Reality Bites

Watching The Bachelorette is one of my guilty pleasures. It's always weird critiquing reality television. The shows are produced to the hilt and staged in a way that the viewer only sees what the producers want to show. Last night, Kaitlyn Bristowe was portrayed as having sex with three men on successive nights. Then she sent Ben home.

I actually thought she would send Shawn home. She must like the conflict between Shawn and Nick. Oooh, two men are fighting over me. Ben is better looking than either man, and offered Kaitlyn a stable choice and a way forward without chaos. Her choice opens a window into Kaitlyn's psychological pathologies. Two men fighting over her provide a better way for her to try to relive and resolve her deep-seated insecurities.

Because I believe that Kaitlyn is badly broken. It is very telling that Kaitlyn went to visit Nick's family and Shawn's family. For some reason, she didn't take either of them to meet her family. Isn't taking the boy to meet the girl's father a time-honored courtship ritual? There was apparently too much dysfunction in Kaitlyn's family to risk the meeting.

The program is being sold as a courtship ritual. Kaitlyn repeatedly said the goal of the process is finding a husband. The men keep saying that they are seeking a wife. I would just caution them against using such gendered terms. Someday, it may be considered hateful and exclusionary. Democrats have already introduced legislation which would ban the use of the terms "husband" and "wife" in federal law.

I can already see the evolution of the program unfolding before me. I wonder how long it will be before ABC Television produces a gay version of the Bachelor? I predict they will cast a bisexual female as the Bachelorette within two years. They will package someone mutable and ambiguous, like Ruby Rose, who will then date both men and women. That's ratings gold!

I hope Kaitlyn Bristowe finds peace and happiness. I don't think she's a bad person, not at all. In fact, I feel a little sorry for her. I don't think she's that smart, and I suspect she may have once had a head injury, like a car accident or something. One clue is her lazy eye. Another clue is her absolute lack of impulse control. She doesn't have the ability or desire to delay gratification.

That's not to say that she's not clever. She is actually following a sound reproductive strategy, one that women have been employing for millenia. By being sexually promiscuous, she is increasing the chances that she will become impregnated. And all these alpha males are passing along the most desirable genetic material possible. Once she becomes pregnant, she can go exclusive with the male that will be the best provider and protector. They may not be one in the same man. That man might have been Ben, who was sent home.