“Temptation Island” Is A Philosophical Nightmare

James Schapiro
7 min readApr 9, 2021

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USA Network

I first heard about “Temptation Island” from, of all people, Boomer Esiason, the former NFL quarterback and current co-host of the New York sports talk radio show Boomer and Gio. Esiason and his co-host, Greg Gianotti, are both fans of the show, and on my brief morning commute, around 7:45 to 8:00, I catch their show — which recently, has strayed offputtingly often from New York sports to the latest goings-on on “Temptation Island.”

Temptation Island is a reality show, airing on USA Network, and its name is more or less self-explanatory. Four couples are whisked away to a tropical island, the men and women are separated, and a dozen single men and women are inserted. The single women live with the boyfriends, the single men live with the girlfriends, and for a month or so, with the cameras capturing their every move, those in relationships try not to cheat, as the single people, all seeking relationships, try to tempt them to do so.

Currently in its third season, the show is basically a case study in the weirdness of American reality TV. The show sells itself as a sort of relationship fortifier, meant to prove that the old adage, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” applies to relationships as well. Any couple that can survive Temptation Island, the theory goes, can survive anything.

But does anyone, even the people on the show, really believe this? It strikes me as more like something that people just say because they think they have to, like how every candidate for mayor of Washington, D.C. has to say “soon to be the 51st state” even though they’ve been saying it for so long that it’s stopped meaning anything. Obviously, Temptation Island only has one purpose: to draw eyes to television screens. To make good TV. If it somehow makes relationships stronger, it’s a welcome bonus — but given the choice, everyone involved will always choose ratings.

The part that stands out to me as especially odiously false — the real “D.C. Statehood” moment — is when the single people first enter, and introduce themselves to the couples. “They’re all here to find love,” the host, Mark Walberg — no, not that one — will say. But no one believes that, and it’s not even clear why the show thinks it has to provide any justification for them. It’s obvious why the single people are there: the viewers know it, the couples know it, and no one is objecting. They’re there to be the bait, the temptation. If they were looking for a relationship, they’d be anywhere else in the world — at a bar, on an app, at the gym — and not on a TV show where the only way to enter a relationship is to persuade someone you haven’t even met yet to commit infidelity. The show’s producers are sort of like mobsters maintaining a minimum level of respectable business — “can’t you see this bread here? This isn’t a mob safe house, it’s a working bakery!” — so that the police can’t take them down, even though it’s common knowledge that they’re actually mobsters. Except in this case, there are no police — it’s just people watching reality TV.

The problem of the single people — sounds like a perverse Sherlock Holmes parody — gets at a bigger issue with the show: there’s nothing underneath it. There’s no philosophy or thesis that holds everything together (as if you’re surprised). It’s a rough concept — “let’s get people on an island and try to make them cheat” — hastily thrown together and then backed up with post hoc justifications and premises, not all of which fit together, but which are well-done enough that you don’t notice unless you look closely. And this is “Temptation Island,” so who’s looking closely — at the philosophy, I mean?

Following Esiason’s suggestion, I breezed through the first season of Temptation Island. I looked closely. And as I watched, I couldn’t stop wondering: what exactly is going on here?

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What actually brings people to Temptation Island?

There are basically two theories of the case, but it’s not clear at all which is true, and the answer is at the heart of any interpretation of the show. The thing is, even the show itself isn’t sure what it’s supposed to be doing. At different times, the show itself offers different goals for its own existence. On the one hand, sometimes it’s making couples stronger, building relationships that last, bringing significant others closer together, etc. Sometimes, on the other hand, it’s “seeking clarity” or “providing answers” or some other synonym.

Obviously, these are two different things, and can even be mutually exclusive. For instance: what if the show gives two people in a relationship the clarity to see that they’re not good together? Obviously, the relation hasn’t been strengthened. So what is the show aiming for — clarity or strength?

