'Pod chicks' and emotional slut-shaming
A 'Love is Blind' contestant gets attacked for being loose with her heart.
I wasn’t exactly surprised that a recent episode of Love is Blind shows a man shaming a woman. We’ve been here before: Last season, Micah was portrayed as a tempting seductress before her fiancé dismissed her as insufficiently maternal. This season, Uche shamed Aaliyah for cheating on a boyfriend in the past. In this recent episode, though, the shaming has nothing explicitly to do with sex and everything to do with emotions. It feels like slut shaming, but it’s more like emotion shaming. Emotional slut-shaming.
In episodes 7 and 8—SPOILER ALERT—the Love is Blind couples get together for an alcohol-fueled (and inevitably drama-filled) party. Just one of many confrontations that night is between Izzy and Johnie, who dated each other in the pods before breaking up. At the party, Izzy attacks Johnie—or, in his own gleeful re-telling, “fucking rail(s) her”—for expressing affection for two different men in the pods. “The things you were telling me, I wasn’t the only guy you were telling,” he says.
Later, he adds, “I wasn’t your only number one.”
For those not following this season, the only background you really need is this: Johnie spent her time in the pods with Izzy as her No. 1 pick and another guy, Chris, as her No. 2. Along the way, she was affectionate with both men, but she ultimately chose Izzy, telling him that she wasn’t falling in love with Chris, who felt too safe and predictable to her. But Izzy soon dumped Johnie and proposed to another woman named Stacy. Then Johnie had second thoughts and sought out Chris, telling him that by choosing Izzy, she had repeated “a pattern” of pursuing “emotionally unavailable” men.
Later, when Izzy compared notes with Chris, he saw an emotional conspiracy: a woman expressing affection for more than one man and dishonestly playing them off each other. By Johnie’s own telling, there was no emotional conspiracy: her perspective on her two leading relationships changed over time. Also, she simply engaged in this dating experiment on its own terms by exploring emotional connections with multiple men at the same time. It’s the name of the game!
It seems that Chris got that: after leaving the show, he and Johnie talked it out and started dating. Now they’ve been brought back onto the show as a couple and a source of drama.
At the party, Izzy sits down with Chris to tell him that he thinks Johnie sucks. Why? Because in the pods she told Izzy that she loved him and now she’s over it and happily dating Chris. “I don’t hate the girl,” Izzy explains. “It was more, ‘How are you gonna tell me that you’re in love with me, ask me to be your boyfriend four times, tell me you’re in love with me four times, and then sit here and tell me, like, I’m so glad this didn’t work out?’”
He holds up his fingers and emphasizes, “Four times. I counted it,” he says. “She was in love with me. And I never said it back.” He adds, “She was telling us all the same shit.” Listening to him enumerate her affections, I couldn't help but think of the way Uche interrogated Aaliyah just a few episodes back about how many times she had cheated on her ex-boyfriend and whether it was really the only time she had ever cheated. Izzy treats Johnie’s expressions of love—while dating other people on a show that encourages you to do just that—as evidence of dishonesty and untrustworthiness. It’s proof that she is “sketchy,” as he puts it.
Then Izzy goes to find his fiancée Stacy and tells her how much he loves her—and how glad he is that he ended up with her and not Johnie. Later, back at their shared apartment, they get into it because Stacy isn’t happy that Izzy tends to express his love for her in comparison to his “past relationship” with Johnie:
Izzy: Johnie’s not a “previous relationship.” Johnie was a pod chick.
Stacy: Well, [you ranked her] over me for quite some time, so I kind of don’t feel so good about that… that makes me feel not good. Like, I’m a pod chick. You met me in [the pods].
Izzy: You’re my fiancée. You’re not just any girl.
For me, “pod chick” instantly called to mind the term “side chick,” which then unleashed a barrage of related labels: the other woman, home wrecker, whore. It made me think of how some men dismiss women they’ve slept with as a “one-night stand” or “hookup” opposite the ideal of “wife material.” You’re either the respectable woman he puts on a pedestal—his girlfriend, fiancée, or wife—or you’re the debased “any girl,” in Izzy’s words. When Stacy rightly points out that she’s a “pod chick,” we’re watching a woman recognize the extreme tenuousness of her pedestal.
Watching these scenes, it struck me: In the real world, sex is often a part of dating and the getting-to-know-you process, but in the pods they trade emotional intimacies—stories of childhood trauma and failed relationships. They have to say “I like you” instead of leaning in for a kiss. A declaration of love is the pod version of “going all the way.” Izzy adapts the usual slut-shaming script to the bizarre constraints of the Love is Blind experiment. He accuses Johnie of being too loose with her emotions.
He berates her for being promiscuous with her heart.
Not too mention the shaming of Miriam by Uche, who seems to act this way toward all of the women of color on the show.
The monogamy culture is very strong and largely unquestioned. Thanks for pointing out some of the side effects.