that could be my son.” And, spoiler alert, that wasn’t her son. But when the mom of the son who did write that found out, she was like, “I knew my son was a bit of a man whore, but not to that level!” I was like, “Oh my God! [laughs] Oh my God.” But then you had some, like, truly ghastly things to put on the wall that absolutely ruined some people’s day. Like, one of them was, “I slept with my son’s middle school teacher.” So now all the sons are reading this going, “Is that my mom? Did my mom sleep with my middle school teacher?”

Courtney: But the worst one was, “I slept with my son’s best friend.” And the one who found out his mom slept with his best friend — his brain absolutely broke. Like, he was shattered. They got into a huge fight. She was, like, crying. He left the room. He went to go swimming at night, naked, yelling about how he doesn’t like being told what to do. And she’s like, “Come home, come back to the room,” and he’s like, “No, you go home.” And then she’s crying in, like, a confessional, and she’s like, “I didn’t expect this to happen. I mean, I feel bad, but I’m also a woman, too.” And I’m like, “Lady, you fucked up. Like, you have to see, you have to see that you fucked up. That is not okay.”

Courtney: But yeah, then you have all these weird comments from just like the sons talking to each other because they’re all dating each other’s moms. So you get these goofy comments, like, “Oh, I adore your mom, so I hope she can be my mother-in-law one day.” Or, “That boy better watch out because I’m going to be his papa one day.” And some of the guys got, like, a little bit mildly territorial and being like, “I’m going to get you back, and that’s for dating my mom.”

Courtney: So then, there was this woman who is just completely messy. She went on a date with a Mexican boy. And in these confessionals, her son insisted very emphatically, “Oh yeah, my mom really likes guys with accents,” which I gotta feel like is true. Like, if your son is saying that in the room with you, and you are, in fact, now choosing to date someone with an accent, there’s probably a pattern he has noticed, or you probably made comments over the years. But she tried to brush it off, being like, “No, I don’t like guys with accents. I just like people from other countries with different worldviews.”

Courtney: But — but — then she lost it on that boy’s mom and another mom who was there when they were speaking Spanish to each other. And I mean screaming, shouting at them. She yelled at them to stop speaking Spanish repeatedly. And when that mom was later speaking Spanish with her son, then she was clearly like, “Oh well, it’s clear that they have an attachment disorder. She forgot to cut the umbilical cord, and she’s either a helicopter mom or a jealous wife.” And they’re like, “No? We’re just speaking Spanish because it’s our first language.” And she again loses her shit, going, “You didn’t come here to speak your first language!” But then, like, the real kicker: they’re in Mexico for this entire show, they’re shooting in Mexico, and they’re like, “Ma’am, we are literally in Mexico.” But she kept insisting that their speaking Spanish was clearly because of her and they were talking bad about her. And she’s like, “I don’t like when they leave me out, and they’re talking Spanish, and they’re speaking Spanish behind my back. And they shouldn’t even be speaking Spanish; they should be speaking English.” And the whole time, they were like, “No, this actually has absolutely nothing to do with you. We’re just native Spanish speakers, so that’s what we’re most comfortable speaking with each other when we can.” And, like, this is the woman who’s like, “I just love people from other countries because they have different worldviews.” And it’s like, no, ma’am, you’re actually being quite racist. I’ve got a feeling you’re fetishizing guys with accents. I think your son might have been right on the money with that one.

Courtney: And some mothers and some sons were just really leaning into the, like, incestuous nature of a lot of this more so than others. Some were clearly less comfortable with it. And it was so weird to watch the dynamics between the people who were very comfortable with it versus the people who weren’t. Because there was a woman who was like, “I really do not want to hear about my son’s package.” And then another woman is like, “She has to know that her son is hung, right? I mean, that’s her boy. Like, clearly she’s gotta know that.” And it’s like, no. Like, there are women her age sleeping with her son, and they’re just, like, talking about it out in the open. And she’s like, “Please don’t, actually.” And they’re like, “That’s your son! You should know the size of his junk. Because that’s your —” No, stop it. Stop it, everyone!

Courtney: And the thing is, a lot of these women were so aggressively sexual that I found it completely fascinating that some of them were completely turning off the younger guys. A lot of the guys were like, “Take it down a notch, please.” [laughs] And the guys were — for the most part, most of them were very respectful and a little more reserved than these women, who were just, like, aggressively pursuing them. Like, there was speed dating, at one point, and one woman comes right out of the gate with, “So, are you an ass man?” and “Oh, would you ever do that thing that that one guy put it as his secret on that board?” and “How are you in bed?” and “What’s your signature move?” And lots of the guys were really uncomfortable with this woman who’s just immediately coming out of the gate with that. And she sat down at one point and was like, “What does it for you, sexual attraction-wise?” And this poor guy was like, “Uhh, to me, it’s about the personal connection and feeling it spiritually.” And this woman was so unimpressed with that answer. She was just like, “Oh.” Like, [laughing] as if she was disappointed to hear that.

