The profound Love Island moment we all missed

SOMETHING as inane as this encounter shouldn’t come as a revelation or make for a particularly profound television moment. And yet, it did, writes Katy Hall.

THERE were a lot of things I was expecting when I began watching the first season of Love Island Australia a few weeks ago, but a masterclass in how to stop slut shamers in their tracks was not one of them.

And yet, among the expanse of daybeds, inflatable flamingoes, and unsubtly placed Neutrogena products plugging the show’s major sponsor, that’s exactly what happened this week.

The set up was relatively simple. Resident muscle head and self-appointed Lord of who can and cannot be attracted to one another, Eden Dally, decided to ask his fellow contestant Millie Fuller — in front of at least five other contestants — “Millie, did you have sex with ...?” (The name of who Fuller had sex with was bleeped for privacy reasons, but it is believed to be a well-known footballer).

The problem isn’t that Dally asked the question, but that he already knew the answer and chose to ask again at a time that he saw as an opportune moment.

Surrounded by Fuller’s friends and her partner within the house, Mark Odare, Dally’s intentions were crystal clear: to embarrass her, and to see Odare judge Fuller as a potential girlfriend based on her sexual history.

Eden seemed all too delighted that Millie admitted to having had sex with a man who was not her current partner. (Pic: Channel 9)

After Fuller told Dally, “yes, you know I did,” he turned to Odare smiling and said: “Told ya.”

It was gross and uncalled for, but also not outside the realm of things women have seen and experienced before. It’s the kind of behaviour we see over and over again when we are coming into adulthood. The remedy, or so we’ve been told through learned behaviour, is to either lie, or confirm the truth while falling over yourself to explain how much you regret the decision and now retrospectively feel ashamed. To reel off excuses about it being a long time ago, or that it was who you were then but aren’t now, about how you got suckered in to believing they were a good guy, about it not being a good time for you personally … the list goes on (how many times has Kim Kardashian been asked to repent for a sex tape she made over ten years ago?).

The aim, of course, is to ensure that the object of your affection doesn’t judge you too harshly and that peace will return. But in the land of Millie Fuller’s Love Island experience, that narrative does not exist.

Millie is not here for Eden’s shaming, thanks. (Pic: supplied)

Following the confrontation, Fuller told another contestant: “I don’t care if Eden tells the whole bloody world; it doesn’t bother me.” Her concern, however, was about how Odare was taking the information and him appearing visibly upset by it, because, you know, fair enough that your new fling doesn’t want to know about your old fling.

But rather than going to Dally and telling him to shut up, Fuller went one further, telling Odare that his fixation on the whole thing had left her “a little bit put off.”

“You’re so worried about what Eden’s saying and Eden’s thinking … about saying that football guy thing about me. This paranoia pushes me away.”

In other words, ignore the big mouth, deal with your inadequacies, and accept that women usually had a sex life before you or find a new girlfriend. Incredibly, Odare appeared to see reason with this logic and agreed to drop it and pay no further attention to Dally.

Something as inane as this encounter shouldn’t come as a revelation or make for a particularly profound television moment. And yet, it did. Because instead of following the script on how to be a good and repentant sexually active woman, Fuller just threw water all over it and went back to sunbaking.

So if you could, Channel 9, more television like this moving forward, please.

Katy Hall is a RendezView writer and producer.

@katyhallway