A queer Love Island would allow LGBT+ youngsters to think that their sexuality can be fun and silly too

It would be nice for them to see that their orientation doesn’t have to be an overly serious or emotionally burdensome part of their life

In the afterglow of a hugely successful last season, it looked like LGBT+ fans of Love Island might finally get what they wanted: queer Love Island. When asked about the possibility of queer people on the show only this month, Love Island host Caroline Flack told the Mirror, “I don’t see any reason why not.” In May, after a Bafta win, the creators of the show said they were interested in a “gay villa” for a “gay audience”. But after months of speculation, the new season is in full swing and there have been no signs of change.

Love Island’s current structure certainly doesn’t allow for any sexual diversity. Back in 2016, bisexual contestants Katie Salmon and Sophie Gradon hooked up on the island, but were told they couldn’t officially couple up as part of the competition. When 2017 contestants Chris Hughes and Kem Cetinay become the platonic power couple of the year, questions were finally raised about why the islanders couldn’t actually couple up with someone of their own gender – men and women teamed up as friends all the time, as a game tactic.

Love Island executive producer, Richard Cowley, also blamed the format of the show, saying that the “coupling and recoupling” wouldn’t allow for queer contestants to fit in naturally.

In the 2018 season so far, fans have certainly taken it upon themselves to read queerness into the contestants’ interactions: a portion of the fandom believe Niall has a crush on Adam because of how much he compliments his looks; some think that Eyal and Niall have been subtly flirting; and after a past threesome reveal, many believed A&E doctor Alex could be bisexual. So far Niall is the favourite to turn out to be queer, although there’s little if any conversation about whether any of current women on the show might be.

While many of us continue to hold out hope for a surprise queer twist to this so far standard season, an all-bisexual or all-queer Love Island makes so much more sense. The combinations of contestants would be almost endless, to the point of near chaos. The show would be so much less predictable, the drama more intense. Isn’t that what Love Island is all about?

A queer Love Island has the potential to break down some of the deeply ingrained gender stereotypes perpetuated by the original format, and could even feature non-binary contestants.

It would give us some sorely needed representation of bisexual men, a group that barely exists in popular media and suffers from targeted erasure of their sexuality. As one of the biggest shows on British television right now – with a stronghold on 16- to 34-year-olds, statistically the demographic to identify as queer – Love Island could make a substantial impact on attitudes toward the LGBT+ community.

A spokesperson for ITV even admitted that “the LGBT community make up a huge part of their audience” and that not representing them could “alienate” them. The excuses for continuing to exclude queer people from the show are starting to wear thin.

The significance of LGBT+ representation on television has been recognised more and more over the last few years. GLAAD’s annual “Where we are on TV” report specifically points to how hard it is to measure representation in reality television – partly because there is so little of it.

On scripted TV, 6.4 per cent of characters are LGBT+, the highest percentage ever recorded. Lesbian and bi women have suffered on scripted TV, particularly after 2015/16 when 41 of them – about a third at the time – were killed off in rapid succession. Reality TV has the opportunity to tell a different story.

Representation is no joke: some people credit increased visibility of LGBT+ people on TV with helping to bring about equal marriage in the US, because of how it influenced popular opinion. There are countless stories of LGBT+ people coming to terms with their identity as a result of recognising their experiences in a fictional character. Actor Keiynan Lonsdale came out as bisexual via social media after being inspired by his role in teen film Love, Simon.

A new format would of course bring about new challenges. Because of how little LGBT+ representation there is on TV, a bisexual Love Island could confirm the stereotype that bisexual people are promiscuous, and straight audiences might make assumptions about bisexual people in general based on the contestants’ behaviour, who they partnered up with and how often they switched partners.

It’s also likely that "masculine" men and "feminine" women would still be selected for the show, and that butch gay women and femme gay men would be very much excluded from the narrative. And even a more LGBT+ representative format would still not deal with the particularly poor representation of race and uncomfortable racial microaggressions from contestants on the show.

It would be nice for LGBT+ young people to see that their sexuality doesn’t have to be an overly serious or emotionally burdensome part of their life – that they, too, can have a fling on an island and embarrass themselves on popular television if they wish.

ITV’s spokesperson hinted that “everyone is welcome to apply”, which is technically true. But the enormous success of Netflix’s Queer Eye is proof that we all want more specifically queer reality TV. Gay couples on the straight version of Love Island isn’t good enough.