ollibear

My guess is that you are right, although it sure would give Bay a lot more power and control, if she chose to look at what happened as her choice, as her mistake, in other words, as cheating.

If it is Bay's error in judgment, then she can make amends to Emmett for it.

And Bay needs to make amends, if not for the act of sex itself, then at least for choosing to blur the lines of intimacy with Tank. Because Bay really blurred those lines, even without the sex, and that was unfair to Emmett, especially during a long distance relationship.

That's something Emmett never did with Simone. Emmett never emotionally cheated on Bay. He may have danced around it with Skye, but not until Bay and Tank had sex, and even then, it was nothing like what Bay chose to do with Tank.

If Bay would just apologize for that, it would help to heal her disconnect with Emmett.

Plus, if Bay looks at blurring the lines of intimacy as her responsibility, her mistake, then she can take positive steps to minimize a misunderstanding like the one that happened with Tank from ever occurring with another man again. However, if Bay sees herself as just a victim of an assault, or as a survivor with no culpability, then she will be powerless to minimize the risk.

I want Bay to see herself as capable of choosing a different course, one where things like this are less likely to happen. Because she is capable of doing that.

Otherwise Bay is a victim, or at best a survivor, with little to no control over her own destiny.

But Bay probably never will look at it that way. My guess is that the writers would have had Bay apologize to Emmett already, if they were ever going to go down that road.

So what will probably happen is that, eventually, Emmett will realize "gray" means Bay had no choice, that this was done to her, that both Bay and Tank are innocent, that alcohol is to blame, or while we are at it, Emmett is to blame, because he IS the one who walked away from Bay during their picnic.

Emmett will be the one that the writers deem as needing to grow.

Sure, it's all Emmett's fault. Let's give him all the power. That's probably what the writers will do. Barf!

Emmett already did his growing, but why would the writers recognize that? They seem to love painting everything Bay and Daphne do as blameless. It must be some new concept of feminism, where writers disenfranchise their female heroines, in order to make them appear perfect.

But whether the writers ever have Bay or Daphne take ownership of any of their mistakes, they sure do need to do so, not for Emmett, although their choices have been mightily unfair to him, too.

They need to do it for themselves.

Edited to Add: I sounded hopeless, when I wrote this post, earlier today. But I still have hope. I believe that the writers will have Bay take responsibility for her mistakes. I have believed that would be the main story for Season 4B, since the mid-season finale.

This afternoon, I was feeling discouraged, because everywhere I go, very few people seem to recognize that Bay made any mistakes.

Fortunately, at least, a few people do think Bay was wrong to take the fall for Daphne (although, unbelievably, some people see Bay as Christ like for that), but other than that one (possible) error in judgment, very few people seem to recognize that Bay has done anything wrong.

I feel Bay has made a lot of mistakes. She is a good person with a giving heart. She does a lot of things right. In fact, Bay does more things right than any other character on the show. But she makes some mistakes, too, and I would like to see her take ownership of those.

I guess we will see how it all turns out this summer.