The Traitors 205 Recap: A Killer Move

The fifth episode of The Traitors season two picks up in the turret, where we last saw Phaedra getting really mad at Parvati for implicating the Housewives, broadly. After Parvati confirms she was only trying to get out Larsa (which she did!) and apologizes for implicating Phaedra in any way, Phaedra seems to forgive her. Dan, again, is there! (I’m starting to think this is his strategy, actually, to outwardly be so passive.)

Parvati offers the choice of murder to Phaedra, since she picked their last victim (Ekin-Su). Phaedra settles on Tamra Judge — a choice that suggests she really has buried the hatchet with Parvati, since Tamra is herself a Housewife. It also really protects Phaedra, because she has just shown her loyalty to the Housewives — if a Housewife is then murdered, the Traitor couldn’t be Phaedra!

The next morning, when everyone walks into breakfast except for Tamra, it causes chaos, as always. Alan Cumming gravely retorts, “A real Housewife lost her real house life,” which makes me remember just how great of a host he is. I love these odd, dramatic one-liners he delivers with such aplomb every dang time. Alan Cumming also reveals someone new will be joining today. Who will it be!!

At breakfast, CT is extremely suspicious of Dan, who has essentially refused to ever state a suspicion of a single person being a traitor. CT is pushing him really hard to make one single guess, and Dan, adhering to what I have to believe is his strategy, continues to refuse. He’s sort of a brick wall, revealing literally no information. (Sometimes when I play the game One Night Ultimate Werewolf, there are people whose strategy is to simply not talk. Sometimes it makes them look suspicious, but most of the time, you simply stop engaging with them, because if you can’t get any information from them, you worry you’re wasting your time. I think Dan is approximating this strategy.) It seems the tides are turning against Dan, and I don’t know if this is admirable or silly, but he seems to do anything but panic! For me, it’s a little infuriating. It’s like, dude, do something!

After breakfast, it’s clear the tides are turning against Dan, as many others are suspicious of him (Janelle, Trishelle, Bergie). Only Kevin is absolutely convinced that Janelle is a traitor.

This episode’s challenge involves the team splitting up, one competing outside (with access to winning the two shields in play) and one competing inside (with no access to the shields in play). After some back-and-forth about the teams, determined mostly by which players are insisting that they get a chance to win the shields, the challenge begins. It’s actually a very funny challenge involving all of them running around and imitating bird calls. Tonally, it feels very different from the funeral march last episode, and for me, it’s a welcome reprieve, if a bit boring.

Trishelle and Bergie win the shields, and Peter comes up with an actually interesting and strategic idea: If Trishelle and Bergie don’t reveal they won the shields, every person on the outdoors team can be protected. Peter reasons that if the Traitors don’t know who of their six has the shields, they won’t want to target any, because they won’t want to waste a vote. As far as I know, Peter is from The Bachelor, and I was impressed to see him ratchet up the game play by employing a pretty nuanced strategy. If he can pull it off, that is.

Back in the house, after the challenge, Peter intensifies his strategy by telling Dan, privately, that he and Janelle won the shields. Peter tells Parvati, also privately, the same thing, thinking that if either of them are the Traitors, (1) this might protect him and Janelle from getting murdered and (2) best case scenario, they believe him, and choose to murder Bergie/Janelle, who actually has the shield, effectively wasting a murder, and revealing themselves as Traitors. Sneaky sneaky, Peter! I love it.

Janelle is still really gunning for Dan. Once again, the best thing Dan seems to come up with is going to Parvati and getting her to handle it for him. Generously, maybe this is his strategy. Parvati reasons that if Janelle is coming for Dan this hard, they’ve got to get Janelle out, to protect Dan. This isn’t the first time I begin to wonder if Dan would protect Parvati like she is seemingly willing to protect him. Despite being labeled so often as a villain, I don’t think Parvati plays dirty; she decides who’s on her team and who isn’t and cleaves to those boundaries. It seems Parvati sees both Dan and Phaedra as her team, at least for now. Dan, on the other hand, seems to be a team of one, and I worry how this could affect both Parvati and Phaedra moving forward….

Inexplicably at this point, we learn who the new player is going to be, and it’s the iconic Kate Chastain, a fan favorite from season one of The Traitors and a whole lotta seasons of Below Deck!! I’m excited to see how she shakes things up; you can always count on Kate to say exactly what she’s thinking, and that’s always a rollercoaster to watch. Alan Cumming, wearing a shirt seemingly made only of feathers (love), brings another chair to the roundtable, and in walks Kate.

Kevin steels himself and delivers a formal accusation of Janelle, which really gets under Janelle’s skin. She, in turn, says she thinks — nay, is sure — the Traitors are Dan (right!), CT (wrong!), and Sandra (what??). Her choice to accuse beyond Dan baffles me, especially considering CT and Sandra are close allies (they will rally against you), from competitive reality TV shows built on kicking people out when they show you can’t trust them. I really wish Janelle had just stuck to Dan!

Dan’s defense, unsurprisingly, is to provide no defense. I actually think I see his strategy begin to work here. It’s like, how could someone react so calmly if they really were the Traitor?? Wouldn’t they be freaking out? But that reasoning actually holds no water, for me. Because he is a Traitor, he can stay calm, because of course he can prepare for this moment, because it is a reasonable accusation, since it’s based on truth. For Faithfuls, getting accused of being a traitor is an unreasonable accusation, because it’s not based on truth, so of course it sends people into a tailspin! Peter and Janelle push Dan to say a name, any name, and he says… Janelle, again, sidestepping making any choice for himself. He aligns with the majority every single time.

When the votes come in, they’re split between Janelle and Dan. But at the end of the day, Janelle gets the majority of the vote. I can’t help but remember literally earlier in the episode, when CT was absolutely gunning for Dan! But of course, saving his own life in the game became more important than eliminating Dan — Janelle was a much more immediate threat to his continued presence on the game. In all reality competition shows, emotion plays a bigger role than I think most contestants would like to admit — but maybe in The Traitors more than anything else, because getting accused of being something you’re not is just…really emotion-inducing!!

Janelle goes home, and some of the people at the table — namely Bergie — see this as confirmation Dan is in fact a traitor. It’s hard for me to see how Dan will clear his name at the next roundtable.

Back in the turret, the Traitors discuss their next target. Parvati reveals Peter told her, in confidence, that he won a shield. Dan reveals he did the exact same with her. Parvati, in true Parvati fashion, immediately knows Peter must be lying. I stood up and cheered!! Parvati’s biggest asset has always been her extremely sharp emotional IQ; that gal simply knows when people are lying! Poor Peter has no idea who he’s dealing with! Parvati reasons that because they don’t know who has the shield, they should murder someone who wasn’t on the outside team — also because then it’ll imply to Peter that Parvati and Dan are NOT the Traitors. Seems like a great plan to me!

Dan, on the other hand, thinks Peter couldn’t be savvy enough to strategically lie (??) and believes him. Dan reasons that because Phaedra got to decide the last murder (Tamra) and Parvati the one before (Ekin-Su) (which remember, was only because no one else could execute the poison murder), he should get to decide this one. This reasoning doesn’t sit well with me, because Dan is implying both Parvati and Phaedra asked for and wanted to decide the last murder victims, which neither of them did. Two women and a man, and only one seems to feel entitled to make decisions for the group…interesting!!!

Dan seems to think the best choice (for his life in the game) is to murder Bergie — a.k.a. to fall right into Peter’s trap. Which, as Parvati realized in about one second, is indeed a trap!!! But Dan seems to believe it’s worth the risk of wasting a murder, which I find unstrategic and shortsighted, to say the least.

I’m nervous that Parvati and Phaedra choosing to go along with Dan, even though they KNOW it risks wasting a murder, could be really bad for them, ultimately. Here’s what I’m afraid of happening: They murder Bergie, and he is saved because he has the shield. This, to Peter, confirms Dan and Parvati are both traitors. Dan, to save his own life, decides to go full-throttle on…Phaedra, which would make no strategic sense, since she has arguably been playing the best game of all three of them.

But I just don’t see Dan throwing Parvati under the bus. Maybe I’m wrong! What do you think will happen??

The Traitors Is a Dramatic Game of Social Manipulation, What Does That Teach Us?

If you’re at my apartment on a Friday or Saturday night, and we’re wondering, what should we do, how should we spend the evening?, I can pretty much guarantee you one thing: I will suggest, with feigned casualness, trying to seem like I really don’t care that much, that we play One Night Ultimate Werewolf. I won’t bore you with the details, because who on god’s green earth wants to read board game instructions. All you need to know is someone is secretly deemed The Werewolf, and they don’t want to be discovered by the rest of the group as such. The group has five minutes to discuss, with the goal of identifying who really is The Werewolf. If the group successfully identifies The Werewolf, the group wins; if The Werewolf goes undetected, The Werewolf wins.

Reality competition series The Traitors is basically One Night Ultimate Werewolf, except all the people playing are from various other reality TV shows, and the villains are The Traitors, not The Werewolf. And instead of having five minutes to discuss, you have hours, or days, or weeks, broken up by episodic challenges. And the American version  all inexplicably takes place in a huge, ancient mansion in Scotland, hosted by Alan Cumming, who is dressed to the nines, narrating each turn of events in the thickest Scottish accent you’ve ever heard. So yeah, it’s amazing.

The Traitors Season Two opens with a bunch of reality TV stars from totally disparate worlds — from Rupaul’s Drag Race’s Peppermint, to Survivor’s Parvati Shallow and Sandra Diaz-Twine, to Bling Empire’s Kevin Kreider, to a professional boxer, to a random retired British politician — arriving at Alan Cumming’s mansion in rural Scotland. That would’ve been enough of an opening, but no, The Traitors goes hard where it simply could’ve not gone at all. The stars are greeted by Alan Cumming’s bearded, silent footman, then his dog Lala, and finally, a bunch of people dressed all in black vigorously playing these huge drums, for some reason. Everyone’s screaming, and so am I! This is theater, people!!! And I love theater!!

As with most competition reality TV shows, the pace feels slower in the first few episodes — but honestly, the completely unnecessary drama of literally every choice made by the producers of The Traitors makes it feel fast-paced and delicious from the very start. For anyone who watches a good amount of reality TV, it’s really dang fun to see folks from very different shows all socializing here. The bizarreness of someone from Big Brother teaching Kevin from Bling Empire about Johnny Bananas from The Challenge (now is when I confess… I also love The Challenge) is just — well, it’s just something I never thought I’d see borne out.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that arguably the biggest reality TV pairing of this season (at least for me) is two people from the same world — Parvati and Sandra from Survivor. Survivor fans out there know about the long-standing rivalry between these two absolute icons, and let me just say, The Traitors Season Two, at least in the first three episodes, does not disappoint when it comes to exploring their dynamic.

And this is where I’ll level with you — as soon as I saw Parvati and Sandra were gonna be in the second season of The Traitors, I was deeply hoping that one or both of them would be a traitor. Parvati in particular, because the role of Traitor is one Parvati Shallow was meant to play. The Traitor must have high emotional intelligence and be able to form connections with, if not everybody, then at least the right socially influential people. The Traitor must be calm under pressure, or else their identity will be discovered by the group. The Traitor must be agile and adjust their plans as social dynamics shift and evolve. Parvati Shallow — #1 flirter; master meditator; evolving, growing human being — would make a great Traitor, wouldn’t she?

But if there’s anything I’ve learned from Parvati, it’s that the best way to keep someone invested isn’t to give them what they want — it’s to withhold. So I’m not going to tell you if she got selected as a traitor or not. I’m not going to tell you if it happens in a conventional way or not, or if it happens at all. You’ll just have to watch to find out. If you want.

What I will tell you is that every single thing about The Traitors — from the setting, to the emotionality of the contestants, to the language Alan Cumming uses, to the very timbre of my recaps! — is over the top. Only Johnny Bananas (a fascinating human being to me; how on earth can you win a show with the physical and mental absurdity of The Challenge not once, not twice, but seven times?!) seems to realize how silly and extravagant this show’s whole deal is. Everyone else — including me, as a viewer — gets sucked into the lush, high-octane world of The Traitors and swallowed whole.

You might think, then, that The Traitors is escapism at its finest. Sure, on a surface level, it is. I could (and will) watch it for hours, completely dissociated from the world around me. But I don’t think it’s that simple. In fact, early in the show, The Challenge’s Trishelle Cannatella’s treatment of Peppermint shows us that the power dynamics at play in the game are anything but divorced from reality. Without really anything significant to go on — the game has truly just started — Trishelle decides, based on how Peppermint reacted to a joke, that she thinks Peppermint is a Traitor. It’s hard not to see racism, transphobia, and homophobia, as factors in how Trishelle effectively turns nearly the whole group against Peppermint, rather swiftly, which is especially easy for her to do since Peppermint didn’t come on with sibling cast members the way most other players did, which Peppermint spoke about in her exit interview with Out. Trishelle’s treatment of Peppermint and her subsequent elimination is hard to watch and stomach. Peppermint ends up, heartbreakingly, being the very first person sent home, despite, of course, not being a Traitor. I think the outcomes of the Trishelle’s and the group’s treatment of Peppermint will heavily impact the rest of the season, given how strongly some folks reacted when Peppermint was revealed to not be a Traitor, just after being the very first person the group sent home.

The Traitors is a show, much like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, about social manipulation. How groups of people define otherhood, rightly or wrongly, based in reality, assumption, fantasy, or some mix of all three. How someone slides into or resists a role thrust upon them by a group. How someone seizes, maintains, and loses power. How the collective subsumes the individual every time, except for when the individual subsumes the collective. How groupthink pulls focus from those deserving scrutiny to those completely innocent.

I’ll be watching The Traitors Season Two and recapping it every Friday. Join me?

Gabby’s Tender Queerness and the Tragedy of Heterosexuality on The Bachelorette

Even with Bachelor Nation™ continuing to pump out slightly delusional heterosexual couples, there was never any disguising of the latent homo bonds between same-sex competitors rooming together as they vie for the grand prize. Indeed, there have been many Bachelor stars who have come out as queerish, including Becca Tilley (The Bachelor season 19 and 20) who since 2018 has been famously dating musician Hayley Kiyoko, Colton Underwood who was the first openly gay Bachelor (The Bachelorette season 14 and The Bachelor lead on season 23; though as reader comments aptly point out below, he stalked and harassed his ex-girlfriend and winner of The Bachelor season 23, Cassie Randolph), Minh Thu from The Bachelor Vietnam who fled the show with Truc Nhu, and many others. Most recently, one of the two leads from The Bachelorette’s season 19, Gabby Windey, announced on Instagram she was dating comedian Robby Hoffman. Since then, the two have been posting very tender updates on Instagram that have included reading bell hooks’s All About Love, doing fancy rich girl stuff like sailing on a yacht, and just seeming to be really into each other in what appears to be a very caring relationship.