It’s an important question, because it impacts the entire philosophical underpinnings of what’s going on (if, that is, you’re the kind of person who’s interested in the philosophical underpinnings of “Temptation Island”). Consider an all-too-common scenario on the show:

A boyfriend living with the single women, lonely and probably more than a little bit drunk, sees a good looking woman nearby, and is tempted to cheat.

That’s the entire scenario. So what should the boyfriend do? It depends entirely on the actual purpose of the show — which, remember, still isn’t clear. If the telos of the show is a stronger relationship, then obviously the boyfriend shouldn’t cheat, because cheating makes relationships weaker. But if the show is meant to provide clarity, then the boyfriend, in a strange way, almost must cheat. If, as it turns out, he’s the kind of person who wants to cheat, isn’t that exactly the kind of clarity the show is supposed to provide? Isn’t the fact that he wants to cheat exactly the kind of thing his girlfriend deserves to know?

In practice, this question manifests itself slightly differently. Lots of participants on the show talk about how they have to “go through the process” of Temptation Island. The question is, when does the process end and the resistance begin?

Put it this way: I have a girlfriend whom I love very much. If I was on Temptation Island, I would simply pack a few books, lock myself in my room for days on end, and count down the time until the “final bonfire.” Then I could leave, relationship hopefully intact. “We made it through Temptation Island!” I could shout triumphantly.

But have we really? Being locked in a room after all, doesn’t really prove anything. I suppose if I wanted to go through more of the process, I could spend more time with the single women, but deliberately spend most of my time with those towards whom I felt the least connection, maybe even those I found least attractive. I could perfunctorily follow the steps of the process, but be careful not to go a step too far. I could choose dates only with women for whom I was sure I would never fall. But again, would that really count as making it through Temptation Island? By actively avoiding temptation, I’ve still subverted the process. I haven’t really proven that I’m not a cheater; I’ve just proven that I’ve managed to avoid situations which would make me cheat. The question is, which of those does the show want me to prove? Which step in the process is the right place to stop — and which step is one step too far?

Most of the couples on the show have laid out some set of ground rules before they reach the island. But one season two boyfriend, Rick, takes a different approach, and a much more interesting one. As Rick announces to the camera, he hasn’t given his girlfriend Ashley any ground rules — because he wants to see how she acts when there are no ground rules. Rick wants to see Ashley remain faithful not because he asked her to, but because she’s the kind of person who would remain faithful.

This strikes me as the obviously correct approach. Couples shouldn’t have to set ground rules for infidelity: that’s why it was so ridiculous when Michael Scott asked, “you cheated on me…when I specifically asked you not to?” If a boyfriend and girlfriend want to find out whether they can last, surely the question shouldn’t simply be whether each can follow ground rules for 30 days. Rather, the question should be whether they’re the kind of people who need formal ground rules laid out in the first place. If they are — if they know they both want to cheat, but they think that with ground rules, they can temporarily avoid the impulse — does it really even matter whether the cheating actually happens?

In short, there are two questions the show might be answering, but the audience never learns which one it’s actually addressing. Do people come to Temptation Island to learn whether they can avoid cheating? Or do they come to the island to learn whether they’re the kind of people who would want to cheat in the first place? Obviously, that question is at the heart of the show, and both can’t be true at the same time — but somehow, the audience can never quite find out.

Then again, this all assumes that the people who come to Temptation Island are thinking calmly and rationally, motivated by a sincere desire to somehow strengthen their relationships and not (for instance) a desire to appear on national television for a paid vacation on a tropical island surrounded by beautiful single people. It also assumes that the people behind the show care about maintaining a principled philosophical stance, rather than, you know, making enough money that they can go on vacations to tropical islands surrounded by beautiful single people. Rational thought doesn’t bring people to Temptation Island, and it doesn’t set the rules of the show. Rather, what brings people to Temptation Island is obvious: it’s temptation. By joining the show in the first place, they’ve already proven that they’re slaves to it. They’re already worried that deep down, they or their partners are cheaters; all that’s left for the show to do is prove it. Once they’ve stepped onto Temptation Island, they’ve already taken the first step too far.

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