Engineering student strips down in VH1’s “Dating Naked”

Photo courtesy of Marcus Herndon

Sofia Galiano/ Staff Writer

An engineering student strips down in a new reality show to live out his last summer and possibly find love before starting graduate school at the University.

Marcus Herndon, a full-time mechanical engineering major who started at FIU this fall, was a contestant on episode five of VH1’s debut series “Dating Naked.”

Herndon says people’s perception of the show may be skewed, assuming the contestants are primarily thinking about sex on their dates since they are completely nude – but to the contrary.

“You truly don’t think about the physical,” he says.

The idea of the show is to have people be as open and as vulnerable as possible by having them strip away their clothes and then go on a blind date, in hopes of bonding with someone on a non-superficial level.

Two main contestants first go on a date with each other, which is typically spent doing a water sport or an arts and crafts project at the Red Frog Marina in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

Then, the main contestants go on two separate dates with two more people and later have to choose the person they connected with the most.

Herndon was Candace’s last date, which was spent building kites from scratch and dancing on the shore of a secluded beach resort. Candace was wooed by Herndon’s moves and chose him as the person she connected with the most.

However, what the two found was friendship rather than love.

Herndon says the distance between Atlanta, where he is originally from, and Idaho, where Candace stays, is too much to sustain a relationship — especially now that he is living in Miami.

But he says being on the show did change the way he approaches relationships.

“I pay attention more to a person’s mindset,” he says.

When people are clothed and distracted by their cell phones, they are unable to connect with their partner as intimately as they could.

He says he felt he was “pillow talking” during his date with Candace because they were fully exposed to one another.

He also says being nude heightens the senses, comparing the experience to when a person removes their shoes and socks, and feels the ground with their bare feet.

Being naked forces people to be themselves and thus, allows a person’s personality to truly shine, according to Herndon.

If a person is self-conscious about their physical appearance or timid, eliminating those distractions also allows those people to face their discomfort head on.

“If it gets awkward you have to live in the moment,” he says.

But Herndon says the most awkward part of his date was not baring his bottom.

He says being surrounded by a team of cameramen and producers was most unconformable because it emphasized the fact that they were dressed and he was not.

However, he says this allowed for a unique bonding experience with his date.

“You have to make them feel like you have their back and they have yours,” he says.

That support is similar to what he received from friends and family.

Herndon says his family was concerned with how his appearance on the show would affect his future career, but trusted he would carry himself in a decent manner.

His friends and others living in Atlanta are big fans of reality shows, so he would always get approached.

“I get recognized maybe three times a day,” he says, but not as often as he would back home.

He says so far, none of his classmates at the Engineering Center recognize him from the show, and if they do they do not approach him.

But Herndon says if someone sees him and is curious about his experience, they should say so.

The show is designed to help people find love, and it did for some contestants – with one couple planning to get married on the show.

Yet, what Herndon found was a life-altering and unforgettable experience.

He found the opportunity on a modeling website and tried out for the show not expecting he would be selected.

Then he got a call saying he would be traveling to a tropical island for the ultimate blind date, all while bearing his bottom on national TV.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be a super grand experience,” says Herndon, since Panama is not as technologically advanced as the U.S.

To his surprise, technology was as irrelevant as clothing, and he ended up spending his first time out of the country in paradise, while changing his outlook on life and love.

He says not only would he do it over, but he did.

“I didn’t get married,” he says, “but stay tuned.”

-sofia.galiano@fiusm.com