Gabby’s season was branded as special because it had two female lead bachelorettes rather than just one: Gabby and her more annoying counterpart, Rachel Recchia. What developed over the season that was perhaps actually special was that Gabby and Rachel formed a caring, tender, and supportive relationship with each other, subtly refusing to be in competition over the flock of men. Throughout the season, they often talked about how they supported each other, and they would hold each other’s hands, tenderly cuddling and embracing while engaging in “girl talk” over their men. It became eerily clear watching this season that the true relationship with staying power was not the toxic hetero relationships Gabby and Rachel had with their men — many of whom were pushed to the brink in trying to get in touch with their emotions and face their toxic masculinity — but the relationship the women cultivated with one another. The femmeship, if you will, drawing on femme scholar Andi Schwartz’s formulation. Gabby and Rachel formed a Bachelorette version of femme friendship — or a “political alliance and network of care.” The season became an unintentional suggestion of other ways of forming love and intimacy, forms not only not heterosexual but also not necessarily romantic or sexual either, tender queeerplatonic femmeships that included hair touching and refusing to be downplayed by the multitudes of men seeking their attention.

Yet in the face of this unintentional femmeship queerplatonic subversion, the show — not surprisingly — remained committed to heterosexual visions of love grounded in an affixation to romance, sex, monogamy, and toxicity. Now, do keep in mind that The Bachelor has long been a site for displaying and celebrating toxic masculinity, racism, and rape culture. For example, you might recall that the former host, white Chris Harrison, left the franchise because he made offensive and minimizing comments in an interview with former Bachelorette lead Rachel Lindsay (The Bachelorette lead of season 13), in defense of a contestant who attended an Antebellum plantation themed party. It was so white supremacist that even The Bachelor franchise was embarrassed.

In many ways, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette remain invested in what Jane Ward has discussed as the tragedy of heterosexuality in a book by the same name. Ward argues that heterosexuality is “erotically uninspired and coercive” with “punishing gender roles” and that it is “outright illogical as a set of intimate relations.” For example, Ward points out that while cishet men’s identity relies on them loving women, instead of loving them, men tend to exploit and objectify women, often using women to get closer to other men in homosocial bonding practices. As queers and feminists well know, heterosexuality does not often benefit heterosexual women, but rather decreases their quality of life, increases their workload, and puts them at increased risk of harm, abuse, and sexual assault. And yet, heterosexuality continues to be dressed up as a goal, a dream, a lifelong quest, linked intimately to happiness and commemorated with countless rituals that become the unseen fabric of society. (And, of course, Ward acknowledges that not all straight people are in toxic relationships nor all cishet men are misogynists but that straight culture emphasizes, promotes, and nurtures these values even when there are exceptions).

The Bachelor franchise in many ways traffics in all of those things, suggesting hetero monogamy as an ideal and dream. For example, it undertakes gender segregation and the gender binary as a seemingly natural and obvious part of the dating process, whereby the men and women are kept in separate homes and interact only at specific times and in specific places. In this way, it is suggested that men and women are opposing and separate teams that must be strategically managed, must be made to like, love, and get along with each other through highly scripted dating protocols, extending what Ward names the “heterosexual-repair industry.”

And yet, despite the intense heteropropaganda Gabby was put through, both as a contestant on season 26 of The Bachelor and as a lead on The Bachelorette’s season 19, she remained what appeared to be tender, kind to her “competitor” women, and astoundingly queer. Is it possible that Gabby’s tender queerness is a resounding sign to all Bachelor Nation fans and contestants — past and present — that another way is possible? Is Gabby showing the high femme Bachelor women they too might indeed be queer or pre-queer and that a tender, nerdy, non-cis-dude love match might also be on their horizon? I like to hope so. Yet, Ward ends her powerful book by suggesting the way out of toxic heterosexuality is not — or not only — queerness. She argues that in order for heterosexuality as an orientation to be better, cishet men need to be better at heterosexuality, to be in other words less misogynist, less exploitative, and less toxic. Ward argues that cishet men shouldn’t seek to queer heterosexuality but to instead go deeper with their love of and attraction to women — what she calls “deep heterosexuality.” While shows such as The Bachelor ask women to compete for one man and The Bachelorette promotes men’s “erotic competition among men for women’s bodies,” Ward asks that we imagine a heterosexuality for itself, where cishet men actually like women, with a “powerful longing for the full humanity of women” and their collective bodily freedom.

What Gabby offers viewers is the compelling tender queer suggestion that women do not have to put up with toxic cishet masculinities and the heterosexuality they have on offer. In an interview with The View on August 2, 2023, Gabby not so much as came out as “gay” as reflected on her personal history with heterosexuality. She shared that she’s “dating a girl” and in response to The View’s host Joy Behar’s as always invasive questioning — “so is it girls now, just girls, that’s it?”  — Gabby pushed back, eluding labels, and offering instead a subtle tender critique of the tragedy of heterosexuality, outlining how she came from “a very heteronormative world … like my whole world was kind of like male gazey” in which “my story has been told for me.” Dating Robby Hoffman, who “makes me feel so safe so loved. Like a love that I always wanted going on these dating shows,” Gabby follows the “whisper in her,” honing a queer critique of toxic heterosexual culture and remaining open and true to her own queer softness.

Author’s Note: I was introduced to Gabby’s season of The Bachelorette by a group of new friends who were watching the season with a feminist gaze. Big thank you and shoutout to Ashton Wesner, Jen Rose Smith, James Taylor, and Kate Altizer. 

Additional Author’s Note: Apologies from the author for omitting and misrepresenting the important details of Underwood’s harassment of Randolph in the prior version of this piece, and thank you to readers for pointing this out.

“Bachelorette” Star Gabby Windey Comes Out as a Girl’s Girl With a Gay Girlfriend

Compulsory heterosexuality was dealt another well-deserved blow today as the queer community learned that Gabby Windey, noted alum of both the The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, had announced on The View that she is in fact currently dating a woman and having a really fantastic time doing so. Gabby Windey then followed up her daytime television experience by hard launching her lesbian relationship with Robby Hoffman on Instagram:

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A post shared by Gabby (@gabby.windey)

According to reality television expert Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, “I’m a girl’s girl,” the caption to Gabby’s Big Gay Reveal post, “is indeed something women say on reality TV all the time.” Gabby’s  post received support from Lesbian Jesus Hayley Kiyoko (“Summer’s for the girls”) and Hayley’s girlfriend, former Bachelor contestant Becca Tilley (“we love a girl’s girl!”).

Windey, who recently came in second place on Dancing With The Stars, told the ladies of the View:

“I’ve had such an amazing experience with my time on Bachelor and Bachelorette dating all those men. That’s how people know me. I always want to live my truth and my story. So I have been seeing someone for a couple months and I’ve been keeping it a little more private because it is a bigger story and a bigger conversation because I’m dating a girl.”

She further elaborated that her sexual fluidity was “always a whisper in me that got louder and louder.” Windey shared that she’d initially felt some shame around realizing that she was into girls, but that she’s worked through that discomfort and is eager to live her truth! Including that her girlfriend is amazing and “the best.”

Who is Gabby Windey?

ICU Nurse and former Denver Broncos Cheerleader Gabby Windey first appeared in the heterosexual multiverse of The Bachelor in Season 26, competing for the love of a former tight end named Clayton. Gabby quickly became a fan favorite for her “goofy” personality and for having received the Pop Warner Humanitarian Award for her frontline work as a medical professional during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gabby made it to the final round of The Bachelor with fellow contestant Rachel Recchia, but Clayton rejected both Gabby and Rachel in favor of an adult woman named Susie. In the finale reunion event, Gabby informed Clayton that he was “ridiculous” and also that she could not believe one word he said!

Gabby and Rachel then appeared on the first season of The Bachelorette to have two female contestants being actively courted by a plethora of allegedly eligible bachelors. The advertising for this season attracted some attention for its blatant homoeroticism:

The season concluded with Gabby accepting a marriage proposal from Erich Schwer in September of 2022. By most accounts it seems as though Erich really sucks.

By November 2022, the two had called it quits and Gabby was competing on Dancing With the Stars.

Who is Gabby Windey’s Girlfriend, Robby Hoffman?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CuANNv7vQqs/

Gabby’s girlfriend is Robby Hoffman, an American-Canadian television writer and comic who has written for shows like The Baroness Von Sketch Show and Workin’ Moms. She grew up in a Hasidic community, identifies as queer, and just yesterday launched a podcast called “Too Far” with Rachel Kaly. She’s toured as a comic all over this continent, starred in episodes of The Chris Gethard Show, and hosted a call-in advice show on Gethard’s comedy network Planet Scum Live.

In 2020, Vulture described her as “a bit of a beast — a small, Jewish, Canadian American, lesbian beast.”

Who Else From The Bachelor and The Bachelorette is a Lesbian or Bisexual?

In 2011, Bachelor and Bachelor Pad contestant Krisily Kennedy came out as bisexual.

In 2016, two women competing in The Bachelor: Australia, Megan Marx and Tiffany Scanlon, began dating each other. At the time, our writer Erin Sullivan noted, “ladies, if you can find love in a room full of cameras and women with eyes who want something from your soul trying to get a read on each other while mainlining booze, you absolutely deserve the love you’ve found.”

As aforementioned, former Bachelor contestant Becca Tilley revealed in 2022 that she’d been dating Hayley Kiyoko for four years.

Elizabeth Corrigan, who appeared with Gabby Windey on Season 26 of The Bachelor, came out as bisexual in June of 2022.

Other queer Bachelorverse contestants include Alexa Caves, Jaimi King, Bekah Purifoy, Demi Burnett, Kaitlyn Bristowe, Melissa Schreiber and Jasmine Goode. I do not know who any of these people are but I am happy for them just the same!

In conclusion, Mazel Tov to Gabby and Robby!

The History of LGBTQ+ Reality TV Dating Shows From ‘NeXT’ to ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’

The Ultimatum: Queer Love is perhaps the highest-profile reality dating show focused on queer women and non-binary people of all time — and it’s also one of the only ones. Historically, reality dating shows have focused on heterosexuals, despite the fact that gathering a bunch of horny bisexuals in one party house and plying them with alcohol while demanding constant, private confessionals is TV gold, as proven by Are You The One? Season Eight. While Love is Blind has co-opted lesbian dating rituals to create its bizarre reality TV experiment, dating shows rarely feature actual lesbians, and are historically bastions of traditional heterosexual courtship.

But over the years, a few brave shows have ventured into the murky waters of reality television dating shows for queer, lesbian and bisexual women and/or trans people of all genders. Let’s talk about some of them!

Date My Mom

MTV // 2004 – 2006  // Unavailable to stream

The triumphant mating call of, “I’m here, I’m queer and I’m ready to Mom Date!!” can be heard echoing through the generations from this entry in MTV’s 2000s Dating Show Frenzy in which the Mom of a teenager meets their potential dates and decides who’s best for her child. Although usually focused on heterosexuals, Date My Mom had a five gay or lesbian episodes per season quota, thus offering its viewers something we rarely received on television back then: a parent so supportive of their daughter’s sexual orientation that they wanted to help her find a girlfriend. “To the moms who did it with their daughters, we let them know that this is awesome that you’re stepping up for your child,” a casting director told The Village Voice in an interview about the challenges of casting its LGBT episodes. “To this day, we still all appreciate those parents.”

NeXt

MTV // 2005-2008 // You can stream some of the gay episodes here

Many MTV shows of the 2000s that are impossible to track down online would feature a few lesbian contestants across their runs, including Parental Control, Dismissed, Exposed and Room Raiders, but NeXt has maintained the most prevalent spot in the public imagination. NeXt wasn’t a queer dating show specifically, but it was immediately inclusive of gay and lesbian daters, including 13 lesbian segments across its six-season run. Contestants went on five dates and were permitted to declare “Next!” to start over with someone new as soon as their present date lost their luster. The daters earned cash for every minute of dating they survived, and whomsever made it to the end could choose a second date or their accumulated lump of cash. Like many MTV dating shows of the era, NeXT was mostly cast with actors and often scripted. The series remains iconic for its stilted intros in which contestants delivered attempts at sassy pick-up lines and three horrifying bullet-pointed facts about themselves. An added delight of the queer episodes was the thirsty twentysomethings on the bus being able to flirt with each other while waiting for their big moment.

A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila

MTV // 2007 + 2008 // Unavailable

The depiction of bisexuality in this absolute trash reality show haunts us to this day, beginning with the absolute horror of the premise, in which 16 lesbians and 16 men aren’t told ’til the end of the first episode that Tila is bisexual and will be choosing from the lot of them. Before dating Courtenay Semel or marrying Casey Johnson or becoming a Neo-Nazi who claimed to have only been “gay for pay,” Tila Tequila was a MySpace queen often spotted in Maxim and Playboy, and when this show debuted in 2007, we were all compelled by forces larger than ourselves to tune in. Personally, I shut it off after ten minutes because I was too offended to go on… but then I happened to catch the rest of the episode at the gym and…I got sucked in. Everybody got drunk and sloppy. Tila and many of her female suitors endorsed an unchecked butchphobia popular in mainstream and queer media at the time, which made it incredibly satisfying that she ended up with hot-as-fuck butch firefighter Dani Campbell as her final girl. In the end, though, she chose the male suitor, although they obviously didn’t last, and Tila returned for a second season.

A Double Shot at Love with the Ikki Twins

MTV // 2009 // Unavailable

Tila Tequila was the host of this spinoff that again found 12 heterosexual men and 12 lesbians competing for a shot at love, this time with bisexual twins Rikki (Erica Mongeon) and Vikki (Victoria Mongeon), models who’d appeared in Playboy and a Hooters calendar, among other similar gigs. After this season, MTV canned the concept in favor of having a bunch of girls compete for a date with the Jersey Shore boys.

