As ABC’s The Bachelorette wrapped up its latest season early last week, Andi Dorfman selected her new beau, Josh Murray, and the two are now set to live happily ever after. Or, at least, happily until the cameras stop rolling.
But Andi’s final selection proved to be a little anticlimactic when angry runner-up Nick Viall confirmed, during the “After the Final Rose” episode, that he and Andi had sex in the show’s Fantasy Suite.
“If you weren’t in love with me, I’m just not sure why, like, why you made love to me,” Nick said.
The statement shocked Andi and maybe even a few viewers. The Fantasy Suite is a camera-free retreat filled with rose petals but empty of ABC execs, so when a bachelorette invites a beau to share the suite with her for the night, it’s suggested that there’s some serious hanky-panky going on. But to learn that sex was actually taking place felt, to some, kinda jarring. And many took Nick to task: Even on a show predicated on love, sex and voyeurism, it’s still apparently unseemly to have sex and tell.
Eliana Dockterman of Time had a different take: She believes that some were attempting to “slut-shame” Andi. (Her only example was a short exchange on Fox News.) Andi, it’s assumed, slept with both Nick and the eventual winner Josh Murray. Some people naturally think that’s wrong. And Dockterman finds that ludicrous. Here’s what she wrote:
Nick’s question has a problematic undertone: he is implying that Andi ought not sleep with someone unless she is in love with him. … It’s 2014, so Andi has the right—like any other Bachelor or Bachelorette or human being—to have sex for a myriad of reasons besides love.
Now, I don’t get too freaked out by what popular culture says is OK these days. The culture’s gonna do what it’s gonna do, and those of us who want to live counterculturally must, to some extent, live with it. And there’s nothing in this statement that isn’t borne out every night on television. People do have sex for lots of reasons.
But to read Dockterman state it so baldly … well, it shocked me more than anything that ostensibly happened in that Fantasy Suite.
Listen, I understand that people have sex outside marriage. I understand that we live in a pluralistic society. I understand that not everyone will agree with my Christian take on sex and purity and whatnot. But even if we set all that aside, I think most of us—Christian or secular—can agree that sex is a pretty big deal. Cultural institutions like marriage and family are predicated on faithful, monogamous relationships. Science tells us that the very act of sex stirs up chemicals in the brain that emotionally bind partners closer together. Sex and love go hand in hand. And while we can try to separate the two, it’s really hard to do. It’s not natural. It’s not the way God designed us.
Dockterman suggests that sex is no big deal. Love is not a requisite for lovemaking. And yet our collective experiences suggest differently. About 17% of all marriages in the United States end because of infidelity. Every day, we read about someone hurt or killed because of an affair. We’re cut deeply when someone we love cheats on us. In fact, I’d wager that few of us could think of something that would wound us more. And forcing someone to have sex is one of the most horrific crimes we can imagine. We understand instinctively that sex is a huge deal. We understand it physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Even our entertainment speaks to its importance.
True, sex is rarely dealt with in a rational, God-honoring way. People have sex outside the bonds of marriage with frightening regularity. And yet, instinctively, even some of the worst movies still undercut Dockterman’s idea that sex ain’t that big a deal. In romcoms, sex and love are almost always linked. In comedies and dramas, you can often pick out the villain by the fact that he’s cheating on his wife.
Again, these expressions of love and sex are far from perfect. But most films still express the idea that love and sex are—and should be—inexorably linked.
Dockterman was particularly irate about an apparent double standard in play: That Andi, as a woman, was culturally shamed for having sex, but Nick would’ve been given a pass had the roles been reversed. That’s not fair, Dockterman says, and I agree. Men and women should both be held to the same standards—and both to higher standards.
Sex should be more than a fun pastime. It’s more than a useful tool. It’s the way that a man and a woman show their enduring, eternal love for each other—an act that both confirms commitment and helps to cement it. And the fact that it’s become simply a minigame or a side quest inside of a televised game show makes me unspeakably sad.
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