Reality Show Nudity

Reality show nudity can be deliberate or accidental and may or may not be a stunt by producers or the network to boost ratings.

Nudity in reality shows also depends on what network airs the program. For example, HBO typically shows more nudity than your prime-time stations like ABC or CBS, but every once in a while, even the latter likes to push the envelope.

This reality show aired in 2002 and 2003 and had a few specials thereafter. Cathouse followed the employees of the Moonlight Bunnyranch, a legal prostitution house in Nevada. Viewers watched as customers selected a worker and perused a menu of sex activities. When they reached the room, HBO presented everything. Male private parts were often blurred but the women were shown completely nude engaging in sexual positions and performing many different sexual acts. Cathouse is a show that took reality show nudity to the extreme only because HBO is allowed to air such programming.

Richard Hatch was the Survivor winner of Borneo and had a short stint on the first All-Stars. Hatch, while not a nudist by beliefs, liked to walk around naked. His tribe on All-Stars used this to their advantage by having him walk around taunting the other tribe. Once he even hugged another member of the tribe, Susan Hawk. She quit soon after because of the incident. CBS only show Hatch's rear and cut out parts that exposed other areas of his body.

The Danish show Expedition Robinson is a reality show like Survivor. This season's show takes place in Malaysia and one of the episodes included a challenge where contestants participated in a nude race, which producers later apologized for, claiming it was not part of the reality show script and the scene would not make it to air. As a side note, one of the female cast members didn't want to take off her clothes and was subsequently kicked off for that reason.

In the UK version of Big Brother, an English teacher was under scrutiny for appearing naked in a couple of episodes. The scene that caused controversy was when she stepped out of the shower with only a towel. The towel "accidentally" slipped to the floor. Lisa Ellis has been teaching English for nine years, but the headmaster where she works found the behavior lewd and was looking into dismissing her from the job.

In 2003, Fox was fined $91,000 for airing episodes of a dating reality show called Married by America that showed sexually explicit bachelor and bachelorette parties with breasts and behinds. The parts were "pixelated", but this was not good enough for the FCC.

While some overseas television is more liberal than American TV, some production companies and networks think some reality show nudity is okay. It is more common nowadays to see a naked behind on CBS or FOX. In one episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians, one sister tries to pull down the pants of another in order to draw on her behind. She exposes the thong and eventually, most of the behind.

There are both opponents and proponents of reality show nudity. Those opposed complain that networks don't care when nudity occurs and that some nudity is manufactured for ratings. Many of the racier reality shows appear later in the evening when children should be in bed, but there are some that air earlier. Those who think nudity is natural may feel that television is attempting to be as creative as they can because fresh ideas in the reality world are thin. Most viewers take the nudity in context and know when it's being blatant or accidental for the creativity of the show.

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