Naked Attraction

Channel 4 (UK) // 2016 – present // watch on Channel 4

From the very first episode of Naked Attraction, this British show was inclusive of bisexual, pansexual, trans and/or queer contestants, who narrow down their group of potential dates to a handful of winners by seeing portions of their naked body, from bottom to top.

The Bi Life

E! (UK) // 2018 // Watch on Hayu

Courtney Act hosted “the UK’s first ever bisexual dating show” that featured bisexual people living together in a Spanish villa, exploring the dating scene of Barcelona and supporting each other through it all.

Ex on the Beach

MTV // 2018 – 2023 // Stream on Paramount+

A group of single social media and reality TV stars gather in a luxurious Malibu villa for a dating show with a twist they somehow do not expect, even in latter seasons: their exes are gonna creep out of the ocean. Everyone wears designer swimwear, gets drunk, participates in challenges, digs into each other’s secrets, hooks up and votes each other off the show. Queer women started showing up in Season Three with bisexual reality TV / pop music entrepreneur Aubrey O’Day. Season Four — which eschews a tropical locale for winter in New Zealand — features noted lesbian Staten Island firefighter and Challenge contestant Nicole and a parade of her exes in a environment already queered by a drag queen, a bicurious former Nickelodeon actress, a trans beauty influencer and a bisexual Real World guy.

Game of Clones

MTV // 2019 // Stream on MTV

In Clone Wars, reality television stars are given the rare and fascinating opportunity to date clones of their celebrity crushes, and amongst them are some lesbians. Nicole of The Challenge and Ex on the Beach is presented with seven Ciara clones and will date them all to determine which clone will win her commitment-phobic heart forever.

Are You The One? Season 8

MTV // 2019 // Stream on Hulu, Paramount+ or MTV

The absolute apex of queer reality television, Are You The One? mashed up 16 singles in an alcohol-infused house and through games and socials, challenged them to determine whomst amongst the other singles had been determined by a mysterious overlord to be their soulmate. Guessing correctly as a team wins some kind of money. But in Season 8 of this successful MTV program they decided to improve the show’s quality tenfold by casting an entirely bisexual group of singles. Every man, woman and non-binary person in the house could potentially match with anyone else in the house. It was a beautiful moment in television history that I for one will never forget.

Singled Out 3.0

Roku // 2020 – 2021 // Stream on The Roku Channel

The original Singled Out was an absolute mainstay of every ’90s sleepover and an irresistible late-night double-billing on MTV with Loveline. The Singled Out gameshow put Playboy model Jenny McCarthy (now a notorious anti-vaxxer) and Chris Hardwick (of The Nerdist) on the map as hosts guiding a lucky girl or boy through weeding out 50 potential dates without seeing them, the pool decreasing as the picker cycled through their preferences amongst presented funny categories. The show was rebooted as a YouTube series in 2018 with an “urban contemporary hip-hop theme” that involved a whole thing with Catfishes. Then, finally, a third reboot arrived in 2020, produced by MTV for the Roku Channel. Hosted by KeKe Palmer and Joel Kim Booster and presented in mini-episodes by the Roku Channel, this new iteration featured bisexual and lesbian contestants in its two seasons of minisodes — even once featuring a lesbian couple looking for a third to join their relationship!

Dating Around

Netflix // 2019 – 2020 // Stream on Netflix

The producers of this Netflix show wanted a queer-inclusive cast of folks who wouldn’t ordinarily be on reality TV — people of all ages who could portray a realistic look at what dating is like in the age of apps and all that. “It is a little window into many people’s lives, of many different backgrounds and orientations, as they go on many first dates,” wrote Vulture in “Netflix’s Dating Around is a Secretly Great Reality Show.” Episode 6 featured Mila, who met five women for drinks, dinner and dessert.

12 Dates of Christmas

HBO Max // 2020 – 2021 // Unavailable

Tragically wiped from HBO Max’s platform, 12 Dates of Christmas invited contestants to a romantic holiday-prepped chalet in the snowy mountains of somewhere to face a rotating cast of suitors with whom leads enjoyed dates like sledding, building gingerbread houses, riding horses through the snow and cuddling in bedazzled glamping tents. The winner gets to accompany the lead on a trip home to meet the family for Christmas, except it’s also definitely not Christmas, it’s March, and everybody is just pretending that it’s Christmas. Season Two featured three leads: a gay man, a lesbian (the stunningly beautiful Amanda Grace Jenkins) and a straight man.

Love Trip: Paris

Freeform // 2023 // Stream on Freeform

Caroline, Rose, Lacy and Josielyn

On a surface-level Freeform’s Love Trip: Paris seems like just another heterosexual dating show: four twentysomethings who’ve been unlucky in love move to Paris where love is somehow truer and they’re given the opportunity to meet and date a rotating roster of local men… and women, because three of the four contestants are queer. We’ve got: 29-year-old Lacy; a chatty, sexually fluid “mental health podcaster” who loves crystals, open-hearted 26-year-old Mexican-American bisexual trans woman model Josielyn and finally Caroline, a bubbly 26-year-old genderqueer personal trainer from New York who proudly asserts “my best friend is my cat.” This show has been highly overlooked and I highly recommend it!

The Ultimatum: Queer Love

Netflix // 2023 // Stream on Netflix

Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

The Ultimatum: Queer Love is notable for many things, including introducing the world to Mal, who is a king and deserves the world. Six couples who are facing an ultimatum — one person is ready to marry and the other isn’t — gather together to try out dating each other, rather than the person they came with. After a three week “trial marriage” they’re able to trial marriage with their original partner and then at this point they are obviously 100% ready to decide on the next steps of their relationship. I love television!

Love Allways

Paramount+ // 2023 // Stream on Paramount+

Truly breaking the mold with a cast of Gen Zers, this program sees two ‘dating coaches’ employed to help singles of all genders in their pursuit of Lexi, the show’s bachelorette. The dating coaches are vaguely competing against each other to see which coach’s “team” wins Lexi over? It’s sort of like watching a bunch of TikTok drafts from a 21-year-old, or like a loosely organized pool party. But it’s fascinating to see what a dating show looks like when most of the contestants are too young to drink!

Pansexual Dating Show ‘Love Allways’: Everything We Know About Everyone Involved

Are we entering a bold new era of queer-inclusive dating shows, or is The Ultimatum: Queer Love just-so-happening to premiere one week before Paramount+ debuts pansexual dating show Love Allways? Well, there’s only one way to find out and it’s to live through the entire year to find out what else lands on our television screens. But first things first: we’re here to discuss everything we know about new pansexual Gen Z dating show Love Allways!

When Does ‘Love Allways’ Premiere?

Pansexual bachelorette Lexi Paloma will be getting the CHANCE of a LIFETIME to find her PERFECT HUMAN at the age of 20 in this Gen-Z reality show that’ll drop three episodes on Paramount+ on Friday, June 2, with weekly releases of new eps following thereafter (on Paramount+ and Awesomeness’ YouTube channel) for a grand total of ten episodes.

What’s ‘Love Allways’ About?

The press materials implore us to ask ourselves, “what’s love without a little friendly competition?” Furthermore:

As she narrows down her pool of contestants of all genders, some start falling for one another, causing a spiral of drama, betrayal, passion and jealousy. Throughout the process, Lexi is assisted by two professional relationship gurus, Spicy Mari and Anthony Recenello, who also serve as mentors to their teams of potential suitors. Not only are the daters competing for a chance at love, but the relationship gurus are also going toe-to-toe to see whose protégé gets chosen.

We love a show that allows its contestants to fall for each other by design, and it’ll also be interesting to see how that shakes out on the boys side, which has a mix of straight and bisexual contestants.

Who is Leading Lady Lexi Paloma?

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A post shared by Lexi Paloma (@lexipalomarosa)

Lexi Paloma is a 20-year-old TikTok influencer with 1.3 million followers who posts a lot of dance videos and swimwear videos.

Who are the Girls Competing For Lexi’s Heart?

Sienna Scibird, 23

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A post shared by sienna scibird (@siennascibird)

Sienna Scibird is a TikTok influencer who first went viral in 2019 with a Justin Bieber concert video. Now she does lip syncs and videos about being gay! She was on the golf team at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Camille Cupid, 21

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp31R0msV0y/

Camille is a photographer based in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.

Jasmine Cervantes, 19

https://www.instagram.com/p/CqtT7Bsv5RU/

There’s not a lot out there about Jasmine but she is based in Los Angeles and is labeled by the show as “the funny sexy girl.’

Kalysta Mallory, 20

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MXBOSS // AZ Photographer (@angel_mxboss)

Identified as “the baddie,” Kalysta a bisexual model from Arizona and was featured on the July 2021 cover of Playboy New Zealand and works on OnlyFans.

Rylin Utah, 20

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rylin Utah 💋 (@rylinutah)

Rylin is a TikTok creator Instagram influencer and model from Florida who loves God and was homeschooled all her life. She’s also the ex-girlfriend of Kylie Prew, who herself is the legendary ex-girlfriend of JoJo Siwa, and you can read more about all of that here.

Jayme Aiden Schiller, 20

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jayme aiden (@jaymeaiden)

Jayme is a student at UCLA. She’s verified on instagram but only has a few thousand followers, which is mysterious to me!

The men competing for the love of Lexi are digital creator Cyprien Boustiha, basketballer Marc Bateman, “Alabama Boy” TikToker Tyler Hearing, soccer player Luis Diaz, “bisexual player” and TikToker Brian Batesy, actor/influencer/student/comedian Joshua Cureton, and model/influencer Cameron James.

It will definitely be interesting to see how a reality TV dating competition is executed with a group of people who are mostly under a legal drinking age and definitely nowhere near the age at which one might expect to meet ones absolute perfect match wife husband forever true love soulmate!

“The Ultimatum: Queer Love” Has Blessed Us With Cast Details, Full-Length Trailer, More Pics

The queer community’s increased sense of anticipation for the release of The Ultimatum: Queer Love on Netflix this May 24th has been stoked further today with the release of a full-length trailer, more pictures, and information on the names, ages and pronouns of the cast.

In case you missed it, this season of The Ultimatum is keeping its initial premise — one person in a couple is ready for marriage, the other isn’t, and the ready-for-marriage human is not only ready for marriage but also ready to issue an ultimatum to their commitment-shy partner: marry me or it’s over!!!!!!! In order to test the strength of their relationship, all the cast members are allowed to date each other, enter into a three-week “trial marriage” with whomstever they click with the most (if the clicking feelings are mutual), and then participate in a “trial marriage” with the person they arrived with. At the end, they return to the table to face their partners and decide if they want to leave engaged, leave alone, or leave with their new activity partner. As the title suggests, the second season of The Ultimatum is focused on queer love, with a cast entirely comprised of lesbian, bisexual and queer women and nonbinary people.

I’ve already seen the first four episodes available to press, and I cannot tell you a single thing about them, but I can tell you that I am VERY EXCITED for us all to watch it together!

Netflix’s “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” Full-Length Trailer

We got a trailer two weeks ago but don’t worry we got yet another trailer today! Set to the dulcet tones of the Hayley Kiyoko / Kehlani tune “What I Need,” we get a little more info about what our new friends are facing in the season ahead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0lam6K0hDo

Meet The Cast Of The Ultimatum: Queer Love

Lexi & Rae

First up we have Lexi (25, Pronouns: She/Her) (in the red shirt) who issued the Ultimatum to Rae (27, Pronouns: She/Her). In the trailer we see Lexi, at the age of 25, saying she is ready to start her life together with Rae, but unfortunately Rae is not quite so ready.

Lexi also says in a voiceover that now that she knows what a good marriage looks like, she needs to find out if she can have that with the person she came here with.

Sam & Aussie

Simone Thompson/Netflix © 2023

Next we have Sam (31, Pronouns: She/Her) (in the purple tank top), who issued the Ultimatum to Aussie (42, Pronoun: Aussie). In the trailer, we don’t see a lot of Sam, but we see Aussie expressing concerns about gender roles and meeting the parents.

Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

Xander & Vanessa

Simone Thompson/Netflix © 2023

Next up we have Xander (30, Pronouns: She/Her/They) (wearing a black polo), who issued the Ultimatum to Vanessa (30, Pronouns: She/Her). In the trailer, Vanessa boldly declares the show’s events to be a “shitshow.”

Tiff & Mildred

Simone Thompson/Netflix © 2023

Next up is Mildred (33, Pronouns She/Her), who issued the Ultimatum to Tiff (32, Pronouns: They/Them). Mildred is the one in the red dress. “You’re the most masculine person I’ve ever been on a date with,” Tiff says to fellow cast member Mal in the trailer.

Yoly & Mal

Simone Thompson/Netflix © 2023

And then there is Yoly (34, Pronouns: She/Her), who issued the Ultimatum to Mal (36, Pronouns: She/Her/They). I believe it is within my rights to inform you that Mal is my favorite cast member of The Ultimatum: Queer Love!

In the trailer, we see Yoly describing Mal as her “person” and asking Mal if they’ve started saving for IVF, which she describes as “a very real possibility.”

The first four episodes of The Ultimatum: Queer Love drop on May 24th, and Autostraddle will be covering the season in depth, so stay turned for more!

Some Bravo Dyke Thoughts on the Vanderpump Rules Finale Trailer

After it leaked online, Bravo had to move faster than DJ James Kennedy running from Pump to SUR with his DJ equipment between gigs to get up a full version of the season 10 Vanderpump Rules finale trailer, which teases some of the most explosive Scandoval moments yet.

If you’re like “what the fuck is Scandoval and why does it sound like a mid alt pop music group”, well, it is a portmanteau of “Sandoval,” one of the SURnames of the two Toms who are part of the Bravo reality television series Vanderpump Rules, and the word “scandal.” The scandal in question is, in short, that Tom Sandoval cheated on his longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix with fellow castmember Raquel Leviss. I’ve written about the sordid details before. And if you’re like “okay but why is the managing editor of Autostraddle following this so closely and writing about it here”, I’m sorry but this is taking up an untoward amount of my brain space and is the only television show lately that feels like a genuine escape. I don’t know how to explain the potency of this drama to the uninitiated!!!! It’s somehow the most engrossing reality television twist of recent years! If it sounds very stupid to you, just don’t read this!

