The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 2: Sexy Virgins & Strong Single Moms

Our future husband wears his hoodie zipped just slightly above half-way up at all times.

This week’s episode kicked off with Kimberly, the woman who was rejected at last week’s Rose Ceremony but stuck around to talk with Chris just cause she’s sure she’s that special. We know that she isn’t, and that Chris doesn’t like when girls have brown hair. “Ick,” he says when he sees brunettes, and closes his eyes and grimaces. (Just kidding, Chris actually has said at several points, “brunette, blonde, I don’t care—it’s all about the connection.” Wow you guys, can you say FEMINIST?!) Chris worries about what kind of message it will send to the other women if he lets I’m Sure I’m Special Kimberly stay another rose ceremony cycle, but his BFF Chris Harrison assures him: “this is your life; there are no rules.” And so he lets Kim stay, to the horror of the other women.

We learn that Farmer Chris is staying in a house right down the driveway from where the ladiesssszzzz are lodging, and Host Chris basically encourages the womyn to break into Farmer Chris’s house by repeatedly saying “Chris lives right there” and “there are no rules.” Two gals do break in later in the episode; they like look at Farmer Chris’s motorcycle and it’s really boring. The only interesting part is that the girls are both wearing bikinis, and for some reason one of their lower halves keeps getting blocked out by one of those black censor bars because apparently her swimsuit does not cover her ass nor her vulva.

So the first date card arrives–it’s for a group date, and it says “Show Me Your CuntCountry.” Ew bachelor producers. A ballsy move that no one but me seems to pick up on, cause I’m soooo smart. Show me your (or is it “you’re”?) cunt-ry. This means the girls have a “pool party” with Farmer Chris, which is really just a ploy to steal their clothes, cause they’re then forced to walk down the streets of LA, enduring piles of street harassment, and race tractors in their wet bathing suits (Chris, mind you, is fully clothed.). Soooooo fun. To make this experience even more awesome, Farmer Chris makes fun of how slow the women are on their tractors, like the dick that he probably secretly is.

Chris <3s street harassment

Sexy Virgin Ashley I. wins the race, and claims the prize of getting to sit awkwardly with Chris on a tractor while drinking champagne. Then they reunite with the other girls, and Chris stares at them all with a creepy shit-eating grin on his face. He says he wants to finish the date with just one girl—he and Mackenzie go drink beers together, and the other girls go home.

Mackenzie is 21, and she looks like a baby to me. Chris is 12 years older than her, and he looks it. I guess Chris thinks looking like a baby is hot, but he has a hard time enjoying his time with Mackenzie because she’s acting kinda weird—which on The Bachelor just means she’s talking about stuff other than how she sees a future in Iowa and wants to have Chris’s baby and give up her current life immediately. Mackenzie instead asks Chris if he used to have his ear pierced (classic drunk girl line—some dudes find this endearing, and bonus points if you put an actual earring through the gentleman’s closed-up earring hole, as drunk 20s Marisa has done), asking Chris if he believes in aliens (Chris hilariously says this “raises a few red flags”), and telling Chris she loves when dudes have big noses like he does. Farmer Chris is all but finished with Mackenzie and ready to send her home when she reveals the secret she’s been so terrified to share with Chris—she has a one-year-old son, his name is “Kale” (actual red flag), and she raised him “on her own.” When she tells Chris this news, she acts sort of uncomfortably nervous, which is classic The Bachelor behavior. Chris’s opinion of Mckensie is immediately swayed by this news: he calls her “tough” and says he “sees the strength in her.” He offers her the rose, and kisses her five times.

Let’s talk about how mothers are treated on The Bachelor, specifically in comparision to how fathers are treated on The Bachelorette. When dude contestants on The Bachelorette have kids at home, sometimes they talk about it. A few of them cry about missing their kids, some of them have even left the show to be with their kids. But the fact that they have children doesn’t define them and their lives and their roles on the show. For women contestants on the other hand, there’s often a big show of how they’re scared to tell the Bach that they have a kid (Mackenzie is a perfect example,) and their quest for “love” on the show is presented in large part as a quest for a “father figure” for their child. Dudes with children are just dudes. But women with children elevate from just average women with hair extensions into ethereal caregivers and chaste role models.

