Who Will Emily Maynard Pick: How Single Mom Emily Maynard Promotes Conservative Values in The Bachelorette

Culture

Regardless of who she picks among Sean, Arie or Jef, single mom and bachelorette Emily Maynard has refused to sleep with any of her remaining suitors in the latest season of The Bachelorette, limiting herself to sexless romantic dinners and trips more representative of the Victorian era than of a 2012 reality television program. 

And the audience doesn't seem to mind this sudden resurgence of social conservative values in the usually racy gender of reality television, where -- as a rule -- there are always plenty of sexy scenes involving bedrooms, Jacuzzis and two or more people ready for action. 

However, Emily Maynard has made a point of promoting sexless dates as her romantic encounters with 30-year-old Arie, 28-year-old Sean, and 27-year-old Jef haven’t ended in the bedroom – at least as far as the cameras of this reality dating show have shared with the audience. And, while the 26-year-old single mom is not obviously promoting virginity, Maynard might be in quest to promote a new trend of "let's take it easy" relationship where people wait to know each other a little better before jumping into the bedroom. Sex on the first date anyone? 

Oddly enough, the ratings haven’t been suffering with the lack of sex scenes, as a healthy 8 million viewers tuned in on Monday night despite what many consider one of the most “vanilla” seasons of The Bachelorette so far. The phenomenon is rare, given the propensity of reality television to successfully exploit sex situations for high ratings. One doesn’t have to go too far to bring up some of the more recent examples, such as Jersey Shore as well as other seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.   

But Emily Maynard seems to be on a mission to transform the otherwise racy gender of reality TV. Maynard is the only subject not to have "given in" to all the dinner dates and seductive words and slept with one of the show's contestants behind the walls of the camera-free "Fantasy Suite." On Monday’s exotic-location-filmed episode, Maynard told bachelor Sean she wouldn't spend the night with him, saying to the camera that "it just doesn't line up with what I believe in."

However, this seems to be a new position as Maynard did spend a night in the Fantasy suite when she was a contestant on The Bachelor a few years ago (runner ups from The Bachelor are usually brought back to star in The Bachelorette). Nonetheless, what happened back then behind closed doors is anybody's guess as cameras weren't present and Maynard can claim having been playing Scrabble or just romatically cuddling.