Plus, I have a column called Bravo Dyke, so it just feels right to keep touching down on Scandoval, which is also a frequent topic of discussion in my very lesbian household. Also, Ariana is bisexual, so that makes this narrative relevant to this website for lesbians, bisexuals, and queer people, okay?! In fact, Ariana recently had to defend her own bisexuality when a fan responded to the false rumors that she was in an open relationship by asking if she’s no longer bisexual, prompting Ariana to say something that goes without saying here at Autostraddle: “bisexual ≠ polyamorous.” These are not interchangeable words, people!

The season 10 preview is indeed very juicy but sadly does not include as many Bad Hats as the midseason trailer did. This is especially a personal affront to me, because when my preferred way to watch straight people on television is for them to be wearing Bad Hats.

Take a look at the Vanderpump Rules finale trailer:

We see Sandoval telling Scheana he was planning to break up with Ariana, and Scheana pointing out that he didn’t though and instead chose to cheat with Ariana’s friend. I do think this line would have been better delivered in a comically large hat, but I digress, Scheana is correct here. We also finally see the conversation between Sandoval and Ariana that results in her screaming “I don’t give a fuck about fucking RAQUEL,” a line we’d previously only seen delivered without audio in the midseason trailer.

She says this in response to Sandoval saying he and Raquel just became really good friends, and you know, I actually find a lot of peace in the fact that his words sound familiar. My friend said she doesn’t usually like cheating/affair stories — whether they’re in scripted or unscripted series, books, etc. — because they’re boring. She’s right! There’s not a lot of new ground to break there. It’s definitely why, when it comes to scripted series in particular, cheating as a plot device can seem so lazy. But there’s something about the mundanity and cliches in the way Sandoval talks about “why” he cheated that’s oddly soothing. It’s like, yeah, these people are unoriginal! They think they found something special or are uniquely tortured individuals, but they’re not! They’re just like everyone else who chooses to cheat rather than break up because it’s the “easier” thing to do.

There are a lot of reasons why I think Scandoval feels like such a riveting moment in reality television, and perhaps at the end of the season I’ll dig deep into all of them, but I do think part of it is rooted in the same reason Kelsey McKinney’s podcast “Normal Gossip” is so popular. Scandoval is packaged explosively, and the reality television context adds a few layers, but at the end of the day, the drama is pretty commonplace, and we can view it without opening ourselves up to any scrutiny or drama ourselves.

Anyway, the trailer ends with a genuine jumpscare by revealing the owner of a pair of strappy sandals ominously approaching the camera to be none other than Kristen Doute, Sandoval’s ex girlfriend who accused him of cheating on HER with ARIANA back in the day. But Kristen and Ariana are now friends, because the relationship dynamics in this friend group are impossible to predict and as unstable as they come.

Bravo Dyke Reacts to the Vanderpump Rules Midseason Trailer

As far as my gay ass is concerned, the only two appointment television shows for the foreseeable future are Yellowjackets and Vanderpump Rules. The latter released its midseason trailer yesterday, and after dissecting it with multiple group chats, watching it approximately 35 times, and huddling with my fiancé to discuss, I am now here to perform my duties as our resident Bravo Dyke. The midseason trailer is a work of art, full stop, and just a glimpse of the melodrama that’s about to shatter this friend group, who are decidedly not in the best days of their lives atm, despite what the theme song might claim.

A couple weeks ago, I broke down “Scandoval,” the brilliant nickname given to the ongoing affair drama between Tom Sandoval, his longtime partner and bisexual icon Ariana Madix, and Raquel Leviss. Long story short: Sandoval and Raquel have been having an affair. The second this came to light, the cameras were rolling. We’re going to watch this play out in real-time, which is reality gold. The past two episodes of Vanderpump Rules were shot, edited, and finalized before the scandal came out and were not altered after the fact. But moving forward with the season, we’re going to get the affair and its aftermath. The filming crew, producers, and editors have basically reworked whatever was originally going to be the back half of season 10 to now focus on the Scandoval. Give them Emmys, give them Pulitzers, give them Nobel Peace Prizes.

Just take a look at the trailer. As my Bravo Dyke Colleague Christina Tucker puts it: “This is A24.”

The #PumpRules midseason trailer is here! pic.twitter.com/flcCTqi8eS

— Queens of Bravo (@queensofbravo) March 20, 2023

Just like the Yellowjackets season two trailer, there is a lot to unpack here! Sure, maybe no one is getting eaten, but we do have Katie Maloney saying she wants to “light the both on fucking fire” (presumably talking about Sandoval and Raquel). I have no doubts she wouldn’t hunt them down, Yellowjackets-style.

We also get a glimpse of who I assume is Katie’s much younger post-divorce actor boy toy. We see Raquel make out with TOM SCHWARTZ, who is the Tom we assumed she’d be getting with this season when really he is a Decoy Tom meant to distract from the indiscretions of Tom Sandoval. It is unclear how long Schwartz knew about the affair between his bestie and Raquel, especially because the cast seems to be under a gag order by production until the season’s over — even Investigative Journalist Andy Cohen hasn’t been able to get many explicit answers out of them on Watch What Happens Live. We also get Ariana swimming naked in a pool, which seems kind of rude for the editors to include when it’s just an innocent moment of fun between her and her gay guy friend. Even though it’s just a quick moment, depicting her as promiscuous or like there was an open relationship when there wasn’t has a whiff of biphobia to it!

We also get some of the first interactions between Ariana and Sandoval immediately following the affair’s surfacing. Sandoval seems to be playing some sort of “we only had sex four times a year” card. You know what you can do when you’re unhappy in a relationship, bud? BREAK UP! But people stay thinking cheating is the easier route.

And now, some pertinent annotations of the Vanderpump Rules midseason trailer, which somehow devolves into Vanderpump Hats.

you know what I like to drink when my life implodes after bad choices I’ve made? Diet Squirt

a dispatch from colleague Christina: “incredible to include a shot of Lisa crying, Mommy is disappointed and y’all better fix it!!!!”

“I just wish you would compliment my hats more”

“YOUR HATS ARE STUPID”

“I like my hats like I like my men: secondhand”

“is anyone gonna say something about MY hat?”

“YOUR HAT’S BAD TOO”

With soap operatic flair, the Vanderpump Rules midseason trailer ends with melodramatic music playing under Sandoval asking Ariana if she wants anything and her responding, calmly: “for you to die.” Chills!

Now, can someone please convince other folks on the Autostraddle senior team to start watching the show so I do not feel so alone in our virtual office!!!! I simply need someone to water cooler chat with this about!!!

Reality Show “Love Trip: Paris” Ends With a Lesbian Knuckle Tattoo and Intact Relationships

Love Trip Paris — the incredibly queer dating show on Freeform that shipped four “American girls” to France to find true love because France is romantic and full of berets and bridges — wrapped up this week with a solid collection of delightfully unhinged behaviors, including lesbian contestant Caroline bravely tattooing her knuckles with the name of the French girl she’d fallen for. At the series’ end, my fave Josielyn Aguilera ended up open to a future with Patrick but mostly choosing to love herself (leaving me personally pining for her fleeting connections to Josephine and Aickel), while Rose’s suitor turned out to be mostly just scheming for a visa and therefore unworthy of the engagement ring she’d brought along on this trip.

But two couples actually insisted to the camera that they’d found true love with each other: genderqueer lesbian Caroline Renner (she/they) and her French suitor Lisa; and pansexual mental health podcaster Lacy Hartselle and her French suitor Bastein Buffat.

But what are the queer Love Trip Paris Francophiles doing now??? Are those couples still together? Let’s discuss!

Love Trip: Paris – Where Are They Now?

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A post shared by rose (@r_zillaba)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every couple who “matches” on a dating reality show is unlikely to actually still be dating when the edited show debuts 6-18 months later. Well, unless it’s Love is Blind and they actually got legitimately married on the reality show, in which case there is a 50/50 chance they’re either still married and will stay that way for the forseeable future OR they’re still married but will be getting divorced within a year. After three seasons and 17 couples produced by Love is Blind, four couples remain together. Are You The One?, which has declared a total of 90 couples to be soulmates, has produced only seven still-together couples. With 44 seasons between them as of mid-2022, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have produced six still-intact marriages. Perfect Match, which just concluded its messy first season, produced zero (0) couples, although some did attempt to date briefly following the series’ conclusion.

Perhaps what these shows should’ve done was ship everybody to Paris to go on moonlit walks past the Eiffel tower with French suitors, because Love Trip: Paris actually managed to do what those shows couldn’t: deliver a 50% success rate for its contestants.

“I think that love is really important to the French,” Rose told Hollywood Life. “I think in the U.S., dating is much more casual, which is okay for some people. But the French really take things seriously almost to an extent we weren’t really expecting.”

Are Caroline and Lisa Still Together?

Caroline found her way onto Love Trip Paris after answering an ad that was “looking for lesbians that speak French.” They told The CT Insider that seeing the ad felt like fate: “I was like, that’s my whole brand, and applied.” They connected immediately with Lisa, one of the first woman suitors in the house.

Lisa was very possessive and jealous about Caroline speaking to or dating other people, despite the premise of the show being “dating other people,” an attitude which was especially visible when the French suitors got together to diss each other’s chances of getting dates with the people they wanted to get dates with. For example, Caroline went out with Margot, a very hot pink-haired masc lesbian with the word “insane” tattooed on her neck who took Caroline on a date to a cat cafe. Caroline previously had said their type was a “Megan Rapinoe-esque look” — and Margot was definitely their type. Lisa was so annoyed by this circumstance that she nearly fled the show but instead simply decided to show up an hour late to her date with Caroline.

But Lisa’s connection with Caroline was so strong that even Margot and her cuffed t-shirts could not stop Caroline and Lisa’s love train from leaving the station. In fact, Caroline’s heart was so set on Lisa that she got “LISA” tattooed on her knuckles on their last date of the season

Surprisingly enough, at the present moment, Caroline Renner and Lisa are in fact still in a relationship. Apparently they broke up for six months but got back together and are now living the dream!!!

via Instagram

Although Lisa and Caroline are currently long-distance, Caroline is planning to move to Paris eventually and they still consider Lisa their “goofy beautiful amazing hilarious” love. They also remain friends with Margot, who is a barber! Cheers!!!!!

Where Is Josielyn Aguilera Now?

(Freeform/Adeline Lulo)

Josielyn, a bisexual trans model/actor who’d never before been in a relationship, cascaded through several flings on the program, from a promising beginning with Gessica to a baffling multi-date experience with Mirko, a bad person who just wanted to win the show even though there was no way to actually win the show. Finally she ended the show ready to “see where it goes” with Patrick, a late-season suitor who she’d felt drawn to immediately. While lamenting her inability to make a connection and the impact Mirko’s terribleness had upon her soul, Love Trip: Paris treated us to a little supercut of all her strong connections — with Gessica, Aickel and Josephine — that really made me wish we’d seen more of all those relationships!

“This is a big thing and a real big moment and I feel like I just want people to see that I’m just like any one of these other girls trying to figure out love and romance,” she told Hollywood Life about appearing on the show as a transgender woman. “I deserve love and respect, and so does everyone else, and so do other trans men and women out there. It’s so huge that we’re able to show this experience on TV and on Freeform and on this platform… I just want to be myself. I definitely feel like the biggest thing for me was that I felt like I was 100% myself with these girls. I felt like I was never judged. I felt like I could just be me. It was the best experience for me.”

At the current moment, Josielyn is no longer in Paris, she has returned to Los Angeles and recently appeared in an episode of Quantum Leap. I can’t wait to see what she does next!!

When asked on instagram who was the best kisser, Josielyn gave that honor to Josephine, who she wrote “will forever be the one that got away.” :-(

Are Lacy and Bastian Still Together?

(Freeform/Adeline Lulo)

I’m going to be honest that due to my bias as a person, I did hope Lacy would end up with a woman. Alas, she managed to allegedly find true love with Bastien, despite rumors that he was “in it for the wrong reasons” and already had a girlfriend outside of the show.

But! After taking a picturesque hot air balloon ride at dawn with certified hunk Amaury and having a seaside picnic that for some reason involved an actual clay vase of flowers upon a blanket, Lacy decided to choose Bastien because she felt connected to his soul.

And now, according to her instagram, she and Bastien are together and she’s moving to Paris, her favorite city in all the world, where Bastien this very day made her a kale salad, which is nice.

And Finally, Rose

Rose isn’t as active on social media as Josielyn, Lacy and Caroline, but it appears that the show’s lone heterosexual is still beautiful and fantastic and perhaps currently in Paris!

In conclusion, au revoir!

“Physical: 100” Proves There’s No One Way To Be an Athlete

This review of Physical: 100 includes some spoilers of the reality competition series.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been strength training and powerlifting for the last few months or what, but lately, I’ve been drawn to media that showcases the myriad physical challenges people put their bodies through just to achieve some personal goal. Most of the stuff I’ve consumed has been more along the lines of documentaries, docuseries, or essays on the subject until this past week when I blew through the episodes of Physical: 100 at a speed that is very unusual for me. I rarely binge-watch shows in the way a lot of other people do, but from the minute I put on Physical: 100, I simply couldn’t stop watching it. I needed to know who was going to win. And more importantly, I wanted to know how.

Physical: 100 is a Korean reality competition series produced by Netflix that begins with literally 100 people competing for the chance to win 300 million Korean won (a little over 220,000 U.S. dollars). They participate in competitions designed to test the absolute shit out of their physical and mental strength. The challenges range in difficulty, but they mostly seem hard as fuck to both the participants and to us viewers at home and usually require a variety of skills — from strength to agility to endurance — to complete. They compete in person-to-person combat, form teams to complete tasks like filling a large tube with pounds and pounds of sand and moving a 1.5 ton pirate-style ship, and do a gauntlet of exercises that were inspired by Greek mythology. People who cannot beat the other participants are eliminated each round.

Maybe that doesn’t sound exactly like the kind of thing you care to watch, but let me tell you, there is something about Physical: 100 that feels distinctly different from any American reality competition show I’ve ever watched or seen a little bit of. While the participants in the show are all highly or somewhat decorated in their sports of choice, they are representative of many different kinds of athletes and, as a result, have many different kinds of bodies. The show features not just bodybuilders and YouTube and Instagram exercise/wellness influencers but also Olympic lugers and skeleton racers, Korean national wrestling champions, mixed martial arts fighters, gymnasts, members of the Korean armed forces, stunt people, crossfitters, choreographers, professional strongmen, a mountain rescue ranger, and ssireum wrestlers (like my favorite participant and ultimate babe of the show, Jang Eun Sil). The show features both men and women competing equally in these battles of strengths and wills, and although the men on the show are sometimes a little too confident in their abilities to beat the women, they don’t always win against them.