Courtney: But then they’d play all these allo sex games, like, in the same room with each other, which is so very uncomfortable. It wasn’t just like, all the women are in a room and all the guys are in a room and they’re doing this. They are all together — they are with their mothers and sons, respectively — and they’d be getting these prompts like, “Demonstrate your go-to foreplay move on this piece of fruit,” and then they’d have to literally do that. They’d have a vaguely genital-shaped fruit, and they would just demonstrate foreplay on it with their mother or son in the room. Why? Why?

Courtney: And they did this weird, like, sex ed class thing with an illustration of female anatomy, with the mothers teaching the class to the sons all together in a room about, like, how to pleasure a woman, which was horrific. And one mother started a chant and, like, asking other people to start chanting, saying, “Long live the penis.”

Courtney: [Royce laughs]

Courtney: Audience, I wish you could see Royce’s face. [laughs]

Royce: I was trying to think ahead to what a possible chant might be. My sex education course in high school did not have chanting.

Courtney: No, nor did mine. I mean, I didn’t have one, for one. But if I did, I’m sure there wouldn’t have been chanting. But, much like other shows, a new mother and son gets introduced after the first pair got eliminated. And everyone who was already there had the job of explaining to them the actual show that they’re on. So everyone who was there for first episode is like, “Hey, surprise, this is MILF Manor.” These two new people come in and everyone else is like, “Oh, welcome, let’s tell you what show you’re actually on.” [laughs]

Courtney: But some of the questions — when some of the women were dating these younger guys — and their answers were just so funny. Because one woman was like, “Have you ever dated an older woman before?” And the guy’s like, “Yeah!” And she’s like, “Like how much older?” And he’s like, “Oh, two to three years.” [laughs] I was like, “Two to three years older? That’s not even an age gap. What are you talking about?” And what a wild thing to say to someone who’s, like, at least a couple decades [laughing[ older than you. At least.

Courtney: Then they did blind massages. The sons massage the moms, but don’t know who they’re massaging. Then the women rate the massages. One woman was moaning and groaning in a quite sexual fashion while getting this massage from someone who may or may not have been her son. And in the confessional, someone was like, “If she’s getting a happy ending and I’m not, I’m going to be pissed.” [sighs] I hate… I hate so much.

Courtney: So, and here’s what I mean when I say that, like, a lot of the sons were very respectful and a lot more cognizant of consent and boundaries than the mothers were. There were, like, multiple times where a mom got wasted on a date, and the son was like, “I’m not comfortable sharing a bed with someone so drunk,” and left — like, excused himself from the situation — very respectfully. And the mom was always pissed about it. Like, genuinely livid. And I’m like, “What the fuck?” They were absolutely, completely drunk. And these guys were like, “Yeah, this is not something I’m comfortable with. I’m going to remove myself from the situation,” only to be, like, chastised for it.

Courtney: So then there was another challenge. And I think I was talking to you during this moment — I don’t remember if you just came into the room while it was on or if I just had to scream about it for a second. But the moms and sons had to try to identify each other’s dirty underwear. Like, they put everyone’s dirty underwear in a hamper, and it was like, “Alright, find your mom’s or son’s.” And one of the sons — and this is what I mean where some people were really leaning into it more than others — one of the sons was, like, smelling and biting the panties. And again, it’s like, you have to, I assume, be very confident that that was not your mother’s. But also, why are you just doing that? Even if that’s something that you like to do, which I’ll never understand, why do it in front of so many people and a camera? Like, you know what everyone is going to be thinking, given the context of the show right now, too. So, like, that’s an added element that… That challenge would already be weird to me if this wasn’t mothers and sons, so that just adds more to that.

Courtney: But one woman, at one point, was, like, hounding her son, trying to coach him. And she was saying things like, “I need a man who’s going to put on his man pants, and women are going to need a man who will take charge and be a man in the bedroom. Women are always going to want a man to be assertive, because these women who are like, ‘I want to take control,’ like, maybe that’s cool sometimes, but if that’s your MO, then that’s not normal. If I didn’t want a man to be a man, then why don’t I just buy a strap-on and be a lesbian?” Which is also hilarious, because, mind you, this was the woman that was being so forward in the speed dating that she was making a lot of the guys uncomfortable. And her son, in this situation, as she’s yelling this at him, was so uninterested. He was, like, rolling his eyes. He was, like, trying to leave the room, and she would just follow him, so he’d just roll his eyes and go to another room. [laughs] And at one point, he was like, “All you do is talk.” [laughs] And she asked him, “Will you at least pray about what I’m saying?” And he just said, “No.” [laughs] And we respect the hell out of that man, because he then decided to leave the show. He was like, “No, I’m done with this. I didn’t sign up for this show. I don’t like being on this show. I’m out.”

