How “The Bachelor” Backfires By Turning Hot Men into Tools

I love watching The Bachelor.  I love making fun of the fools the early contestants make of themselves and trying to pick the winner if there are any real connections through to the end.

This season, I was SO EXCITED to watch because I just loved Sean from Emily’s season.  I mean, how could you not love that confident, masculine, blond Texas hottie?  He was handsome, respectful, and had his act together.  I was hooked!

Then this season began and I started to lose some of that attraction to Sean.

I don’t think it is Sean, really, who has changed.  I think it’s the fact that The Bachelor can turn even the hottest of guys into the biggest tools.

The Bachelor backfires on men.

Most people think that a man who starts off surrounded by 25 beautiful, single women cannot possibly be anything but lucky.  It’s every man’s dream, right?  But as the season goes along, this show requires men to behave in ways that are just not natural.

The producers try to please us women, their target audience, by forcing men to have numerous deep conversations about their feelings.  They guide the men into probing into the women’s childhoods and really connecting with them by identifying how their pasts have shaped who they are today.

It’s every woman’s dream to have a man who would talk and listen like that, right?

Except, no.

Sure, we dream of our husbands actually listening and comprehending how rough our days at home with the laundry and kids are.  We wish they would stare into our eyes, probing for truths so they can truly understand how we feel and why we feel the way we do.  We complain that men are horrible communicators and turn to our girlfriends to gripe about how much they are frustratingly and annoyingly, MEN.

Then we watch The Bachelor, and have the deep sensitive man handed to us on a gorgeous shirtless platter and we come away feeling…disappointed.

The truth is, watching Sean (even in all of his shirtless glory) deal with bickering women and having those sensitive moments over and over again just bleeds the attractive maleness right out of him!

The hottest Sean moment of the last few weeks was watching him bite his tongue, seething, wanting to punch Desiree’s asshat of a brother.  THAT Sean was hot.  THAT Sean was honest.  THAT Sean was acting like a man.

I found Sean more attractive in that moment, even though he held back and resisted the urge we all had to beat that boy to a pulp (we’ve seen his pecks, we know he could do it). He remained level-headed and did the right thing.  But he gave us the glimpse that he is still a guy.

And that, truthfully, is what is attractive about men. I’m sure some women will disagree with me and insist that they want that sensitive, transparent man, but not me.  Give me a man who still has enough testosterone flowing through him to make his blood boil when confronted with a jackass like Desiree’s brother.

I’ll put up with the rest of what drives us crazy about our husbands.  At least I know my man is still a man.

Oh, and ABC? We love shirtless Sean, but a porn-music shower scene while the credits roll is just icky.  That’s how you market to men while they watch women. Next time, show us Sean being a real man and we’ll be sure to tune back in for more.