Although the world of actuality courting exhibits focuses overwhelmingly on heterosexual {couples}, there are some sequence which have challenged that norm.
Season 8 of MTV’s Are You The One? featured a completely LGBTQ+ forged, together with trans-masculine nonbinary contestant Kai Wes. The present’s government producer Sitarah Pendelton spoke to Entertainment Weekly in 2019 about how the AYTO manufacturing staff knew it was time for a change.
“When you’ve produced a show that has multiple seasons, and in this day and age everything changes every day, we really wanted to make sure that we were continuing to be reflective of our viewers and true to how people were dating,” she instructed the outlet.
The actuality tv producer continued, “We’re like, ‘Wow, this younger generation looks at love and dating and their relationships with a completely different prism than maybe generations of the past.’ And again, with MTV always wanting to be reflective of our viewers and understand where those stories lie, it just was an organic path to follow. Like, of course we would do this — if not us, then who?”
By distinction, the Bachelor franchise has caught to heterosexual relationships because it premiered in 2002. Before longtime host Chris Harrison left Bachelor Nation in 2021, he made feedback about why there would most likely by no means be a homosexual bachelor.
“The question is: Is it a good business decision? ” Harrison instructed The New York Times in 2014. “I just spoke at U.S.C. the other night, and I explained it like this: Look, if you’ve been making pizzas for 12 years and you’ve made millions of dollars and everybody loves your pizzas and someone comes and says, ‘Hey, you should make hamburgers.’ Why? I have a great business model and I don’t know if hamburgers are going to sell.”
Chris Coelen, the showrunner of Netflix’s wedding-centric courting present Love Is Blind, has additionally expressed hesitance about an LGBTQ+ season. In a 2020 interview with Metro, Coelen mentioned, “an LGBTQ+ version of [the show] has some logistical difficulties in the current setup. … This is not a show that is particularly about sexuality.”
However, even inside the confines of Love is Blind and Bachelor Nation, some LGBTQ+ contestants have been open about their sexuality; Demi Burnett got here out as bisexual throughout season 6 of Bachelor in Paradise, Jaimi King was brazenly bisexual on Nick Viall’s season and Alexa Caves from Peter Weber’s season recognized herself as sexually fluid. On Love Is Blind, Carlton Morton got here out as bisexual to then-fiancée Diamond Jack and ended up leaving the present quickly after.
“I wish I hadn’t let my emotions get the best of me. But as soon as I began telling her that I was bisexual, I felt so much anxiety,” Morton instructed Women’s Health in 2020. “Our entire relationship just flashed in front of me. I could see it falling apart. I began to self-sabotage because her reaction didn’t seem 100 percent positive.”
Although Love Is Blind has but to deliberately discover LGBTQ+ relationships, Netflix’s second season of The Ultimatum, which debuted in May 2023, featured an all-queer forged.
“The gravity of being a part of a queer show … knowing that I never got to witness that representation as a kid growing up, maybe I would have figured out who I was sooner [if I’d had that],” season 2 contestant Lexi Goldberg instructed Pride.com in June 2023.
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