MacKenzie gets a tiny beer ’cause she’s a mother.

Moving on, Farmer Chris’s first one-on-one date is with Megan, a blonde, 24-year-old makeup artist. They take a plane… to a helicopter… which they fly over the Grand Canyon (I felt like I was gonna vom in terror just watching)… and then land inside it. Of the majestic Grand Canyon, one of the Natural Wonders of World, Farmer Chris says this: “It’s the perfect place to spend some time with Megan, and to get to know her.” Umm… As far as I’m concerned, when you’re hangin’ out INSIDE THE GRAND CANYON there are only two appropriate conversation topics: 1) Holy shit we’re sitting in the Grand Canyon, or 2) the complicated feminism of Thelma & Louise. I wish they would have talked about how Thelma and Louise is a horror movie about female friendship, and redirected all Bachelor viewers to Thelma & Louise. But Farmer Chris and Makeup Artist Megan live in a sad world devoid of beauty and feminism, so they talked about neither.

Let’s not fight over Farmer Chris. Let’s keep goin’.

Megan tells Chris about her dad’s recent death. Chris calls Megan “strong with a great heart” and says he “can see a future with her.” Meanwhile, back at the mansion a contestant named Julia tells a group of other women that her ex-husband committed suicide. On The Bachelor, choosing to go on the show after a recent traumatic life event is depicted as a natural demonstration of incredible strength and perseverance. The Bach loves to capitalize on people’s suffering, and play cheesy music in the background as contestants share the most traumatic details of their lives. It’s gross and terrible to watch.

Next up is a group date in which all the women play paint ball in a weird zombie apocolypse-themed fake graveyard. Chris says, “it’s really sexy watching these girls running around shooting zombies.” One part gross sexualization of violence/one part lolz. The main points of this date include Ashley S. continuing to be alarmingly actually kind of not present mentally or on mushrooms (credit to my smart and pretty friend Julia for making this observation), the other girls talking about Ashley’s mental state, Britt kissing Farmer Chris a bunch (she says, “Chris makes me feel like I’m the only girl there”—so close RiRi), and Chris giving the rose to witty-Canadian Caitlyn.

At the cocktail party leading up to the Rose Ceremony, Ashley I. tells some of the other womyn that she is in fact a “virgin.” She’s nervous to tell Chris, but Mackenzie steps in to succinctly remind her of the creepy power our culture puts on virginity, and its super confusing, contradictory messages about women’s sexuality. Mackenzie insists with weird enthusiasm: ‘He will like it. Every guy likes it. Because guys like taking your virginity,” and goes on to talk about how jealous she is of Ashley’s virginal state, and how having a child is a “giveaway that I’m not a virgin.” Right. ‘Cause virginity is central to young women’s worth, the ultimate prize for some special dude, and also a weird tool that makes you extra sexy. Like Jessica Valenti says in her book The Purity Myth, “The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She’s young, white, and skinny. She’s a cheerleader, a babysitter; she’s accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!).” Sexy Virgin Ashley then does exactly what sexy virgins are supposed to do—she goes over to Chris, and tells him to rub her “magic belly button ring” and make three wishes. Then she makes out with him.

Belly button ring boner magic

At the pre-rose ceremony cocktail party, Professional Drunk Girl Jordan tries and fails to French Farmer Chris. She gets sent home at the Rose Ceremony, along with former drunk girl Tara, I’m Sure I’m Special Kimberly, and others. Jillian thinks Chris called her when he really said “Julia,” then trips on the area rug and laughs loudly at her own faux-pas. Then Chris gives her a pity rose. Ashley S. stays, which the other womyn are mystified by. All the pretty drunk girls filed into their limos, sobbing about how they’re destined to spend the rest of their lives alone.