Aren’t these the two options we’ve been given since girlhood?

Be the nice girl (sugar) by being sweet, eager to please, remaining a virgin (although this gets complex, a girl at my Catholic high school was proud of saving her virginity and would only have anal sex. Yeah) and land a husband.

Be a bad girl (spice) by being brazen, out-spoken, independent, sexual (uh-oh, women can be sexy but *sexual*?) and get a booty call.

It’s the classic madonna/whore dichotomy, the 2 predominant archetypes that girls and women may choose from and the 2 we’ve been offered for hundreds of years (does it feel a little dated to anyone else? I mean, really). Despite our current sex saturated media culture, we still learn early on that there’s a fine line between being good and sexy before crossing over to sexual. Sexual equals bad.

It seems limiting, no?

That’s because it is. It’s another out-dated, one-dimensional and sexist expectation for girls and women that keeps getting recycled. And it’s hella confusing when you’re bombarded with image after image telling you to show your boobs and your ass (…uh, when you’re 9 no less) but then punishes you with s word (slut).

But that’s what this season’s The Bachelor, Jake, is left with: sugar and spice in the form of “sweet” Tenley (the teary divorcee that had only ‘been’ with her husband and the one wearing the crucifix in her profile picture)) and “spicy” Vienna (who was brazen enough to visit him in his room uninvited on a two-on-one date with Gia).

Teasers for next week’s final pick pump up the anticipation and drama by asking viewers to guess which way the all-American pilot from Texas will go.

“Will Jake choose sugar or (announcers voice becomes sultry) spice?”