Some of the participants are jacked beyond belief, some are tall and lanky and a little muscular, some have a stereotypical athletic build (not exactly jacked but not super thin either), some of them are middle-aged, and some are even fat by our societal standards. I’ve been joking that the show is a great example of what happens when YouTubers and Instagram fitness influencers are asked to test their mettle, since many of the types of bodies we’re used to calling “strong” and “fit” aren’t the ones who do well in the challenges. Many of these kinds of people are taken out in the first couple of challenges, leaving the actual athletes — with their various body types — to win over and over again. While it isn’t shocking for me, personally, to see these people fail to meet the promise of their muscle-y physiques, I know that the outcomes of the competitions will be a shock to many viewers of the show.

Actually, one of the greatest joys of watching the show all at once for me was seeing the progression of the female participants, especially in the many instances where they had to compete directly with male participants. Since the challenges were designed to be played by any person who felt they could handle them, the women in the show truly held their own. The performances by Jang Eun Sil, Seo Hayan, Miho, Shim Eu-ddeum, Shin Bo Mi Rae, Song A-reum, Kim Da-young often not only matched but actually exceeded the performances of many of the men on the show, with some of them even making it into the penultimate challenge. Throughout the show, they had to deal with not only being severely outnumbered by the men but also had to contend with the men doubting their physical capabilities at every turn. Instead of cowering away or letting these doubts impact their focus, the women just worked harder as result and surprised themselves and the other participants in this process. I can’t lie to y’all, witnessing the moments brought me to tears a few times because Physical: 100 gave them the ability to remind audiences, over and over again, that you shouldn’t underestimate anyone based on how they look.

In a world where we’re conditioned to believe that the bodies of people like The Liver King and Jillian Micheals and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are the standard for strength and athleticism, the reality of who is the strongest and why they’re so strong is actually starkly different than what we’ve been trained to believe. Physical: 100 is the newest and best example of what I mean when I say this, which makes it stand out among the crowd of American competition shows that often feature one or two types of bodies competing for the same prize. By the time the participants are whittled down to the final five, it’s not at all who you expect to be there. The fat strongman, Jo Jin-hyeong, makes it, and so does the mountain rescue climber, Kim Min-cheol. The other three men in the final five are a luger, Park Jin-yong; a cyclist, Jung Hae-min; and a snowboarder turned crossfitter, Woo Jin-yong. (Yes, sadly, Jang Eun Sil doesn’t make it to the final five, but I still think she could kick all these guys’ asses if she really wanted to.)

Throughout the show, the computerized host tells us multiple times that the show is a “study” to see who has the best body in the world. If the show’s participants are any indication, then the “best body in the world” could belong to literally anyone you see in your daily life, and it often belongs to the people you’d least expect. While Physical: 100 also disrupts the American idea of competition and what it means to be a good competitor, I think its most significant contribution is this: sports, strength, athleticism, and everything in between are for anyone and everyone who wants to be part of that world, and here in the U.S., we should learn to let them.

Francesca Farago Only Stayed On “Perfect Match” ‘Cause They Let Her Date a Woman

Swimwear entrepreneur Francesca Farago continues manifesting chaos on Netflix’s reality competition dating program Perfect Match, which unites singles from various Netflix reality shows to discover if they’ll have better relationships with each other than they had with whomever they were dating on their previous Netflix dating reality show. As discussed last week, Perfect Match‘s Francesca Faragao has made no secret of her bisexuality on a program that in fact boasts several bisexual women in its cast, and this week she told Variety that she was actually ready to depart the show until she learned they’d let her match with a woman.

“I reached a point where I wasn’t sure if I wanted to remain in the house anymore because I just didn’t know if there was someone for me there,” Francesca told Variety. “I knew who was there, men-wise, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can waste anyone’s time by continuing to match with these men that I know I’m not going to get along with.’ Then, I found out there was a possibility of me being matched with a female, and I was like, ‘in that case, I will stay for that.’ I wasn’t even sure if it was going to happen because it was a heterosexual show. But I’m glad that it happened, and I’m glad that that relationship happened as well. I just kind of switched up the game.”

But not every surprise about the game was a good one. While on the Viall Files podcast, Francesca revealed that she felt blindsided by the show’s sleeping arrangements. She’d thought men and women would be sleeping in separate houses, rather than sharing beds with each other. “When the rules were dropped that we had to match up and go sleep in the same bed, I bawled my eyes out for a day. And that wasn’t shown.” Apparently, she regretted having to share a bed with her ex on Too Hot to Handle, and didn’t want to do it again.

Francesca’s “Perfect Match” Journey Lead Her To Abbey Humphreys

Courtesy of Netflix / © 2023 Netflix, Inc.

Farago initially matched with Dom Gabriel of The Mole, and despite her determination to ensure he was unable to bond with any woman besides her, she ditched him quickly when Love is Blind‘s Damian Powers showed up on the grid.

Damian, a 31-year-old man with the personality of a flat fountain soda, is best known for shamefully declining to wed Giannia Gibelli, thus inspiring her to flee the venue in her wedding dress and trip in the mud. His infamy continued building in After the Altar, when, despite the fact that he was allegedly still dating Giannia, Francesca showed up at their cast reunion as Damian’s date. Unfortunately for Damian, his spark with Francesca on Perfect Match, while initially powerful, eventually dimmed for Francesca, who didn’t like how he kissed her arm.

Francesca was thus delighted to find herself sent on a date with Abbey Humphreys of Twentysomethings: Austin.

Both women are immediately delighted to be paired up — Abbey had been following Francesca since her season of Too Hot to Handle and can’t believe that Francesca is even prettier and more photoshopped in person.

“You’re like so hot,” Francesca says to Abbey, fingering her extensions. “I’m trying not to, like, stare at you.”

I noticed that the program was packed with bisexuals when the cast was initially announced but, like Francesca, I was unclear if said bisexuals would be given the opportunity to scissor each other. Francesca told Variety, “I think that was something that i kind of guided [them] towards during filming.”

Perfect Match’s Very Bisexual Episode

Francesca and Abbey’s date and eventual decision to match was not Episode Eight’s only nod towards their very bisexual cast. Kariselle also initiates a conversation with Joey about her bisexuality, saying she appreciates his validation and asking if he thinks his family would be cool with it too.

“They don’t give a fuck,” Joey responded emphatically.

Kariselle says her last love before Joey was a woman and she needs Joey to know that if she does end up marrying a man, “that doesn’t automatically make me straight. Like I’m still bi.” Joey says he is on board, and any man who isn’t should go fuck themselves. “It’s 2022, people should get their heads out of their asses,” he declares astutely.

As the episode continues, Francesca and Abbey’s relationship is tested when they completely fail their first couples challenge, which involves a blindfold and hay bales. Francesca can’t get too mad at Abbey, though, ’cause “she’s so cute.” That’s all we see of their relationship in this week’s batch of episodes, and the preview for next week’s final drop does show Francesca and Kariselle sucking face in a swimming pool, Francesca flirting with Will, and Francesca saying “don’t disrespect me like that, you piece of shit,” while Abbey kisses noted menace to society, Bartise from Love is Blind.

Francesca is In a Relationship With Jesse Sullivan

However, the real reason Francesca Farago seems unable to settle on a suitor on Perfect Match may have been that she’d actually already found her perfect match: Francesca is currently in a relationship with TikTok star Jesse Sullivan, a trans Dad with 2.9 million followers and although they weren’t dating while Francesca appeared on Perfect Match, they’d already met and connected.

Francesca Farago (R) is seen on October 4, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Wil R/Star Max/GC Images)

According to their TiKTok storytime, Francesca and Jesse met in 2020 when Francesca was assigned to interview Jesse for a TikTok Pride feature — they clicked and started dating, but their relationship stalled when Francesca had to move back to Canada for four months due to Visa issues. They tried and failed to make it work long distance. After some months jaunting around Europe, Francesca returned to Los Angeles, at which point she’d already signed up to appear on Perfect Match. Francesca and Jesse kept hooking up and seeing each other casually in the lead-up to the show’s filming in Panama.

Francesca said that although she learned a lot from her experience on Perfect Match, the minute she left that villa, she texted Jesse something like, hey, are you still single, I’m traumatized and I want to hang out. They’ve been together every day since and are currently renovating their dream home.

“He’s just a nice normal Dad,” she told Variety. “He’s so sweet. To have these aspects of public hate from that just proves that the more representation we have, the more positive it will be because people will see that we’re just normal people.”

On the Viall Files podcast, Francesca said that “he’s definitely the one, 100 percent.”

Two Bravo Storylines Explore Paths to Queer Parenthood and Their Complications

Hello Bravo Dykes, Bravo Bisexuals, Bravo Brethren, et al. Today, we’re going to touch down on two different Bravo shows whose current seasons both happen to have queer couples looking to have kids by different means. On Family Karma, now-husbands Amrit and Nicholas are exploring surrogacy, bumping up against the cost and their low sperm counts along the way. On Real Housewives of Miami, Julia Lemigova, who has been the single mom of two daughters who are now teenagers, wants to adopt a baby with her wife and faces her own obstacles along the way as well.

I do want to start by acknowledging that Julia’s wife, the tennis player Martina Navratilova, has repeatedly engaged with, disseminated, and participated in transphobic language and fear-mongering on social media. I will briefly be discussing Julia’s storyline on Real Housewives of Miami but do not endorse her wife’s actions or Julia’s silence on the matter. It’s especially frustrating (though unsurprising) that Martina’s behavior goes unchecked on Bravo (she is not a main cast member, but she appears frequently), because there has been a lot of focus on Julia speaking out against Don’t Say Gay initiatives in Florida on the show, which would indeed seem meaningful if it weren’t coupled with this silence. But Bravo has a track record of leaving transphobia unaddressed, so again, I’m not surprised by this hypocrisy.

Julia indeed worries about what the process of adoption might look like in Florida given she’s married to a woman (Julia identifies as bisexual, btw). She ends up searching for an agency that specializes in LGBTQ+ adoption after having some issues with other agencies regarding her age; she wants to adopt an infant, but some agencies don’t let women over 50 do so, and Julia is 50. She faces another obstacle when she realizes she won’t be able to adopt a Russian baby even though she herself is a Russian immigrant. The country has had a gay adoption ban in place for a while now.

Over on Family Karma — which is the most underrated show on Bravo right now — gay men Nicholas and Amrit have been spending all season preparing for their wedding, which finally kicks off in the most recent episode. Amrit and Nicholas have been mix and matching traditions and also modern rituals of their own making, though the wedding skews way more toward Amrit’s cultural traditions (which becomes a source of festering tension in really interesting ways for me to watch as someone who is half white and half Indian). Because no one on the show or in their communities has been to or seen a gay Indian wedding, Amrit and Nicholas have chosen to make their wedding hyper visible. This yields messy tension but also really inspiring queer imagination, and I definitely view it from a place of complicated ambivalence. In any case, I think it’s a big deal the wedding and its lead-up are being aired on television, a very intentional stance on their part, especially because it comes at a very direct cost: Nicholas’ evangelical parents agree to attend the wedding but refuse to be on camera. Their cultural differences might be the surface-level tension for Nicholas and Amrit, but this is where the real conflict resides deep down; Amrit’s parents are enthusiastic — if imperfect — in their support for their wedding, and Nicholas’s parents are very much not.

Throughout the season, Amrit and Nicholas have displayed a ton of vulnerability, showing not only the joys of their queer partnership and wedding plans but also the obstacles and more complicated parts. A recent argument between Nicholas and Amrit’s mother (Lavina Auntie, who might be my favorite of the aunties along with Dharma Auntie) is brutal to watch, mainly because both people are coming from an earnest, meaningful, imperfect place and reach a point of deep empathy after a truly messy scene. This is the good kind of reality television fighting.

Amrit and Nicholas also getting really vulnerable and honest about the process of starting a queer family. In an episode earlier this season, they’re rattled by the cost of surrogacy ($150,000 to $170,000). They also allow cameras to film the tough moment when they get a call from their doctor to tell them about their sperm samples, which they’re planning on freezing until they’re ready to begin the process. The doctor informs them that they both have significantly low sperm counts that would make it difficult to begin the fertility process. The doctor asks if they’re taking any supplements, and they say yes. They both agree to go off the supplements and make some changes to see if they can get their counts back up.

As an aside: They also end up in a strange argument about whose last name the baby will have, which at the surface is presented like a culture clash issue but to me reads as internalized heteronormativity from them…it sounds so straight and rooted in patriarchal masculinity to fight over such things! Just give the kids two last names?! Anyway…

The current seasons of Real Housewives of Miami and Family Karma are still airing, and these storylines are somewhat on pause at the moment as other ones take centerstage, so it’s unclear as of now exactly where each will end up. If there are any significant developments in future episodes, I’ll be sure to update this article, but regardless of what happens, I’m interested in what we’ve already seen in these stories, in what is already clear even as they’re incomplete: Paths to queer parenthood are varied, and they’re also difficult — even for the most privileged members of the LGBTQ+ community. Julia is wealthy and has a lot of access, and Nicholas and Amrit don’t seem nearly as rich, but they do seem financially secure, have jobs, and have platforms reality television stars. And yet even for people with a lot of access and power, it’s still hard.

The sheer cost of surrogacy rules it out automatically for a lot of queer couples, much like IVF is cost-prohibitive for queer couples, too. Parenting is, of course, costly for couples regardless of sexuality, but even more so for LGBTQ+ couples. Financial burdens limit options when it comes to both adoption and fertility treatments. We’re also living in a time when queerness is under attack throughout the country, especially when it comes to families and anything having to do with children. As reproductive rights are rolled back, LGBTQ people are significantly harmed. Wealth absolutely makes it easier for folks to start these paths and also easier to ignore or overcome some of the obstacles. Andy Cohen wasn’t aware surrogacy was illegal in some states until he began his own path toward parenthood as a single queer father.

