Despite the prevalence of bathing suits, I've never really found myself thinking about butts while watching Bachelor In Paradise. I'm more preoccupied with who is kissing, who is fighting, and which person probably stinks most strongly of sweat and seaweed.
However, this season is a different story. One of the first jokes in the premiere came from Bibiana, who said "If my ass gets blurred, I'm doing something right" in reference to her skimpy bikinis — and now all I can see are blurred asses.
To be fair, this isn't BIP and The Bachelor's first brush with ass-blurrery. In 2015, the black bar constantly hovering over Jillian Anderson's butt became kind of a running joke due to her revealing swimsuit, and it followed her to Paradise that same year. However, Anderson was just one woman. This year on BIP, it seems like every girl is getting their butt barred and blurred, sometimes for seemingly no reason.
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I mean, take this shot — that's definitely a full-coverage swimsuit bottom, right?
This begs the question: How much butt cheek is too much butt cheek for ABC? And why now, all of a sudden, am I seeing so many blurs?
ABC declined to comment on the butts, and I have not heard back from Warner Bros. when I asked if they had changed any of their policies, but another explanation could be that more butts are blurred because butt-baring swimsuits are extremely in fashion right now, probably thanks to the Karadashians:
What was perhaps before an every so often thing is now occurring every episode because the women are getting cheekier with their choices. I've noticed Jenna, Chelsea, Bibiana, Krystal, and Kendall all getting the blur at one point or another, and it's forcing me to think about butts way more than if they had just...let the butts be free.
After all, that's what my other favorite show, Love Island, does:
Free the butts, ABC. Free the butts!