Did the Bachelorette Really Owe an Apology for Having Sex on the Show?


Let’s talk about sex on The Bachelorette because apparently some things need to be said.

In case you missed it, ABC released a teaser for the upcoming season, which heavily plays up the fact that Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe had sex with a guy. Did you catch that? She had sex, you guys!!! The horror!

“When I’m with him, I surrender to every feeling that I’m feeling. It’s just him and me,” Kaitlyn said in the trailer as she falls down onto a bed with an unidentified guy. Cue the heavy breathing and then a drawn-out shot of her crying on a balcony.

RELATED: The 9 Worst Pickup Lines From the Bachelorette Premiere

“I don’t understand, it just happened,” she said tearfully. “I don’t think I’m a bad person, and I’m not ashamed of myself. But I do have other relationships, and one of those relationships went too far, too fast. That was something I did. I made a huge mistake.”

In a later shot, it looks like she confesses to a room of guys that she slept with one of the contestants (hello, awkward), and then there’s a voiceover of a guy saying, “Don’t talk to me. What you did was f—ed up,” followed by shots of dudes crying.

RELATED: Can You Match The BacheloretteContestant to His Job?

Kaitlyn has since been slammed online for being “sleazy,” “low-rent,” “disgusting,” and a slew of other crazy-mean and inappropriate adjectives.

Okay—hold the final rose.

People have sex. (Crazy, right?) And it’s not always when they’re married. Tons of research (and common sense) shows that casual sex is on the rise, and a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute found that 95 percent of people have sex before marriage.

So why the frick is everyone clutching their pearls over this?

Apparently, it’s scandalous and “disgusting” when a woman has casual sex—but not when a man does? Last we checked, it takes two people to do the deed, so why is one person being targeted over the other here?

And does it really make a difference if it happens when you’re on a reality show or not?

Slut shaming is slut shaming, whether someone is famous or not. It’s terrible, and it has to stop. If two consenting adults have sex, it’s their business and no one else’s.

For the record, Kaitlyn could sleep with every single contestant on the show and the entire crew if she wanted, and that would be her choice. It doesn’t make her a bad person. (It just might make her really, really tired.)

RELATED: The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Bachelor Dates of All Time

Oh, and if people think sex has never happened on the show before, they’re definitely mistaken: Bachelor host Chris Harrison told People earlier this year that about 67 percent of couples on The Bachelor or Bachelorette have sex in the fantasy suite, and that seems like a lowball compared to what other contestants have said.

Unfortunately, Kaitlyn isn’t the first Bachelorette star to be blasted for getting busy. Season 10 bachelorette Andi Dorfman was called out on the “After the Final Rose” special by runner-up Nick Viall for knocking boots: “Knowing how in love with you I was…if you weren’t in love with me, I’m just not sure why you made love with me.” (She handled it like a boss telling him, “First of all, I think that’s kind of below the belt and something that’s private and should be kept private.”)

For the record, Kaitlyn later told Entertainment Tonight that she’s “not ashamed” of having casual sex on the show—she just thinks that the timing was off. She added, “I don’t think that’s a crazy thing to sleep with somebody when you’re trying to be in a relationship with them. I’m a 30-year-old woman, and I make my own decisions. And intimacy, to me, is part of a relationship. I don’t know why everyone is so shocked by it.”

Amen.