'You couldn't pitch that in the US!'

Are the UK'S dating shows the wildest in the world?

- Daisy Jones

THE FIRST KISS in Netflix's same-sex Japanese dating show The Boyfriend arrives an entire eight episodes in. Two cast members, Shun, 23, and Dai, 22, who have spent weeks embroiled in a "will they, won't they" dance, finally go on a "sleepover date". Shun sidles into Dai's single bed. And then, in a scene that will have you holding your breath in anticipation, the two men gradually tip their faces towards one another and touch lips. Yeeessssss, I screamed at the TV, weirdly excited about the prospect of two people I've never met kissing. Finally.

Quite different, then, to the BBC's same-sex dating shows, I Kissed a Girl and I Kissed a Boy, in which cast members make out upon meeting. And that's not the most outthere UK format. Dating Naked UK - a Paramount+ series presented by Rylan Clark - sees people strip off before going on dates. And let us not forget Channel 4's Naked Attraction, in which singles decide who they're into based on a row of faceless naked bodies. The only place left for the UK to go would be watching contestants have sex immediately on air - oh wait, that's already been done on Sex Box, which ran on Channel 4 from 2013 to 2016 and saw couples have sex in a box before chatting about it to a live audience.