Warning: Spoilers for Bachelor in Paradise Episode 14 ahead.
FACTS: Aaron Clancy and Genevieve Parisi are at it again.
Bachelor in Paradise fans stopped shipping the formerly beloved Season 8 couple after their toxic “gaslighting” fight in Episode 11 inspired Parisi to pack her bags. The two ultimately made up and Gen decided to stick around, but in Episode 14, fans were reminded how truly terrible the two are together when they had another inconceivable verbal spar.
In Episode 14, Clancy and Parisi went from zero to one thousand on the rage scale over the course of a few minutes. Why? They started debating the difference between pain and itching. (Yes, really!) As Paradise bartender Wells Adams said, “It’s not only the stupidest fight in the history of Paradise, it’s the stupidest fight in the history of fights. Period.” Let’s review.
The debacle began when Parisi told Clancy she was feeling impatient and annoyed, but she didn’t know why. Clancy compared her annoyance to feeling stressed, and she assured him “stressed” and “annoyed” are two different things. He disagreed! “That’s like saying itching and pain are different,” he replied, to which Parisi screamed, “IT’S DIFFERENT!” Anyway, this back and forth about pain and itching went on for far too long. There was screaming, swearing, and a whole lot of confused people on the beach wondering how the hell this couple was arguing over something so random.
After Clancy repeated the words “itching is low-level pain” one too many times, Parisi started packing. And honestly? Who could blame her? While Parisi told the camera crew, “This is the last straw. I’m done. I want to go. Please get me a car,” Clancy looked into the lens and said, “Itching is low-level pain, and that’s facts!” But is it? Is it really? More on that in a second.
Is Itching Low-Level Pain? A Bachelor in Paradise Investigation
When all of Bachelor Nation inevitably Googles “Is itching low-level pain?” in the middle of Parisi and Clancy’s argument, the first link that will pop up is a Scientific American article (originally published in the magazine Nature) titled, “An Itch Is Not a Low-Level Form of Pain.”
CLANCY, things aren’t looking good for you, bro.
The article, from 2013, begins with the following paragraph: “Once thought to be a low-level form of pain, itch is instead a distinct sensation with a dedicated neural circuit linking cells in the periphery of the body to the brain, a study in mice suggests.” Interesting.
A 2014 Washington Post article cites a study and appears to argue that the act of scratching an itch is what produces low-level pain. “The problem is that when the brain gets those pain signals, it responds by producing the neurotransmitter serotonin to help control that pain,” lead author Zhou-Feng Chen, the director of Washington University’s Center for the Study of Itch, explained in a statement. “But as serotonin spreads from the brain into the spinal cord, we found the chemical can ‘jump the tracks,’ moving from pain-sensing neurons to nerve cells that influence itch intensity.”
“So this fits very well with the idea that itch and pain signals are transmitted through different but related pathways,” Chen continued. “Scratching can relieve itch by creating minor pain. But when the body responds to pain signals, that response actually can make itching worse.”
An article on Pfizer’s website echoed the idea that the act of scratching an itch, rather than the itching sensation itself, creates a low-level form of pain. “At first, scratching blocks the itch sensation by temporarily distracting the brain with a mild pain sensation,” the piece reads. “But then the signals start to get a little confusing: The mild pain sensation causes the brain to release serotonin, the body’s natural pain reliever. But the serotonin blocks the mild pain that was blocking the itch. So the brain sends more itch signals. Then more scratches trigger more pain. More pain ratchets up the serotonin. Back to more itching and the infinite loop starts again.”
So is itching low-level pain? It’s clearly a complex, confusing question — especially because itching and pain are closely related. It’s clear itching was once widely considered to be a form of pain, but is the consensus now that the two sensations are distinct and scratching an itch is what causes the low-level pain? Have new developments been made?! All we can hope is that Jesse Palmer invited an expert to the Bachelor in Paradise reunion to settle this debate once and for all.
New episodes of Bachelor in Paradise air on ABC Mondays and Tuesdays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. ET. Episodes are available for next-day streaming on Hulu.