Popular Reality TV

The Real World Las Vegas, the show’s 25th season, debuted last night, and while it all but dispensed with narrative and replaced it with montages of bodies, it did address Dustin Zito’s past as a gay porn star, or as he called it, being a model. I haven’t watched the show consistently in years, but I was still surprised at what it actually was: a nearly non-stop montage of half-naked bodies in and out of the hot tub and beds. Even in public they were groping each other and the camera lingered over skin. I have no objection to pornography but it was so much—Cinemax movies have nothing on this—that it was unsettling, at the very least. And the episode spent basically no time on introductions but instead watched as the cast immediately began to start humping anything they could find, creating predictable conflict with relationships they have back home. MTV’s initial bio for Dustin did not mention his porn past at all, which I referenced in this essay as an example of the cast’s lack of...

Dustin Zito’s work having gay sex on Fratpad and Fratmen was exposed on The Real World last night, leading his housemates to freak out. They found out thanks to people outside the house—Adam, and Heather’s mother—apparently searching online for information about the show and coming across stories like this one that were published while the show was in production. I talked to Dustin, and to a producer of the show, about the episode, and in my Daily Beast story , Dustin explains why he lied and also explains his homophobic comments , more of which aired last night. The lying was born of his fear of discovery, even though he admits that backfired on him. He also explains that his comments about fearing a new gay roommate stemmed from the reaction he got after having sex on camera. In public, some people would act “aggressively” toward him, even grabbing his crotch, and he feared Bunim-Murray would cast someone like that who would not only recognize him, but would act inappropriately. It...