Why 'Love Island' is sparking disgust – and what it says about Gen Z

For some viewers, "Love Island USA" is taking things too far.

Since the Peacock show's eighth season premiered on June 2, a vocal minority of fans has taken to social media with one specific gripe: There's too much kissing.

For the raunchy dating series, grinding, toe sucking, lap dances and sexual intimacy under the covers caught on night-vision cameras are par for the course. In one challenge, each lingerie-clad woman crawled down a massive bed while blindfolded and kissed six men in succession to guess which one was their partner. In another game, all 12 people, who had met days earlier, were kissing in various sexual positions at the same time.

For some, they take umbrage with the sound of the joined mouths. Others disliked how visible Gabriel Vasconcelos' tongue was outside of his mouth while kissing. Some longtime fans are claiming that there's too much intimacy too fast outside of challenges and not enough getting to know each other.

Podcasters Ria Ciuffo and Fran Mariano even dedicated a segment of their "Chicks in the Office" episode to grouse about the show's excessive intimacy early in the season.

"These guys and gals are kissing like I've never seen kissing before in my life. ... I'm like, 'Am I sounding like an old lady, or is this too much?'" Mariano said of a scene in the first episode, in which newcomers made out with contestants immediately upon entering the villa without exchanging pleasantries.

"It is nonstop kissing. They're not talking. I'd like to see some getting to know each other. Every challenge they're just making them kiss the whole time," she continued. "I know [there have] been heavy kisses in the previous seasons, but this is a lot."

Mariano's not alone. TikToker @Ashlynnvaughn5 posted a video of her shocked reaction to the show and wrote, "Am I becoming a prude or is 'Love Island' actually disgusting?" The clip earned 405,000 likes.

Under one TikTok video with 10,000 likes that complained "Can they stop kissing every minute?" some commenters pointed out that the name of the show is "Love Island," after all.

As young people have less sex, shows are becoming sexier

Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D., acknowledges that "the situations in Love Island are really over-the-top." But to explain this "new prudishness" toward the intimate scenes on "Love Island," she points to numerous studies in recent years that have found "Gen Z young adults are much less likely to be sexually active than millennials or Gen Xers who were at the same age."

The Pew Research Center defines Gen Z as adults who were born between 1997 and 2012. Those in the millennial generation were born between 1981 and 1996, while Gen Xers are considered to be adults born between 1965 and 1980.

"In watching this, they don't have as much experience with sexual activity as previous generations did when they were 25," Twenge tells USA TODAY.

Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University whose expertise is generational differences and technology, is the author of "Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents — and What They Mean for America’s Future."

As a Gen Xer, Twenge has noticed the decades-long shift in how sexuality is represented in American media.

"I remember a time when, outside of maybe a few movies on HBO, you would never see a boob or really deep kissing on American television at all," she says.

Contemporary series like "Bridgerton," "Heated Rivalry" and "Off Campus," meanwhile, are garnering avid audiences – including Gen Z – with fiery, forbidden hookups and ample sex scenes. These explicit shows are "relatively new in the history of American television. And something like 'Love Island' even more, because it's a reality show," Twenge says.

Chicagoland health educator Virginia Gramarosso previously posited to USA TODAY that many Gen Z adults "still have desires related to sex," and "consuming that media might almost fill that void" without taking risks themselves.

She also recognizes that there could be an aversion to the audio and visual components of the contestants' kissing on reality TV as compared to more highly edited scripted programs that "usually try to make it look romantic."

"So [if] I'm watching 'Bridgerton,' for example, you're not going to see somebody's tongue and hear sucking noises because they know that people are not gonna have a positive reaction to that," Twenge says. "They sanitize it to make it look more attractive. And that's not going to happen as much on a show like 'Love Island.'"

Shock value sells

After "The Real World" paved the path for the modern reality TV industry, unscripted shows have upped the ante, with "Survivor" showing ordinary people marooned on an island, "Fear Factor" challenging viewers' disgust reflex and "American Idol" giving TV watchers aspiring stars to root for via parasocial relationships.

"There was 'Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?' [and] there was 'Married at First Sight,' and these shows got attention because they were shocking to people," Twenge says.

She continues, "I think 'Love Island' takes that premise and next-levels it because not only are people hooking up, you're seeing them and hearing them kissing in that way that you're like, 'Oh my God.' And in the era of social media, that sells."