There’s an implicit bargain that gets made at the start of every reality show’s season. We want our stars to suffer, and we’ll watch them drop 30 pounds while subsisting on a mostly rice diet on “Survivor.” We do not, however, want to watch them fall into the campfire and sustain second-degree burns.

We want steamy hookups, drunken antics and tearful regret. We do not want to be faced with a woman saying she was too intoxicated to consent to sexual activities.

This isn’t the first time that reality TV producers chose to film questionable on-camera behavior instead of stopping it. In 1999, on MTV’s “The Real World,” a cast member got extremely drunk and then got behind the wheel. Even though she was visibly intoxicated, staggering and slurring her words, producers elected to confront her the following morning instead of taking the keys.

That incident prompted discussion of what happens when a producer’s duty to catch salacious footage bumps up against her obligations as a human being. MTV handled it by airing footage of a producer telling the cast member on camera that she needed to get help or risk being fired.

But for every “Big Brother” that boots a male contestant for holding a knife to a female castmate’s throat, there’s a show like “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire,” which cast a man with a history of domestic abuse as its star.

However belatedly, ABC and Warner Bros. have put themselves on the right side of the line. Hookups, yes; allegations of sexual misconduct, no. Weepy I-wish-I-hadn’t-done-that-with-him, fine; weepy how-could-they-let-him-do-that-to-me, not fine. We like to watch, but we don’t like watching that.

Which brings us, as all things must, to the reality TV star in chief.

Why is the possibility that someone took advantage of a female cast member bad enough to shut down a show’s production while President Donald “when you’re a star they let you do it” Trump sits in the White House?

My conclusion is that it’s the difference between seeing and hearing.

After all, N.F.L. officials reacted one way when they heard allegations that a player had a physical altercation with a woman. They had a different reaction when they, and the world, saw video of Ray Rice punching his fiancée in an elevator.