Dawn Porter : Mail Order Bride
Onwards With The Channel 4 Series On Relationships, Love And Sex
Oct 8, 2008
The aim of this tour for the men was ostensibly to meet the girl of their dreams. The programme revealed a strange mix of desperation, danger and dodgy characters and was far more disconcerting in its way than Porter's recent material covering group sex and free love.
A Package Tour For The Preying and Preyed Upon
Having each coughed up almost $5,000, the group consisted of a mix of mostly middle-aged US guys who had been conversing with a number of ladies through a form of organised, online dating. The same company then arranges for them to travel - in this case to Odessa - to meet the girls in a social setting to see if sparks fly. The tour company is responsible for vetting the men, and their standards in this regard were shown up as a tad lacking on occasion. Porter took on the task of assessing the men herself. More as a method to understand their motives, the audience shares her increasing anxiety as some of the men involved reveal some alarming character traits. Some were genuine guys who perhaps struggled in a social context at home and found it easier to meet girls where the odds were more in their favour. Others, however, revealed frightening abilities to completely fabricate their motives and backgrounds in order to meet girls. One particularly odd misogynist revealed some nastier proclivities which Porter took upon herself to flag to the company involved, much to their discomfort, and about which they seemed to do little.
What's Love Got To Do With It ?
The participating women seemed much more self-assured. There were obvious and real desires to meet the man of their dreams. Surprising was the lack of cynicism on show. Either the girls were adept at masking their motives or there were few gold-diggers. Those interviewed were not simply going to take the first man who came along; they were not seeking some mythical, desperate escape from their local life at any cost. There seemed a genuine desire to find real romance.
Porter managed to track down a local lady who offered lessons in sexual technique for those seeking a man. As well as suggesting the lengths some local women went to snaffle a man, it perhaps said rather more about Western men. The curriculum suggested that men were seeking porn stars rather than partners and further that women should do whatever is necessary to please their men in order to keep them.
Diamonds In The Rough
There were some views of quite sweet encounters and Porter demonstrated her compassion for some of the guys involved, quietly rooting for some couples to hit it off. Savvy and concerned, she unsurprisingly concentrated on the individuals who were somewhat creepy. Most startling was the segment with Russell, an employee of one of the local agencies. This mole revealed that, whilst there are professional and well run tour companies, others were little more than pimps. These unscrupulous organisations promote profiles of fictional girls to draw men over with their cash and introduce them to local prostitutes masquerading as potential life partners.
All in all, a rather unsavoury experience but well written and presented in a package where Porter demonstrated her investigative credentials. Her ability to tease out the motives of those involved was more deftly done than in her previous show on polyamory; scarily so. A revealing programme which left one feeling a little sad; perhaps the inevitable conclusion on what might otherwise have been seen as innocent but elaborate blind dating.
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