It used to feel like a lot of queer pregnancy storylines on television were just lazy jokes about turkey basters or “stealing sperm.” I’m glad we’re seeing two distinct storylines play out, especially on reality television, which is, you know, supposed to be real. Both shows also happen to take place in Florida, which means a lot to me personally as a queer person living in this state where state-sanctioned homophobia has been ramping up. And the tensions between Amrit and Nicholas and their own parents are a part of this meaningful storytelling, too, because often our relationships with our parents impact the ways we approach starting our own queer families.

I get a thrill every time I see queer celebrities getting pregnant or becoming parents, like earlier this week when Da Brat announced a pregnancy at 48-years-old, an announcement that also included information about Da Brat’s wife Jesseca Dupart experiencing a miscarriage. Because yes, I love to see these queer paths to parenthood, but I also find it really meaningful when people are upfront and real about the obstacles they face along the way. It doesn’t do anyone any good to make it seem easy or to obscure fertility processes, as scripted television sometimes does like when Micah says in the recent season finale of The L Word: Generation Q: “Can you believe that? It goes from a canister to a baby in nine months?” Prompting our intrepid recapper Riese — who has been through this herself! — to write in her recap as a response: “‘I cannot,’ I yell at the skies. ‘Because with at at-home insemination there is only a 10%-15% chance of this sperm becoming an actual fetus, let alone an actual baby!'”

Reality television is far from real, but when it does manage to capture realities like this? It does things even scripted television doesn’t do.

“Perfect Match”‘s Francesca Farago Pulled Out a Woman’s Tampon With Her Teeth and We’re Obsessed

Netlflix’s latest reality television dating competition program, Perfect Match, is just barely “so bad that it’s good.” It lacks the genius Netflix has somehow consistently delivered with its reality competition television department — the irrational romance of The Ultimatum and Love is Blind, the goofy innovation of The Circle or the horny ridiculousness of Too Hot to Handle. But what Perfect Match *does* have is a collection of talent from all of those programs — and from The Mole, Sexy Beast and Twentysomethings: Austin, none of which I’ve not seen — several of whom are bisexual, including Francesca Farago. You wouldn’t know it from the plot of Perfect Match, though!

See, Perfect Match is attempting to sort these Netflix Reality Stars into allegedly perfect opposite-sex pairings. Contestants must be “matched” by the end of the day — meaning just like on Noah’s Ark, one (1) man and one (1) woman have agreed to spend the night together —  in order to remain on the show. Every day they compete in really stupid games to test their compatibility with their chosen matches, and the winners earn a date and also the chance to choose new contestants to bring into the house to replace the previous evening’s rejects.

© 2023 Netflix, Inc.

Unfortunately, there is no room in this paradigm for Perfect Match to explore what would be the perfect match for me and a television show: girl-on-girl action. Two of the contestants at the show’s open (and a few who’ve yet to join), Francesca Farago and Kariselle Snow, are in fact bisexual and yet have not made out. (Kariselle actually appeared on world’s greatest reality television program, the bisexual season of Are You The One?) Kariselle immediately latches on to The Circle winner Joey — they apparently hooked up in the past and also both really enjoy yelling and PDA.

And then there’s swimwear entrepreneur Francesco Farago. In the same way that someone tall and strong and team-oriented might be told they should be play basketball, everything about Francesca’s physical appearance and personality suggests that she should be out here Influencing. She was born to Influence. Like she popped out of the womb with an Airup endorsement deal. Anyhow, Francesca famously hooked up with Hayley on the first season of Too Hot To Handle, thus losing cash for her cast. (She also had a romance with a boy and I forget his name who cares.) 

Following her season of Too Hot to Handle, Francesca began dating fellow influencer Demi Sims. Everything I know about this relationship I learned between the hours of one and two AM several months ago and was like… wow in 2003 this match-up would’ve been a Maxim photoshoot but here in the bold new world of 2023, it’s an actual relationship!! Wow!!!

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Anyhow they broke up. (Francesca is currently dating influencer Jessi Sulli, who identifies as “plant based” and trans.) Unlike Kari, Francesca is immediately OUT AND ABOUT on Perfect Match. At the first night’s cocktail mixer, an opportunity for our men to wear loafers without socks and for our women to wear very intricate microphone-friendly bikini-ish contraptions, Francesca asks Zay (of The Ultimatum) if it is a “red flag” to him that she has “dated women,” because Zay’s ex, Rae, is also a bisexual. This is a very bizarre question but okay. Anyhow, Zay says it’s not a red flag, in fact it is “honestly attractive.”

But Francesca’s most notable bisexual chaos move occurs during a beach game in which contestants have to guess whether or not their partner answered “fact” or “cap” to various statements like “I’m still hung up on an ex.” If they loose, a bucket of water is unleashed on their head.

Nick Lachey laid out the true/false statement: “your partner said that they have had a sexident in the past.” I immediately googled “what is a sexident?” and Urban Dictionary informed me that it is:

An accident that occurs during some type of sex act. For example, skinning one’s knee on a car door while having mad passionate car sex.

Surprisingly to me, a person with really poor hand-eye coordination, not everybody on this beachy stage reported undergoing a sexident of their own. But our very own Francesca Farago dared to come forth and boldly share her own experience, one which LIT UP our Office Slack for the majority of this very morning:

I’M SORRY BUT ….

THAT IS NOT A SEXIDENT

THAT IS A MOVE

“Love Trip: Paris” Dares to Send Three Queers to Gay Paree To French Kiss Their Single Life Goodbye

On the surface, Freeform’s Love Trip: Paris appears to be just another heterosexual dating show with an unnecessarily contrived premise centered in cliche cultural iconography: four “American girls” who’ve been unlucky in love in the U.S. travel to Paris, famously the City of Love, where their chances of meeting their soulmate will be somehow exponentially greater despite only two of them speaking any French. They will French kiss on a bridge with the Eiffel Tower lit up behind them! They will wear berets in many colors! (Someone is always wearing a beret.) They will ride a bicycle through cobblestone streets with a baguette sticking out of their handlebar basket! They will drink champagne from the appropriate region of France!

And it is all of that, to be sure, but as soon as our four contestants assemble themselves at camera-appropriate angles to conduct their introductory conversations with one another, we learn that it is also not that at all, because only one (1) of Love Trip‘s four contestants is heterosexual. That would be Rose, a 25-year-old real estate agent ready to meet her husband. Rose is totally tired of the U.S. dating scene because if you meet a man at a bar they could be a serial killer and on apps there are too many fish in the sea.

The remaining three are as follows: 29-year-old Lacy is a chatty, sexually fluid “mental health podcaster” and Francophile from Nashville who is “addicted to personal growth” and obsessed with crystals, therapy, and herself. Josielyn is an open-hearted 26-year-old Mexican-American bisexual trans woman who lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a model. Josielyn has never been in a relationship or “felt true love.” And then finally we have our lesbian: Caroline, a bubbly 26-year-old genderqueer personal trainer from New York who proudly asserts “my best friend is my cat.” (Although Love Trip avoids this detail, it appears that Josielyn and Caroline are also both actors.)

Caroline, Rose, Lacy and Josielyn

The four Americans are shacking up together in a sprawling apartment adorned with multiple sizes of ornamental vases and furnished with sofas that boast rounded corners and minimal back support. Their French suitors are living in the same building, and they socialize initially with the Americans in pre-planned group activities — usually drinking on a vessel or in a venue that offers spectacular views of Paris. Following a group activity, the Americans can arrange one-on-one dates with their faves using an app called “TripKey.” Every episode ends with two suitors getting sent home through a very weird lock/key ceremony, and every episode’s first group activity introduces two replacement suitors.

What’s baffling, however, is why a show tasked with gathering prospective suitors for one straight woman, one lesbian and two bisexuals has tipped the scale so generously in favor of opposite-sex pairings. The series opens with five male suitors and three women, and it’s unclear if that balance has any hope of shifting. It simply doesn’t make sense that Rose should have twice as many options as Caroline when the other two contestants are open to dating people of all genders. This gender disparity ends up giving the impression that the producers aren’t giving Lacy and Josielyn’s bisexuality its proper due.

Suitors line up to meet the “American Girls”: Valentine, Mirko, Leo, Bastien, Sabastien, Gessica, Romane

The French men are an interesting group of fellows who sometimes seem as if they were asked just yesterday to join the show. Brutish Mirko is confident that the most interesting thing about him is that he “used to be fat,” while dreamy Sebastian’s wooing strategy is to tell girls he is a swimmer who was “at the Olympics” and allow the language barrier to let them believe he was a competitor and not a spectator. Leo enthuses to the camera, apropos of nothing, that everything is bigger in America, including “bags of sausages” and “cucumbers.”

Alternately, the French women are very serious about love and the humans they set their sights on, which’s usually a good match for our commitment-focused Americans, although they still have a game to play. Lisa and Gessica seem offended by the show’s premise, which inherently involves witnessing their crushes go on dates with other people. Romane, an artist with a bridge piercing, tells the camera when she’s in love she wants to see her partner “every second of every day,” which she knows “is toxic” but unfortunately she cannot help the way she is!

While the French/American culture clash usually feels forced as a source of drama and tension, the show’s seemingly incidental queerness is ultimately its most genre-defying and resonant element. It also bonds the girls to each other through shared community, a dynamic usually absent from more traditional dating shows.

Josielyn is the show’s most endearing player, approaching dating with the bright-eyed bushy-tailed composure of a woman who has never had her heart broken. As she navigates the dating world for the first time as a very hot person on a very weird show, we see her deeply impacted by literally everything, even breaking reality TV protocol by seeking emotional support and advice from the producers in the middle of the end-of-episode “key ceremony.” It’s heartening to see Josielyn’s transness not be presented as a gimmick or an obstacle, but as one aspect of who she is. How far we’ve come as a community to witness her relationship with Gessica fall apart due to biphopbia rather than transphobia!!!!

Love Trip‘s best conversations are the queer ones: Gessica telling Josielyn about her failed marriage to a man; Josielyn going on a fashion-focused date with Aickel, a bisexual male rapper who performs in drag; Caroline providing queer family support for Josielyn when she feels her bisexuality isn’t being taken seriously by Gessica.

Josielyn and Gessica on a date at a cafe.

It’s unclear what Love Trip‘s point of view is, aside from attempting to answer the incredibly non urgent question of: is it easier for Americans to find love in Paris than in the U.S.?

But, as the episodes proceed beyond what has already aired on Freeform (reviewers were given access to a season of screeners), I felt some stirring of potential in the concept of a dating show that travels to a new location every season. That in and of itself is a familiar premise, but the fact that human beings who live in those locations are active players in the game is not. That said, I hope they reconsider forcing the native suitors to communicate in English with each other when there are no Americans present.

I eventually realized that my initial skepticism of the premise was rooted in my consistent skepticism of how Paris specifically is represented in American film and television. Famously it drives me nuts when “wanting to go to Paris” is a teenage girl’s entire personality (see: Aria Montgomery), meant to illustrate that said girl is quirky and romantic and loves literature and long walks — when in fact it has become such an overused character trait that it no longer means anything at all. But generally speaking, characters in American TV and film always are dreaming of Paris, as if no other city outside this country exists.

Initially, Love Trip: Paris did indeed radiate the exact same feeling exuded in the 2004 episode of “Sex and the City” wherein Carrie Bradshaw emerges from a Black Town Car in front of the Plaza Athenee clutching her pearl-rimmed velvet fedora as if in danger of losing it to the wind, giggling while repeating “merci beaucoup!” and “bonjour!” with gleeful demurement to every politely uniformed hotel employee she encounters on her journey from street to door to front desk. Like that feeling on a loop?

But the show surprised me. I fell in love with it like a lesbian halfway through a first date. Particularly when the French suitors (seemingly) are able to pick their own locations for dates, and when the show digs into the experiences of its queer characters, there is undoubtedly some very notable there there. Hopefully Love Trip: Paris will prove to the world, as Are You The One? Season Eight also did, that the best way to breathe life into an often deflated format of television is to make it significantly gayer.

Bisexual Chaos Reigns on “The Circle” Season 5

After his elimination from The Circle Singles, Tom Houghton went to meet “Jennifer,” the 51 year-old dog trainer with whom he’d been aligned for most of the game. After getting over the shock of the Circle mom being a catfish, helmed by previously eliminated contestants Brett and Xanthi, they all settled in and acknowledged the conventional wisdom.

“It’s, hands down, Chaz winning this game right now,” Xanthi conceded, as Brett nodded in agreement. It didn’t feel far-fetched, it felt inevitable: after all, Chaz had been voted an influencer in four out of five votes. He was as universally beloved as Frank Grimsley, last season’s winner. Even though “Jennifer” was still competing, they seemed resigned to the fates.

“Chaz is gonna win,” Tom admitted. “It’s undeniable.”

But this is The Circle where conventional wisdom is tossed out the window and bisexual chaos reigns… and, in a spectacular upset, Sam Carmona, the bisexual freelance make-up artist, took home the crown. The win seemed improbable: the Brooklyn native started at the bottom of the show’s first ratings and had only been voted an influencer once. Sam wasn’t supposed to win — even she didn’t think she would — but she did!

“I literally remember holding onto [Chaz’s] hand…head down, and I’m just chanting to him…’I’m so proud of you, I’m so proud of you,’ saying it over and over. Because I genuinely did not know,” she told Entertainment Weekly. With tears streaming down her face in the finale, Sam promised to use her winnings to help her family, including moving her asthmatic grandmother out of public housing.

As the TV Team’s Resident Bisexual, one might assume that I was #TeamSam from the start but, in all honesty, I was not. This season of The Circle featured so many people of color, so many queer folks, so many compelling personalities that it made it hard to pick favorites. Ultimately, Sam climbed to the top of my personal rankings — for reasons I’ll explain momentarily — but let’s revisit all the characters of The Circle Singles…

Circle, take me to my ratings…

11. Shubham Goel, 26 – Playing as “Sasha,” a 23-year-old blogger (Eliminated in Episode 8)

There are a lot of people who watch The Circle who find Shubham’s schtick to be very endearing but I am not one of them. I should’ve taken more joy in watching him flail around as a catfish but he was so bad at it, it was almost painful to watch. He seemed to believe that being a catfish meant forgoing “genuine” connections and, instead, opted for really aggressive gameplay that turned everyone off.

