Alex had never had such good luck with girls. Here he was, at a posh Malibu beachfront mansion, partying with 25 beautiful women. The girls clamored to be near him, hung on the 31-year-old’s every word, and laughed at his jokes. Then they gushed to one another about his sweetness when he exhibited nothing more than ordinary politeness. Alex tried to be attentive to as many girls as he could, and in their low-cut dresses, not many went unnoticed.

Alex’s Malibu party sounds like a single guy’s fantasy — what guy wouldn’t want to have a room full of girls competing for him? But it wasn’t a fantasy. The party was a part of the March 25 debut of the new ABC television show, The Bachelor. The show is the latest twist on the unscripted reality genre, where Alex seeks his perfect mate among the “bachelorettes” who have agreed to vie for him. While this so-called “reality TV” claims to be finding a matrimonial match made in Malibu, it has relegated women to puppies in a pet store, begging to be taken home by Alex.

In six episodes, The Bachelor’s producers hope Alex will pare down the smorgasbord of women to one girl, and then propose marriage. In word, The Bachelor operates under the pretense that it upholds the sanctity of marriage. “This is no ordinary relationship show,” host Chris Harrison explains in episode one. “This is about something real, something permanent — you know, the whole ‘till-death-do-us-part thing.”

But indeed, the show demonstrates that while great strides have been made in America toward equalizing the sexes, women are still routinely degraded. Sure, women have voting rights, and equal pay for equal work, and other legal rights. But The Bachelor demonstrates that while laws can be passed to ensure fair treatment of women, popular culture still uses them as pawns for manipulation, and of course sexual titillation.

The Bachelor has generated a lot of heat from media critics, but has enjoyed some of ABC’s highest ratings for its Monday night timeslot. The network has already decided to add a seventh “reunion episode” to air before the final episode where Alex chooses which woman he is most interested in marrying. Also, the New York Post reports that ABC is likely to have a second go-round of The Bachelor, where 25 more ladies will compete for the love of one man.

Women are portrayed as objects of sexual desire on The Bachelor as they are on any other unscripted relationship show. Episodes have already featured the harem girls hot-tubbing in bikinis, taking mud baths in bikinis, and showering after the mud baths — in bikinis. The girls are the best the country has to offer, viewers are informed: two doctors, two lawyers, and 10 women pursuing their Master’s degrees. Of course a Hooter’s waitress and a Miami Heat dancer are also thrown in the mix. Alex, a management consultant and Harvard grad with senatorial good looks, seems to be a nice enough guy — although he does strive to seduce each of the girls one by one, and doesn’t have qualms about kissing more than one of them.

The groundbreaking aspect of the The Bachelor isn’t its sleaze, but the fact that it’s one guy with 25 women competing for him. Alex decides who he’ll reject and who he’ll invite to later rounds. The invitations take place during what the show calls its “Invitation Night.” The evening has the awkward and public discomfort of picking teams on an elementary school playground, as girls wait anxiously for their names to be called with their self-esteem at stake. So far, those who have been given a rose, the symbol of invitation, have been visibly relieved and excited to be accepted in Alex’s good graces. “Thank you for keeping me!” said Angelique, a bartender and actress from Los Angeles, after Alex elected her worthy of gracing him with her presence for another episode.

Some who were denied after the first episode were shaken to the core and had to remind themselves they did have value. “I think I’m a great person,” said Lisa, an attorney. “I’m a good person,” said another tearful bachelorette. Ambulances had to be called for one girl who had a panic attack after being rejected on episode three.

Of course, the fact that the bachelorettes serve as little more than Alex’s harem is not emphasized on The Bachelor. During a “group date” to Las Vegas, Alex and five of the girls got lots of attention as they entered the Venetian hotel. “Everybody turned and saw Alex with the five of us and wondered ‘Who is that guy and what did he do to get those five women to be hanging on his every word?’ ” said Christina, a substitute teacher and attorney. “It was so rock star!”

The term “rock star” is an accurate description — of Alex. But if Alex is a rock star, then the five girls “hanging on his every word,” as well as pawing at his body, are “groupies.” A groupie is a girl who sacrifices her identity, interests and often her morality and her body, for the rock star (or stars) she follows. The members of the band have no obligation to respect her, because respect for the female isn’t part of the rock star-groupie relationship. Such is the unequal ground in the code of relationship that exists on The Bachelor. Alex can be selective with his attention when no bachelorette can afford to.

The show’s producers must be conscious that they’re degrading women, because they indirectly address the subject in every episode. There are several instances where they remind the girls, and the viewers, that this is not as chauvinistic as it may seem. Television and movies are visual mediums that depend primarily on visual pictures to tell their stories. Therefore, they use scripted words selectively and to carry maximum weight. The careful word choices made by the creators of The Bachelor demonstrate they’re hyper-conscious of sending a politically correct message. Several lines in the script are affirming to women, but taken in the show’s context they’re so out of place and self-conscious they become non-sequiturs.

For instance, the show’s tag line says: “Who will he choose, who will he reject, and who might reject him?” The “who might reject him” part is in reference to Invitation Night. In theory, the women, when offered a rose by Alex, can tell him they aren’t interested in continuing to the next round of the program. But why would they? There’s no risk to continue and they did come on the show to get to know Alex — and possibly make him their husband. The pretense that the women are empowered in the situation is ridiculous, especially when host Chris Harrison robotically tells the women every Invitation Night: “You are totally empowered here, if you don’t think the bachelor would make a match, you don’t have to take a rose.”

Yeah right, Chris. In the first three episodes no girl has refused Alex’s offer to more on to the next round of the show. In fact, the girls use their video diaries — individual messages Alex watches of each girl before the Invitation Night — to beg Alex to pick them and assure him they’ll say “yes.”

Perhaps the most poignant example of a bachelorette relegating her standards to Alex’s wishes came in a long silence on the second episode. Trista, a pediatric nurse and Miami Heat dancer, had just told Alex and the four girls with whom she shared a mud bath, that she had been cheated on by a past boyfriend and was sensitive to infidelity. “It really, really hurt,” she told the group. At that point, one of the girls directly asked Alex if he had ever cheated on a girlfriend.

Uh, yeah, I have cheated on a couple of girlfriends, Alex awkwardly admitted. But once it was a Semester at Sea type of thing, he said (as if that doesn’t count). It’s not like I ever just got drunk on a weekend and slept with somebody, he said. “I think of myself as a very good boyfriend, but I mean I regret that it was basically cheating.”

A 7.4-second moment of uncomfortable silence followed Alex’s admission. The girls looked at each other blankly and Alex avoided eye contact. Finally, Trista led the awkward laughing-off of Alex’s admission and the group continued chatting. At the next Invitation Night, Alex offered a rose to Trista, so she could continue to get to know him and win the possibility of becoming his wife.

Trista accepted Alex’s invitation, of course. After all, what’s a groupie to do?