During the season 3 premiere of "The Valley," there is a scene that lit us up with rage.

Kristen Doute's fiancé Luke Broderick is having a heart-to-heart with fellow castmate Jesse Lally about his relationship. “Our relationship is completely lacking intimacy, which is tough,” he says. “[Kristen] shuts down every advance. At what point do you stop trying?” On its face this seems like a normal thing to express frustration to your friend about... until you realize that Luke is whining about not getting enough sex from his partner who is just THREE MONTHS POSTPARTUM. The man legitimately wants a gold star for not pressuring Kristen for physical intimacy before she has been medically cleared by a doctor.

This scene also made us think about similar conversations we've seen between Jace Terry and Mikayla Matthews on the latest season of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives." And then, in episode 2, not only did Luke bring these "issues" up again, but we saw a similar exchange between Danny and Nia Booko! Three makes a trend, so we knew we had to discuss. We got into why so many men seem unable to grasp that their partners might need some physical space after a traumatic medical experience like birth, what it says about how male partners use weaponized incompetence, and how the Bravo community is responding to these on-screen issues!

In this podcast episode, we also take a slight detour to discuss our April 6th outing to see Mark Ballas and Whitney Leavitt together in Chicago on Broadway! We recap what the show was like, the energy in the room, Whitney's theater-kid vibes, and what this means for how she is constructing her career trajectory outside of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives."

Hope you enjoy! Xo

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