I’d actually hoped we’d get a more mature version of Shooby this time around, after he expressed excitement about a cultural kinship with his catfish personality, but NOPE. Same ol’ Shubham. Was I even a little surprised he turn his back on Bruno? Nope. Was I shocked he gave the hacking power to Jennifer? Not in the least bit. If whiteness abounds, Shubham is going to rush to be near it.

10. Brett Robinson, 28, and Xanthi Perdikomatis, 25 – Played as themselves and then were resurrected as “Jennifer,” a 51 year-old dog trainer (Finished 5th)

I’m lumping Brett and Xanthi together because we got so little time to get to know them individually in the Circle because they were the first contestants that were blocked. That blocking felt merciful when it came to Brett who, even in just a few minutes of screentime, fully revealed himself to be the douchebag he admitted to being (granted, he said “lovable douchebag,” but honestly, there’s no such thing). Thankfully for most of Brett’s stay, the ever cheerful Xanthi was there to make him more palatable.

What’s interesting to me about their partnership, though? When Brett and Xanthi initially scoped each other’s profiles, there seemed to be, at least, a physical attraction between them. But when they were actually partnered up in the same apartment? Absolutely nothing. No flirting, no signs of a hook-up, no romance… nothing. It feels like something must’ve happened and I want all the tea.

9. Billie-Jean Blackett, 25 – Playing as “Bruno”, her ex (Eliminated in Episode 6)

There’s always one… every season there’s a contestant on The Circle who tries so hard to stay under the radar that they miss the opportunity to forge genuine connections within the group. It’s a habit that is particularly common with catfish who are so worried about being exposed that they’re reticient to engage at all. That was Billie-Jean this season. She was there for six episodes and I barely remember a thing about her or Bruno.

That said, coming on the show as your ex? Ballsy. Personally, I feel like if a lesbian did this on a future season, they’d make it to the finals.

8. Brian Clark, 47 – Playing as his daughter, “Brittney” (Eliminated in Episode 4)

Listen, if you’re going to go on The Circle as an older player, don’t try and catfish as a younger person. Just don’t do it. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find success like Lee (as River) from season two but more than likely, you’ll end up sounding like Steve Buscemi in that episode of 30 Rock… “how do you do, fellow kids?” Don’t do that to yourself.

Brian seemed like a pretty affable guy but catfishing as his daughter just was not the move. He did make me wonder: could a “Circle Dad” succeed on this show in the way “Circle Moms” have?

7. Marvin Achi, 27 (Eliminated in Episode 11)

Aside from hiding his career, Marvin played as himself on The Circle… but also Marvin played himself on The Circle. The “personal trainer”/chemical engineer came into the game and made a strong romantic connection to Raven. But you know the “distracted boyfriend” meme? That was Marvin once “Tamira” stepped into the Circle.

I am not entirely sure how Marvin thought he was going to get away with flirting aggressively with both women in a game built on social interaction. Of course the girls were gonna talk and of course his treachery was going to be exposed.

Congratulations, Marvin, you played yourself… right out of a chance to win $100k.

6. Tom Houghton, 36 (Eliminated in Episode 12)

Listen, let’s be honest here: am I going to be in a rush to cheer on a cis, straight, white man on The Circle? And a Blue Blood, at that? Definitely not. However, as far as cis, white, straight men go, I liked Tom. Did he form predictable alliances? Of course. Is he probably #TeamWilliam in real life? Yep. But I really appreciated the humor that Tom brought to the Circle.

That said, I also appreciated that Chaz called him out for using that humor to deflect from having to build genuine emotional connections with others. It spurned Tom to open up in the game but, more importantly, he seemed legitimately changed by the interaction. Yay for one more emotionally competent cis, straight, white man in the world!

5. Oliver Twixt, 26 (Eliminated in Episode 13)

There have been a couple occasions where contestants on The Circle come onto the show with reputations that precede them — usually from other reality shows like Brett’s run on Big Brother — but I usually don’t know them (the Spice Girls notwithstanding, of course). But when Oliver Twixt stepped into the Circle, I was like, “OH MY GOD! I know him!” Oliver brought to the Circle exactly what you’d expect if you’ve followed his career: pure joy.

But while I love Oliver, it was never clear what his strategy was to advance in the game, aside from getting close to Chaz. Though, in his defense, I’m not sure the show really knows what to do with players who enter the game late: four of the five winners of The Circle have been part of the cast on day one. Somehow, the show’s going to have to tinker with its format to create a more equitable game.

Also, if you’ve got some time to spare: Oliver’s recap of this season’s first four episodes with Circle alum, Chris Sapphire, is a gay ol’ time.

4. Tasia Lesley, 28 – Playing as “Tamira”, a 22-year-old cosmetologist (Finished 4th)

Upon meeting Tasia, I had flashbacks to season one of The Circle: back when Karyn, a black butch lesbian, catfished as the 27-year-old bisexual “Mercedeze.” That ended in disaster and, after being introduced to “Tamira,” I thought, “oh, God, here we go again.”

But Tasia — a self-described “hardcore lesbian” — proved to be a bit more savvy than Karyn had been. She successfully avoided the pitfalls of a make-up conversation with Sam. She was able to sculpt Tamira’s favorite feature for a contest (“I know what boobs look like,” she’d later proclaim). And, perhaps most importantly, when it came to Marvin, she told the absolute truth at the perfect moment, cementing herself as someone trustworthy in the game.

I wish we’d gotten to see more of Tasia in the game…the more she showed of herself, the more I wanted to spend time with her.

3. Raven Sutton, 26, and her interpreter, Paris (Finished 3rd)

From the opening episode, Raven was my absolute favorite…#1 on my personal rankings each and every week. Y’all know I’m all about representation so when she came in door and introduced herself as #DeafAF and said that she wanted to represent for the deaf community, I was sold. She had an incredible energy about her and I was charmed from the very beginning. I loved her and her interpreter, Paris. Twerking for self-care? Girl, say less.

But here’s where Raven lost me: there’s always a point in the game where things shift, where contestants have to look beyond alliances, and start thinking about what they can do to best position themselves to win. For Raven, her point came in Episode 10 when she, as an influencer, pushed to vote out Marvin over “Jennifer” and she missed the moment.

I understood Raven’s frustration: she’d developed a relationship with Marvin, saved him in the game, and then discovered he was a fuckboy. I understand why she’d want him out. But that was her moment to make the choice that was best for her game, not for her personally, and she didn’t do it. Whatever her misgivings about Marvin, Raven had to know that he was going to rate her highly, especially in an effort to make amends. Don’t get rid of him when he’s finally useful!

A lesson to future Circle players: secure the bag first.

(Side note: There’s a 100% chance Paris comes back to The Circle as a catfish in a future season, right?)

2. Chaz Lawery, 28 (Finished 2nd)

Chaz! AKA Shampoo Papi AKA “gusband”…everyone’s favorite player on The Circle. He was a genuine source of light and positivity for the entire season who, going into the finale felt like a shoo-in to capture the crown. But the crazy thing about the Circle is that final ratings don’t usually favor the most popular player: only once has the person who’s been voted influencer most often gone on to win the game.

But here’s where Chaz messed up: in the penultimate episode, Chaz was voted the Secret Super Influencer, giving him the sole responsibility to boot the last person from the game. This was his moment, just like Raven, to think about what would be the best choice for his game…and, just like Raven, Chaz made the wrong choice! He should’ve kept Oliver in the game, trusting that his Circle boo would’ve rated him highly.

It’s clear that Chaz and Raven both wanted to play this game with their hearts which… I mean… that’s really touching. But what that isn’t is a strategy to win $100,000 which is the whole point of this thing.

1. Sam Carmona, 34 (THE WINNER!)

There was always something about Sam…she had all the swagger of a 90s era b-girl and I absolutely loved it. She was so fun: always ready with the perfect quip and her reactions were priceless.

But here’s where Sam jumped to the top of my personal ratings: following Shubham’s elimination, he passed on the power of the hack to his ally, Jennifer. “She” used this power to pose as Chaz in a conversation with his “wifey,” Sam, in an effort to turn Sam against Tamira. But queer girls are nothing if not great detectives so eventually Sam started to put the pieces together. She realized that her conversations had been hacked and that Jennifer was the likely culprit. Watching her piece together the details of the mystery was a highlight of the season for me…and that’s when she secured her spot as my #CircleFave.

Though Sam was rightly incensed about the violation of privacy, she didn’t allow that to control her game. She accepted Raven’s push to block Marvin over Jennifer, however begrudgingly, and that move probably secured the bag. I’m thrilled for her win and hope that this isn’t the last we’ll see of Sam Carmona.

Looking Back at the Queer Episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress”

When my fiancee and I got engaged, the first thing my son said to me was, “we have to go to Yes to the Dress!” I promised him that the next time we went to New York, we would absolutely schedule a trip to Kleinfeld Bridal, the home of Say Yes to the Dress.

I’ve been watching Say Yes to the Dress since it premiered back in 2007. I’ve always been obsessed with weddings and all that goes into them, and I love low-stakes drama, so a show like SYTTD is perfect. It’s a study in the human condition, and there’s a lot of really pretty dresses to look at. What’s not to love? As one of TLC’s most popular shows, it was always on, and over time it became one of my comfort shows. I legit signed up for Discovery+ just so I could watch SYTTD because I had watched the limited amount of episodes available on Hulu a million times and was bored. As a result, my kiddo became as enamored with the Kleinfeld crew as I was. My fiancee has also been subjected to watching the show ad nauseam, and now she has opinions and favorites as well.

In July of 2021, my kiddo, fiancee and I, along with my best friend, were all set to spend 90 minutes at Kleinfeld. My Say Yes to the Dress dreams were coming true, and I couldn’t wait. I did go in knowing I wasn’t going to “say yes” because we haven’t set a wedding date, but I wanted to get an idea of what was out there (I’m a Gemini moon/Libra rising. Indecision is in the stars for me). We had a lovely time with our consultant Amber, who was not only an absolute pro at picking out dresses but also at dealing with a queer couple. She didn’t bat an eyelash when I introduced her to my female fiancee; she was more confused by how adamant I was about not buying a dress that day.

I always find it interesting to look at the progression of how the staff at Kleinfeld handles LGBTQ+ brides. When the show started, same-sex marriage was only legal in a handful of states. One of the first episodes with two brides is “Family Dynamics” from season three, which aired in 2009. Middle aged brides Beth and Joy come in looking for pantsuits for their “informal” wedding. It’s hard to tell what flummoxes the consultants more: the mere existence of two brides or finding pantsuits in a store full of wedding dresses. Even though consultant Sarah isn’t new to the store, the couple is her first same-sex couple, but she insists it doesn’t matter. The challenge for her is going to be finding a wide-leg palazzo pantsuit at Kleinfeld. When Sarah pulls SYTTD mainstay Randy into the quest for pants, he also insists that even though there are two brides, they won’t be treated any differently, unless that bride is looking for pants.

Because this is one of the first episodes featuring a same-sex couple (they never say the word “lesbian” or even “queer” in later seasons) there are a lot of these affirmations that the brides won’t be treated any differently. It feels like overkill when you’re watching it now, but it was likely reassuring back in 2009 for brides who may have been afraid they’d be treated differently at the store. Here’s the problem: There’s only one suit in the store, and the two brides aren’t sample size. Joy, who says she never saw herself in a wedding dress, is more easily convinced to try one on than Beth, who is pretty firm on her desire for pants. “It’s like squeezing a 10 pound sausage into a five pound casing,” Beth admits after attempting to try on the only suit. Thankfully designer Amy Michelson is doing an in-store trunk show, and she designs the exact kind of outfit Beth is envisioning.

I’ll admit I don’t know everything there is to know about bridal fashion. But I know Say Yes to the Dress, and Kleinfeld is usually at the forefront of what’s new and trendy. It boasts over 1,500 dresses in the store, which means it really is the best place for options. So while there’s always some new “it” dress, the option for someone who wants pants is seriously limited. Also, as with all mainstream fashion sectors, bridal fashion is historically fatphobic and limited in its sizing options, especially when it comes to stores like Kleinfeld that rely on sample sizes, further limiting options for brides who don’t fit a conventional image.

In season 15, episode two, brides Jaimee and Lisa come in looking for outfits for their wedding. Jamiee wants a dress, and Lisa wants not a pantsuit, but a wedding jumpsuit. This episode aired in 2017, and unlike in 2009 when Beth’s pantsuit wants were seen as inconvenient, Lisa now has options for jumpsuits. Wedding jumpsuits have grown in popularity since the late 2010s, and even though consultant Shay had a total meltdown over the idea of finding a jumpsuit (or even a two-piece set with pants) for Lisa, he was able to do so without having to have something customized.

There are a lot of things that changed for same-sex brides between 2009 and 2017 of course. The main thing being that same-sex marriage became federally recognized in 2015. But even before that, the slow trickle of legalization across states in the earlier part of that decade saw more brides going to Kleinfeld for their wedding dress dreams. After that first episode, it became less about the fact that two brides were welcome in the store and more about the fact that wedding dress shopping is hard, no matter who you’re marrying.

When two brides come in together, it means they want a level of coordination, which is hard, because they are ultimately two individuals with their own styles and opinions. So when the consultants are running around and freaking out, it’s because they’re being tasked with something difficult: How do you blend two different styles into something that looks cohesive? Some brides want to see what the other is wearing, and some don’t, which poses a fun challenge. We see this in Jamiee and Lisa’s episode, as well as in a season 16 episode featuring celesbian chef Cat Cora and her then-fiancee Nicole. It’s sweet that they want that element of tradition.

Tradition, of course, is baked into the bridal world. One of the first things the consultants say is: “tell me about the groom.” Over time, that question became “tell me about your fiancee.” It may seem small, and to be quite honest, I don’t even know when the question changed. But it’s a big deal when it comes to inclusivity. It may cause more of a guessing game, especially when you get a queer bride without her partner, but it shows you how far we’ve come.

In 2017, Say Yes to the Dress had another first in the name of inclusivity and progress. Episode four of season 15 introduces audiences to Gigi, Kleinfeld’s first transgender bride. Paired with Shay, the store’s first male consultant (who is a gay Black man), Gigi showed the store (and audiences) that trans women can be just like any other bride. Much like in season three, there is a lot of explaining as to what it means to be a trans woman, geared toward straight, cis viewers. It’s uncomfortably invasive for those of us in the know, but when you think about the people who watch the show, it makes sense. They ask Gigi and her mom when she first knew she was trans and what it’s like to be the parent to a trans woman. One question Randy asks Gigi’s mom is “did you ever think you’d be here?” to which she honestly answers that it’s a journey. Cringey as it is, it’s an important step to show a Latina trans woman who has an affirming parent in her life.

