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'Bachelorette' Kaitlyn kayos the slut shamers

 
It has taken 30 seasons, but
Kaitlyn Bristowe has finally gotten The Bachelorette to acknowledge that in modern times, sex typically comes long before marriage. She even dared to sleep with her suitors before meeting their parents. Can you imagine it?
It has taken 30 seasons, but Kaitlyn Bristowe has finally gotten The Bachelorette to acknowledge that in modern times, sex typically comes long before marriage. She even dared to sleep with her suitors before meeting their parents. Can you imagine it?
Published July 22, 2015

A few weeks ago, I described The Bachelorette star Kaitlyn Bristowe as "revolutionary" for her frank, unapologetic attitude toward sex on a show that had historically treated the word as taboo, and her remarkable ability to act like a normal person (i.e., sometimes be a total mess) while juggling multiple relationships within a machine of psychological manipulation and manufactured romance. A bit hyperbolic? Oh, totally. But I stand by it, especially after watching her stare down her slut-shaming cyberbullies like a champ on Monday night's "Men Tell All" episode.

"I really like to think myself as a tough, tough person. I'm fine with people disagreeing with me or having their opinions, that's okay," Kaitlyn told the crowd when she came onstage. "But spreading hate the way people have been is not okay."

She then sat there as host Chris Harrison read aloud a sampling of vicious tweets and emails Kaitlyn had received after becoming the first star of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette to sleep with a contestant (before the producer-sanctioned Fantasy Suite dates) and talk about it. A sampling: "Shut your little whore mouth #slut," "you need to unspread your whore legs," a screed from a mother who hoped Kaitlyn would "crawl into a hole and die."

"I can handle it," she responded. "It doesn't feel good, but I can handle it."

We all could see that cycle of judgment coming from a mile away. What's unexpected is how Kaitlyn's refusal to apologize for being a strong, sexual woman has forced a show steeped in hypocritical traditionalism to pivot and defend its star's libido. Granted, Chris Harrison never actually mentioned "sex," preferring to use words like "controversial" and "provocative" to describe Kaitlyn and her "decisions." But Kaitlyn's influence finally seems to be forcing the franchise to acknowledge that in modern relationships between grown women and men, sex typically comes not only before marriage, but way, way before someone gets down on one knee. As Kaitlyn has said before, it's only practical to test-drive your options before making a commitment that will last the rest of your life.

Without intending to do so — I don't think Kaitlyn is at all calculating, which is what makes her impulse-driven careering toward matrimony (or not) so endearing and fascinating to watch — this 30-year-old Canadian dance instructor is advancing the conversation on female sexuality, and dismantling from the inside the franchise's veneer of fairy-tale delusion.

Twice, she's engineered off-camera alone time with contestants: The time when she snuck into front-runner Shawn Booth's hotel room and told him he was "the One" (producers clearly only found out much later, when Shawn drunkenly cried about it), and the night when she invited Shawn's rival, Nick Viall, back to her room (and slimy producers recorded the sex sounds through a closed door).

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She is the first lead of the ABC franchise to talk openly about sex, and to have spent a night of nookie with a suitor well before the producer-approved Fantasy Suite dates, when the field typically has been narrowed down to three, and sex is had but never spoken of by name. (Anyone who's a longtime fan of the show knows there is a strict precedent of making out but no touching below the belt before the Fantasy Suite, unless it's in the ocean and you're the Bachelor.)

Then, not only did Kaitlyn have sex with Nick again, this time in the Fantasy Suite, but she also initiated with Shawn the first adult conversation about relationships that I can remember ever seeing. Last week, she became the first Bachelor/ette star to complete her Fantasy Suite dates before meeting the families of the guys she's dating — meaning she slept with them, then decided which ones she felt strongly enough about to meet their parents. This has never happened in Bachelor/ette land. (The show operates by rules of courtship that haven't been standard since the early 20th century.)

We've been witnessing one of the most formulaic shows on television having to chase its star, rather than the star bending to the rules of the show. Sure, Kaitlyn has gone along with things for the cameras (sumo wrestling, a blatant plug for Disney's Aladdin musical, all those interviews where she has to say she could picture falling in love with guys she's about to dump), but what shines through is her refusal to succumb to reality-show tropes. She is a rebel, defiant in her right to search, be fickle, make love when she damn pleases, and behave like an actual human being.

The show even altered its format for her. The rose ceremonies, typically the culmination of every episode, have been relegated to an afterthought, aired in the middle of shows because whenever Kaitlyn's not feeling it, she sends the guy packing, regardless of when and where or how badly it complicates the editing.

And when it became clear that Kaitlyn was not someone who could meet the parents before meeting a certain part of the male anatomy, the show scrapped the usual "Hometown" visits that happen when there are four contestants left.

The baffling thing here is how no one else in 30 seasons has done that.

The show will still probably end with a lot of drama over how much Shawn and Nick hate each other and whom Kaitlyn is going to choose. This show doesn't seem quite ready for all the sex-positivity Kaitlyn is bringing to it. But at least for a moment we have got to see a real woman being real about sex on reality television. That'll have to be enough for now.

This article originally appeared in New York magazine.