'Too Hot To Handle' fumbled its shot at positive LGBTQ+ representation by fetishizing 2 female contestants kissing

• "Too Hot To Handle" has failed to show positive LGBTQ+ representation in its first three seasons.
• In the third season, the series shows several men making fetishizing comments about women kissing.

"Too Hot To Handle" missed its opportunity to show positive LGBTQ+ representation in its third season when it showed contestants fetishizing two of its female contestants kissing.

The Netflix dating series brings a group of horny singles to an island villa to form romantic relationships without kissing or having sex.

In the first episode of the latest season, two of the female contestants, Izzy and Georgia, kissed each other anyway to test the limits of the game's rules. When the kiss is revealed to the group in episode two, contestants Stevan and Truth are shown making lewd comments in response.

"I can't be mad. That's hot," Stevan said.

Later in the episode, when the kiss is brought up again during a chat between Patrick and Stevan, it is only so that they can laugh about how much they would want to watch the kiss.

Some fans took to Twitter to talk about how the moment made them uncomfortable.

The scene becomes more problematic considering the lack of LGBTQ+ representation in the show's first three seasons.

Although the series has had three female bisexual contestants in the first two seasons, no same-sex relationships have been shown so far.

This season, 'Too Hot To Handle' used women kissing for shock value

The creatives behind "Too Hot To Handle" do not have control of who the contestants kiss but editors and producers eventually choose what footage the audience gets to see.

May Huang, a fan of the show since its first season, told Insider that the guys' reaction to the kiss in season three is what made the scene a problem.

Huang, a writer and literary translator, said: "So much emphasis gets placed on the guys' reaction to the kiss, [that] the moment becomes perceived and manipulated under the male gaze."

Insider has reached out to Netflix for comment.

This is not the first time female contestants have kissed on the show. A kiss between Francesca and Haley in season one was promoted both in trailers and in the episode leading up to the kiss. However, viewers eventually discovered that the kiss was part of a revenge plot and not a sign that the show was going to include queer romance.

In an interview with Insider, GLAAD entertainment research and analysis manager Raina Deerwater said it's "very silly" for "Too Hot To Handle" to not include LGBTQ+ relationships and then include "clips of women kissing."

"It's like do you want us or don't you?" she said. "It felt a little dated to me — that thing of two women kissing just for their revenge. It goes back to the fact that queer women are a shock value versus just people."

Other dating shows like 'Are You The One' and '12 Dates of Christmas' show LGBTQ representation properly

Since the first season of "Too Hot To Handle, fans have asked for more LGBTQ+ contestants on the show. The series' narrator Desiree Burch even told Insider recently that she would "love to see a bisexual man on the show" as the series has only cast bisexual women.

Deerwater said that recent dating shows with better LGBTQ+ representation, such as "Are You The One" and "12 Dates of Christmas," present ways for other shows to improve in this area.

In 2019, "Are You The One," a series where contestants must identify their perfect match in the group to win a prize up to $1 million, released a season where everyone in the cast was part of the LGBTQ+ community. This meant that no contestant had the burden of representing the entire community.

"There was also just sort of like this level of openness and talking about how it feels to date as someone who is bi or someone who isn't dating traditionally," Deerwater explained. "It was an open space to have those conversations and so people watching who might not be of that identity could understand and maybe even learn something from a silly reality dating show."

Deerwater also said that if producers are hesitant about having a whole cast, "12 Dates of Christmas" shows how you can have contestants of "different sexualities" on the same show.

The HBO Max holiday show adopts a more "Bachelor-style" format by bringing in potential matches for three contestants to find a partner. In the most recent season from 2021, one of the main three contestants was gay and another was a lesbian, which meant a significant portion of the cast was part of the LGBTQ+ community to provide matches for those contestants.

The best way to include the LGBTQ community is to cast multiple queer contestants, not just one

When asked how dating shows can include positive LGBTQ+ representation, Deerwater told Insider: "It is a good practice to not just have one person. I think having at least a little sense of community in some way in one of these shows would be a better way to do it like how they did on the '12 Dates of Christmas.'"

"Too Hot To Handle" fan Huang also agreed that producers had to be intentional in the casting process to make the show less "heteronormative."

With most mainstream series still struggling with adopting more diverse casts, "Too Hot To Handle" could make a big difference by having positive LGBTQ+ representation. Not only would it be educational, but it would give those within the LGBTQ+ community a chance to see themselves represented in these shows about love and attractiveness.

And to producers worrying whether this inclusion would be profitable, Deerwater says: "The amount of buzz a show can get from the community is huge and shouldn't be understated. They should be an audience that people want to keep."