Courtney: So then, after that entire circus of a show, they have to pick their one match. Like, they write down on a paper who their top match is. And any mismatches go home. Like, they had to match each other. And there were some instances where, like, multiple people were trying to pick the same person, but, like, that guy can only pick one of them in return, so the others have to go home. So after lots of those people went home, then they bring in a close friend or a family member, or I think, in one instance, there was even, like, someone’s ex came in to meet their new match. So then you have, like, introducing them to — not the parents, but maybe introducing them to, “Hey, this is my other kid” or “This is my sister.” But of course, they can’t leave it there, because introducing someone you’re dating to your family is far too normal for this show. So then they had to play truth or dare together. And one mom was doing belly shots off one of the guys in front of everyone.

Courtney: But then, like, the last episode was very, very weird to me. Because the matches that were left held hands and looked each other in the eye, like, standing up. And they made these, like, grand, weird speeches to recite at each other in a format that felt oddly like wedding vows, but it clearly wasn’t. They weren’t getting married; this wasn’t any official ceremony. But they wrote speeches about their love and how much they mean to each other, and then they just, like, say it to each other’s faces in a very formal manner. So that was odd.

Courtney: And three-fourths of the couples, by the end, claimed they were going to stay together outside of the show. I think there was at least one couple there that was like, “Yeah, I think this is probably the end of the road for us.” But three-fourths were like, “Of course we’re going to stay together outside of the show. We found love! We did it! We’re each other’s matches.”

Courtney: But the weirdest thing is — because sometimes I will try to google, like, “Are these couples still together?” Like, we did that for Love Island, and the ones that technically won the show broke up very shortly after the show. That’s common. You see that a lot. I tried to find, like, where are all the couples from MILF Manor now? Who’s still together and who’s not? And this is the cagiest I have ever seen a show be about the status of the contestants after, to the point where I was like, [laughing] do they have some kind of NDA, some kind of contract, that’s like, “You can’t tell people the status of your relationship for X amount of time after the show”? Or what? Because so many of them were just like, “We don’t know because neither of them post about each other. They haven’t said they’re broken up. They won’t answer questions about whether or not they’re still together.” So a lot of the speculation was like, “We assume they’re not, but we don’t have proof,” and that’s very weird for reality shows. Normally, you can find an article somewhere that will give you the full breakdown of, like, who’s still together, who’s not, here’s everything we know about them post-show. And this one was weirder than that, and I want to know why.

Courtney: So, audience, I did watch MILF Manor for you, and I hope it was worth it. Was it worth it, audience? I make no promises about what the next “Weird Allo Reality Show” episode is going to be or what series we’re going to cover in it or when it will come. What did you say, our average is, like, 11 months?

Royce: Yeah, we’ll see if we keep to that and if we have a new episode in early February of next year.

Courtney: I might give Singles Inferno a real shot. It will have to remain interesting enough that I can watch it with full attention, but we’ll see. I will try. And, I don’t know. Leave us a comment about any other shows that you’re dying to hear about [laughs] and maybe, just maybe, I will suffer through it for you.

Courtney: But after all of that misery, we need a little bit of joy. And that’s why I am very excited to share with you today’s featured MarketplACE vendor, Wildwood Bindery, where you can find handmade marble earrings and journals, among other things. My favorite thing in this shop [laughs] is so silly and goofy, but I’m obsessed with mine. I actually put it in my very nice curio cabinet, which very few things get the honor of a place there. You can get friend acorns. They are little acorns. They are, like, painted in a beautiful marbled fashion with little googly eyes. They are so cute. I literally got a tiny little stand that my friend acorn can sit on and is in my curio cabinet. Adorable little guys.

Courtney: But there are a lot of other things here. There are, in fact, earrings with the same beautiful marbling, if you’re someone who wears jewelry like that, and some really cute book binding, for if you need a nice little journal. They are handmade, made to order. You can customize it with your choice of a cover. They look very, very nice.

Courtney: Oh, this is cute! There are even some pride earrings. They’re little painting palettes where the colors on the palette are colors of pride flags. So that’s a really cute little, subtle pride jewelry. There’s an Ace flag here. I see an Aro flag. Looks like a nonbinary flag, trans flag. So lots of different pride flag paint palettes there.

Courtney: And I don’t know why this print with a Darwin quote, but I like it. [laughing] It’s a big print and it just says, “I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.” From Charles Darwin himself. I think that’s kind of mean to the bees, if we’re being perfectly honest. But we will put links so that you can find Wildwood Bindery in the show notes on our website, as well as the description on YouTube.

Courtney: And that is all we have for today, so we will talk to you all again next time. Goodbye.