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What Juan Pablo Did to Clare Was Not Okay

Adding to the growing list of Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis traits that are less than desirable, his behavior toward Clare during last night's episode was abhorrent. From start to finish Juan Pablo was totally inappropriate and I'm not just talking about them frolicking in the water, I'm talking about how he treated Clare throughout the whole show. Honestly, he set the stage last week when he broke his arbitrary "no kissing" rule to mack on Clare, then in this episode, he started out the group date by leading Clare away from the other girls and to his suite's pool. Once inside the pool he held Clare on his lap and kissed her a lot more while in between kisses saying, "no kissing."

With all this hot-and-heavy set up, I'm not surprised that Clare went back for more that evening. Luckily Juan Pablo had already shown her where he lived so she was able to slip to his place at 4 a.m. to ask him to go for a nighttime swim, which he readily agreed to with exactly 0 seconds of hesitation. "I'll go get my bathing suit on," he says after she proposes the idea.

So Clare and Juan Pablo went night swimming in the ocean and Clare said a lot of things that made America think she and Juan Pablo went a little further than making out. I'm not mad at Juan Pablo or at Clare for their midnight rendezvous. It's been clear for several seasons that there are no real "rules" on this show and to each their own. But then came the rose ceremony where Juan Pablo continued his descent into total unlikability. Clare had been happily talking about how it was the best night of her life, and then Juan Pablo came along to have a little chat with her.

"It's a little weird for me," he started out talking about how the whole swimming situation made him uncomfortable. "I have a daughter. I don't want her to see what happened. If she sees it I don't think it would be that nice." Ah, the old daughter excuse. If I were Camila I'd be more upset that my dad uses me to get out of kissing girls one second and then jumps into the ocean without any regard for me the next.

Clare of course starts to cry because Juan Pablo is now shaming her on national television for an act they both willingly did. "That was never my intention," Clare says in her most sincere moment on the show. "Stop crying," Juan Pablo responds with hardly any sympathy. "Can you stop crying for me? Look at me. I don't like when you don't look at me."

Well J.P. I don't like what you're doing to Clare, acting as if you weren't just as responsible. Though at the time Clare doesn't accuse him of such, she later confronts him again asking him why he just didn't say no if he didn't feel comfortable.

"Because I didn't want it to take away that emotion that you had," he says. "I should have said no but maybe it would have hurt you." That makes no sense since he was all too willing to say no to kissing girls like Lauren and Renee, and that definitely hurt their feelings. "It wouldn't have hurt me," Clare protests. At this point Juan Pablo starts talking about how it was in the past and he doesn't want to talk about it anymore and what happened happened. THEN WHY DID YOU BRING IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?

If this was his attempt to save face if Camila ever questions him about this episode, this was the wrong way to do it. Blaming the girl, blaming it on "not wanting to hurt her," etc. is so weak. Juan Pablo didn't want to say no. What he did want to do was go hang out in the waves and then lamely attempt to make it Clare's fault for being a seductress. I'm glad Clare questioned this instead of just apologizing. "If he didn't think it was right he shouldn't have done it," Clare says. "I would have respected that." A lot of people seemed to agree that Juan Pablo's actions towards her were out of line.

I'm frustrated at Juan Pablo's behavior. Everything from his attitude about her crying to the way he basically invited this upon himself for having such fuzzy boundaries about physicality is annoying. Besides, even if he had said no, how was Clare supposed to take that seriously? This is the man who says "no kissing" literally in between kisses.

If anyone should be ashamed of their bahavior it should be Juan Pablo. So far he's not doing so well in the whole "my biggest fear is disappointing my daughter" department. Better luck next time.

Images: ABC, bacheloretteabc/Tumblr