Sleeping Over

Sleeping Over

I think I’m becoming my grandmother, which is even worse than turning into my mother.  My grandmother faithfully watched her soap operas for years, but quit in the 70’s—when she was in her 90’s—because, according to her, they had gotten so “ugly”, meaning sex-filled. I can’t even imagine what she’d think of today’s soaps, which I hear have evolved steadily downhill (or uphill, depending on your point of view.)

But anyhow, I used to think my grandmother and, of course, my mother were such big prudes.  They didn’t want any reference to reality to intrude into their movies and TV shows.  But, last night I watched The Batchelor on TV, partly because my son claims I have totally missed out on pop culture  of the last 25 years as I never go to movies and I seldom watch network TV and have never seen a “reality” show.  I picked The Batchelor because Susan Reinhardt writes about it all the time in her column in the Asheville paper and because my TV was already set to ABC from my evening date with Peter Jennings. (See, I do know a little something about TV programming.)

Anyhow I watched the whole hour, and was totally mesmerized, partly by the incredible number of times the word “amazing” was used by the Batchelor or one of his three girlettes.  But what shook me were the three sleep-overs—tastefully depicted but also clearly regarded as a requirement for snagging the Batchelor. 

Somewhere along the way I have become a prude.  Not that I’ve never had a sleep-over, or that my children haven’t had sleep-overs.  But three in one week with three different women and on national TV?  And no one thinks that’s even “risque?” And the funny thing was, all three women (girls?) hated the contestant who claimed to have slept with 35 guys.  I wonder if each of these three will add this sleepover to their own cumulative lists.  They’ll have to, the whole world knows.