One of my favourite things about reality TV is its ability to bring red flag behaviour into the limelight so we can all collectively shut that shit down. Enter Mitch on MAFS, who may have kept his ex-girlfriends’ nudes.
Mitch and his on-screen wife Ella were tasked with going through each other’s phones because apparently it would somehow make them more secure in their relationship. Anyone who has ever perved on their partner’s phone probably knows what a bad idea it is but whatever, I’m not the expert.
Mitch, adamant that he has nothing to hide, hands Ella his phone but refuses to go through hers. What does Ella find? A password protected vault apparently containing explicit photos. When she asks if they are of his exes, Mitch goes silent and doesn’t deny it.
It’s awkward, Ella says the vault is weird and her insecurity becomes worse.
Now look, there’s totally a conversation to be had about whether it matters if your partner watches porn/likes looking at naked people who aren’t you.
It’s okay to feel upset or jealous if your partner still has their exes’ nudes. Everyone has different relationship boundaries and that’s something you talk through together.
But the bigger issue to me here — and one that I think we really need to talk about more — is consent.
mitch, if you have intimate images of your ex partners in that vault… immediately no. relationship/situationship ends, intimate images are deleted. #MAFS #MAFSAU
— K’Aelyn 🦋✨🍑 (@Iovekaelyn) March 21, 2022
As we all should hopefully know, consent is an ongoing process. You need to ensure consent every time you’re engaging sexually with someone and you need to constantly check in. Remember, consent can be revoked at any time.
When a relationship ends, so does the sexual consent from that relationship.
Any nudes you were sent from an ex were given with the context that you two are in a relationship. When that relationship ends, the circumstances of the consent also change — meaning you can’t assume it’s still okay to keep those photos.
Imagine being Mitch’s ex right now finding out he has a vault #mafs #mafsau
— Jason (@Jasonpfit) March 21, 2022
I mean, imagine your crusty ex still getting off to you years after your relationship ended. Doesn’t that make your skin crawl?
As we *just* talked about after Domenica’s nudes were passed around the MAFS cast, if you are no longer the intended audience for explicit photos then you have no right to see them. No matter how available they are.
We don’t know for sure whether or not Mitch actually has his exes’ nudes in that vault, even if he acted suss.
What we do know though is that it’s fucking creepy to keep your exes’ nudes. Delete that shit!
