Romantic relationships are a fraught, unpredictable emotional landscape of hope and trust and joy and laughter and hurt and disappointment and shame and tears. They’re a gamble, a risk you take because the highs are so high, even though your experience tells you that the lows are so low. The inevitable disagreements, break-ups, falling outs, and unpleasantness will gut you like a fish no matter how much you tell yourself you’ve grown past that, that that sort of emotional vulnerability is something you’ve moved beyond.
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We actively avoid these experiences in our own lives. We insulate ourselves against the possibility of them happening to save ourselves that deep, inconsolable pain. Married At First Sight is a human zoo for us to watch these ordeals unfold without having to take the risk ourselves. Instead of worrying that a fight might be our last or that an awkward moment might somehow marr the rest of the relationship, we can just enjoy the sheer spectacle of people, ostensibly attracted to each other, saying really mean shit to each other.
MAFS provides this in spades. Every person on the show has seemingly been grown in a vat over the course of 7 weeks prior to the show and genetically engineered to be as agitating to the people around them as possible. From there they are taken out of the vat, shaken dry, and implanted with enough memories to almost convince you that they have previously lived in human society (but not quite). Every conversation held on the show has a ring to it like it is being conducted by 16-year-olds who, for the space of one television show, have been granted the use of adult bodies.
Case in point: the finger-sucking. Somehow, a (sort-of) sexualised finger-sucking incident has now taken up prime space in two episodes in a row. Last night we saw Sam debrief a room full a dangerous amount of masculine energy on an incident where he claimed that Elizabeth started aggressively sucking on his thumb. While preferably this is a thing I would have only ever heard about once, it was not.
Tonight’s episode kicked off with Sam and Elizabeth arguing over whether or not Sam was sexually attracted to Elizabeth, which culminates in the pair arguing over whether or not having your thumb sucked on is horny or not and, irrespective of that, which of them initiated it when it happened.
Sam strongly denies that he had anything to do with it, but this comes back later with a shock twist. When the issue is relitigated at the dinner party, there’s a big reveal: the thumb insertion (sorry) was in fact initiated by Sam, who claims that he did it as a stalling tactic: “I was trying to defer you from trying to kiss me because I’m not into you.” There are probably better ways to communicate that, I reckon.
He said, she said. 😐 #MAFS pic.twitter.com/Tm07J6yazx
— Married At First Sight (@MarriedAU) February 20, 2019
Sam then escapes to the secret horny chamber with Ines, where he is once again confronted with the Twilight Zone-style hell that has been constructed for him: being turned off by women who are turned on by him. “I get so horny when I see you,” she says. “Every time when I see you when I walk into a room I die. I have like six orgasms in my head.” As the light slowly fades from Sam’s eyes, Ines explains how they should be together, and how that would work.
Smash cut to Sam talking to camera: “Woah, Ines has come on way too strong. It’s a bit of a turn-off. You know, I’ve said I’m attracted to Ines and now all of a sudden we’re here. It was that quick. Ines and I are attracted to each other in a physical way but I don’t think we figured it would go this way. I think she’s definitely fallen for me. I’d hate to dodge one bullet for another bullet.”
Too much, too soon? #MAFS pic.twitter.com/fjVZFZGQ6T
— Married At First Sight (@MarriedAU) February 20, 2019
Wow that sounds tough but, hey, at least you decided to do all this tricky relationship stuff with a million billion people watching you. Bonus points to Sam for repeatedly telling a clearly emotionally distressed Elizabeth to ‘calm down’, really helpful stuff!
