Move over MILFs, Virgin Island is the hot new dating reality show

Even 30 Rock couldn’t have come up with a cutaway gag so pure (pun intended) as Hulu’s latest dating competition reality series. The show is called Virgin Island, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a group of people who have never had sex before looking for their perfect, also-untouched match. Currently, ITV America (the production company behind Love Island USA and Queer Eye) and Plimsoll Productions (Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters and A Real Bug’s Life) are seeking “stunningly attractive and confident singles” who are also self-proclaimed virgins to appear on the show. If that describes you, you can apply here!

Per Variety, this 10-episode series will follow a group of people who haven’t had sex with anybody as they try to decide if they want to have sex with each other. Each episode will feature contestants going on dates and participating in “romantic activities.” The logline reads, “As the cast finds heartfelt connections and explores their varying reasons for waiting, there will be plenty of unexpected twists, including new arrivals and departures, all culminating in a dramatic finale where burgeoning relationships are put to the test.”

The best one can possibly hope for is that this show destigmatizes the idea that there’s any “right” age to have sex for the first time, that there are all sorts of reasons that a person might wait, that there’s no shame in being an adult who hasn’t had a sexual relationship yet, etc. Mostly, though, this is just another version of “send hot people to an island to flirt,” which we have seen a few times now. It’s probably too much to ask that Hulu educates the masses on virginity being a social construct in a show called Virgin Island.

Hulu has been investing in the reality dating space, recently acquiring the UK’s first queer dating series I Kissed A Boy and the follow-up I Kissed A Girl, hosted by Dannii Minogue. In 2022, the streamer aired Back In The Groove, hosted by Taye Diggs in a nod to How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It’s about three women staying at a Dominican resort and pursuing younger men—so, basically MILF Island. (Not to be confused with the very similar MILF Manor, where a bunch of older women mixed and mingled with each other’s sons.) Reality is often stranger than fiction, but 30 Rock did indeed get a lot right, didn’t they?