The way they presented Gigi paved the way for Chloe, a trans woman bride in a same-sex couple who we meet in season 20. Chloe’s trans identity is presented as fact, and while they go into her backstory, there are less invasive questions from those around her. Chloe’s story comes from her. (Fun fact: We had the same consultant!) She’s clearly still finding her way, but she’s so excited, and again, it shows viewers that trans brides are just like any other brides.

Tracking these changes on SYTTD goes to show that progress can be found in unexpected ways and places. A few episodes before Chloe’s in season 20, there is an episode featuring a throuple who are all marrying each other. One of the brides is married to a man, and they both fell in love with another woman. The wedding is between all three of them, so not only do you have a two-bride wedding but also a poly relationship. It’s presented as a matter of fact instead of being sensationalized, and while their entourage admits the situation is unconventional, they’re very accepting of the union.

When you juxtapose that against another season 15 episode, it’s fascinating to see how our understanding of polyamory has evolved. In episode nine, we meet Jennifer, a woman who is in a relationship with a man who is married. Due to some personal mental health issues, his wife is no longer able to be intimate and allowed him to be with other women. Consultant Debbie is aghast, which to be fair, same. This is the same network that airs Sister Wives, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but to see them being so open when most people may not be accepting was cool and kind of fascinating.

Say Yes to the Dress is definitely more than just a show about wedding dresses. It gives you glimpses into parts of the world that you may not see in your everyday life. It shows people that no matter who you are as a bride, it’s all overwhelming. But when it’s presented in a way that makes queer people less of a spectacle (save it for the dresses), it’s a weird place to find affirmation.

Whenever there’s an episode with a queer bride, I always get excited. Even if I’ve seen it before (which at this point, I have), it still brings a bubble of excitement to my chest. My understanding of my queerness has evolved significantly since the first lesbian brides appeared on Say Yes to the Dress. I don’t even remember seeing some of those early episodes, even though I was watching the show. Back then, my queerness was almost a secret, and now here I am preparing to walk down the aisle for my own same-sex wedding. And I knew that when I walked into Kleinfeld with my future wife, we would be welcomed with open arms.

Survivor’s Karla Cruz Godoy Is Winning Our Gay Hearts (and Maybe the Whole Show)

Before writing blurbs for Boobs on Your Tube, I never would have thought that writing a brief summary of a single episode of Survivor would make me feel deeply emotional.

But that’s because until this season, we didn’t have Karla.

She’s the quiet manipulation of Parvati Shallow, the blunt charisma of Sandra Diaz-Twine, the intelligence masked as unthreatening dorkiness of Aubrey Bracco. But more than any of that, she’s Karla Cruz Godoy — distinctively, irreplaceably, disarmingly, authentically herself. And that whole is a whole lot greater than the sum of its parts.

This week was Karla’s episode. And I’m gonna say it, this is starting to feel like a winner’s edit. I sincerely hope I’m not wrong.

At the start of this episode, we learned that James left Owen out of the previous Tribal Council vote, which will become relevant later on. This episode’s challenge was both an immunity and a reward, in which the remaining tribe members were split into two teams of five each — meaning there would be two winners, and two people sent home, at two separate Tribal Councils (one for each team). This challenge was a hands-and-arms endurance challenge — and remember, Karla totally busted up her hand in an earlier challenge! She literally has stitches CURRENTLY!!

This season has voted out so many women, so early on, and before long, Karla is the last woman standing, up against only Sami (on her team). Gabler, from the sidelines, cheers, “Way to go, big boys, hang in there!” and without missing a beat, Karla responds, “What about the big girls, huh?”

I hope someone writes a whole essay about this moment. Just before her comeback, Karla didn’t look happy. She looked exhausted, and like Gabler’s comment only further exhausted her (on top of, you know, being starving and dehydrated, etcetera). Even while saying it, she seemed exhausted (understandably). But after she said her instant-Survivor-canon line, she looked absolutely freaking thrilled! Just beaming! GLOWING! I’m pretty sure she knew, in that moment, she had it in her to win this challenge.

And guess what? She fucking did. Of course she did! She’s Karla!!!

Caption: Karla putting a man in his place, as she should, thank you Karla, we love Karla

On the other team, Cody won immunity, and he was the last standing overall, so his team got the reward. The two teams then branched off to two separate tribes. Cody’s team debated whether to send out Cassidy or Ryan. The most important part of this is that the main reason they wanted to keep Cassidy was because they thought that getting rid of her might anger Karla and James, since they three are allied. Even when she’s not there, Karla’s calling the shots!

Back on Karla’s team, Owen and James got into a screaming match, and Karla was quite literally trying not to laugh. Love this for her. Karla wanted to keep James, because he’s her ally, and Sami, Noelle, and Owen wanted to vote out James. Noelle decided to use her steal-a-vote to steal Owen’s vote, so that James isn’t suspicious and therefore doesn’t try to use his Knowledge Is Power advantage. The best part of all this was that Sami tells Karla this whole plan, because, wait for it, “Karla’s opinion matters more to me than anything else right now.” Karla has done it again! Like a mob boss in sheeps’ clothing, she somehow is able to appear non-threatening, while also inspiring just about everyone around her to value her opinion above, well, everything! It’s like this game was made for her. At Tribal, it all goes according to plan — James goes home. Karla may have lost an ally, but frankly, I’m not worried. Everyone seems to want to be her friend/beta/sub!

The second Tribal was quite straightforward and honestly boring because of the lack of Karla. Ryan got sent home, implying that Cody and Jesse’s main priority was not upsetting Karla. (They saw James was out at that point, so they couldn’t have cared too much about upsetting him. Incredible.)

After the episode ended, I was still thinking about Karla’s confessional after winning immunity, in which she explained how she managed to pull off the win: “It’s all because of believing and trusting,” she said. “In me.”

Well, queers, there you have it. Struggling to embrace your identity? Trudging through taxes? Just having a really freaking bad day? You know what to do: believe and trust. In you!

Dan Levy’s “The Big Brunch” Is The Big Gay “Great British Bake Off”

Watching Dan Levy’s new HBO Max cooking reality show, The Big Brunch, is not the first time I’ve cried over a plate of eggs — but it is the first time I’ve cried happy tears over breakfast’s most favorite food. The series, which Levy conceived after hosting two seasons of The Great Canadian Baking Show, follows ten contestants who love to cook and want to change the world through food, as they prepare a variety of themed starters and mains for judges Sohla El-Waylly (swooony chef/food writer), Will Guidara (aspirationally sincere restaurateur, and Levy (gay bestie who’s clearly been to ten thousand brunches).

When I say these chefs want to impact society for the better through their cooking, I mean it. There’s a mathematician turned fierce farm-to-table advocate. A Columbia law student who became a chef to share her passion for Haitian cuisine. A vegan chef who owns a community diner where anyone who needs a free meal can get one. A chef who created a cooking academy to teach only formerly incarcerated chef-hopefuls. Chefs cooking to reclaim their childhoods, chefs cooking to honor their families. Every chef, a greater purpose! Which is a long way to say: So many of these chefs are LGBTQ! So many! They all get so emotional and teary-eyed when they talk about what they’ve cooked and why they cook, which makes the judges love them even more, which makes them cook with even more conviction, which makes the judges get teary-eyed too.

“I… I’m just so proud of them,” Levy says early on in the season, with real feeling.

It’s like Great British Bake-Off, but with judges who are legitimately excited about being served seasonings that aren’t just salt and pepper, and a social consciousness that demands context. Food Culture doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s as colonized as every other thing we pretend sprang to life, fully formed, in the American Midwest. The Big Brunch clearly sought out contestants to represent a wide range of backgrounds and influences, and encourages them to cook their own food to their own tastes, to share their hearts and their heritage on their plates.

The format is familiar, but also fresh. The contestants cook in a beautiful kitchen set up on a sound stage in Los Angeles. On the other side of a screen that goes up and down (“Is someone up there just cranking that thing??”) are the judges, in a little well positioned brunch diner. Dan Levy goes around and talks to the contestants while they’re cooking, is completely unperturbed when they want him to go away and let them focus, and then comes back and shares what he saw with the other judges. Not what the chefs are cooking, really; more of how they’re feeling. The judges are constantly inviting the contestants to unpack and process with them. (Like I said: gay.) While the contestants are cooking their mains, Xia Rashid, absolutely radiating charm, swings by to offer her bartending services. It always goes like this: Sohla and Will each order something weird, and then Dan Levy orders something even better, and they both ask for a small little child size cup of his brunch cocktail too. It’s pretty adorable.

There are sweet stories every episode, sweet music while everyone cooks, sweet hugs when anyone succeeds, and sweet hugs also when anyone doesn’t meet the mark. The contestants cheer for each other, help each other out, and seem genuinely invested in seeing everyone succeed in all their cooking dreams, on the show and beyond.

In the first episode, Will says to Sohla, “I hope there’s no villain in this group, honestly. Every reality television show, there’s a villain. I refuse to be the villain.” So far, his wish is coming true.

HBO Max has released three episodes of The Big Brunch. New episodes land every Thursday.

https://youtu.be/9BqyG3iiqeE

“Winter House” Brings Another Bisexual to Bravo

Is Bravo the most bisexual network on television? MAYBE SO.

Welcome to another very important Bravo Dyke report. Today, we’re taking a trip to the vacation nightmare series Winter House. For those who have yet to foray into this particular sector of Bravo, Winter House is an crossover offshoot of both Southern Charm and Summer House, featuring cast members from each as well as a few randos. Winter House was a Covid creation, a way to produce a reality show contained to one location (Summer House indeed had the easiest time transitioning in 2020 of any of the Bravo shows). It’s about people getting fucked up in a vacation house for many days and nights on end, playing drinking games and throwing haphazardly themed parties, the single folks also playing a game of Whomst Shall Hook Up With Whomst. If it sounds like a barely there premise, that’s because it is!

One of the randos thrown into the mix this season is Jessica Stocker, whose actual “job” is in realty………..in the Metaverse. Every time the chyron underneath her says “Metaverse Entrepreneur,” a small part of me dies.

In episode four, Paige asks Jessica if she’s bisexual, and Jessica replies in the affirmative but also says she’d never necessarily date a woman. She just likes to hook up with them, and she tells the group she has slept with about ten women. Amanda, in classic Leo fashion, wants to know which girl in the group is Jessica’s type. Jessica replies without any hesitation: Ciara. Who immediately wonders if they should make out. They don’t, but they do do a quick little kiss. I’ll take it!

My first thought upon meeting Jessica was the first thought most of the cast members have upon meeting Jessica: She looks a lot like Lindsay. And as it turns out, there’s more than just the physical alikeness! Lindsay has also talked about hooking up with girls before on Summer House, opting to use the truly upsetting phrase “I have munched a box” to do so. Lovebirds Lindsay and Carl aren’t part of the main cast of Winter House this season, but they’ll apparently be coming on as guests at some point as the season unfolds.

As thrilled as I am to welcome yet another bisexual to the Bravoverse, I’m way more interested in Jessica’s storyline that comes before this casual reveal. The first couple episodes of the new season show Luke steadily pursuing Jessica. At first, she’s into it. Then, she’s not. Suddenly, Winter House finds itself wading into really serious territory regarding consent and boundaries. Jessica should have never been put in this position, and here’s too where the ethical murkiness of making reality television comes to the forefront, because at what point would a producer or cameraperson have finally stepped in? Though she never should have had to do this, Jessica ends up very clearly and directly addressing what was wrong about Luke’s behavior when he failed to ignore her body language (and verbal cues! the first time he asks to kiss her in the hot tub, she says no). She reiterates that it’s completely her right to change her mind about him, that consent once doesn’t mean consent forever, and that a lot of times straight men will ignore these things, will assume that when a woman says she’s interested that means it’s fair game to flirt and touch.

Luke ends up leaving the house after Craig calls him out for being creepy around the girls. But he comes back the next day and wants to sit down with Jessica to apologize. She doesn’t let him. She says that she’s going to talk about how she felt and that she doesn’t want him to respond at all. She doesn’t want him making excuses or attempting to rationalize or downplay his behavior. It’s honestly a powerful display of agency and self-advocacy on her part. She doesn’t want a dialogue. She wants to explain the harm and then rebuild from there. She’s uninterested in punishing Luke; she never even asked him to leave the house. That a decision he made himself that seemed to come from a place of playing the victim. Rather than retribution, she seeks genuine growth from Luke, wants him to understand how she felt and then move forward from there. The other housemates follow her cues. When Craig — who previously said he’d throw Luke through a window if he kept being a creep — sees that Jessica is able to be on okay terms with Luke, he decides to move forward with Luke, too.

This is not reality television drama. This is real-life conflict. When Luke rubs Jessica’s shoulders without her consent, there’s a violation here on multiple levels, because they’re also technically coworkers on this show together. Luke will also see all of this play out for himself now that the show is airing. Jessica is forced to relive it by watching (which you can tell has an effect on her based on some of her emotional reactions in testimonials). Again I’m left wondering at what point — if any — anyone would have stepped in to mitigate the situation. The cast members try in little ways, like Amanda asking Jessica if she’s alright when Luke sits down next to her. But the presence of the cameras makes everything much more difficult to navigate, and the onus ends up falling on Jessica to handle the situation, which is far from fair, even if she does ultimately handle things completely on her terms and in a very empowering way.

Reality television can both expose a person’s bad behavior and also obscure it by turning it into drama. We see that over and over again on these shows. This is not the first time Luke has pursued a woman who wasn’t interested in him, and even though we never saw him cross a boundary as blatantly before as he does now, there’s a very clear pattern here. But Summer House long framed him as just some Midwestern bachelor with bad luck in the past, perhaps obscuring what’s really a troubling pattern of behavior with women. This time, there’s no room for ambiguity. And Jessica makes sure this doesn’t become dramatized or turn into her storyline for the season, which would be gross and unfair. She shuts it down, communicates what she needs to, and moves along. She has the final word, and that’s how it should be.

Anyway, if any other Bravolebrities would like to come out as bisexual, it’d be great for me personally and professionally.