we can't be saved from what we love.

I spend most of my time on this blog talking about things that have happened to my vagina and things that irritate the crap out of me. For a change of pace, I'd like to talk about things that move me.

I have always felt an incredibly deep connection to the GLBT community. I self-identify as queer, but I think it goes deeper than just belonging. Through the course of my feminist awakening, my sexual enlightenment, and my growth into an adult, I sought to find an aural or visual experience that depicted the world as I feel it. It's hard to say whether the view or the world itself is broken, but it lies broken nonetheless. It's sharply hued and violent, but silent and subdued. It's where we play with fire and still drown.

And I found Nan Goldin, a photographer who grew up in Massachusetts and made a name for herself photographing herself and her friends, many of them gay, in front of the drug-addled backdrop of New York in the 1970s and 80s.

I feel disconnected from much of the art I experience on a regular basis, and some of the literature. But Nan's work touches me so much. I feel we are cut from the same cloth. I feel we live in the same world together. She has been one with the freaks. She captures the despondency that has so often permeated my life. Her photographs recognize the complexity of the juncture between gender, sex, and mortality.

And yet there is no desperation in what she shows us, sad as it all may seem. It is a reality created in the desire to love things, even if society tells us we are wrong. It is a reality where we all realize that we are going to die and as a result, all we can do is live.

Many of the subjects of Nan's original photographs died by the time she gained recognition for her work. They never knew their raw beauty was seen by thousands of people. They just lived their imperfect lives in a world that wasn't ready for them. They are pure. Their images are haunting.

These photographs always make me wonder: how do we ever really interact with one another? And how can we forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made?

All of these works, of course, belong to Nan Goldin.

I've got a secret.

One of my greatest character flaws is that I try to pretend to be cultured. I feign interest in the arts; I masquerade as a literature snob. To put it bluntly, I am far more crass than I let on to strangers and loose acquaintances. Outwardly, I am a devotee of the Western canon; inwardly, I want to read any book that has the word "penis" in it.

So I have been acting like I don't enjoy reality television. I know it's pretentious, but the social circles I've been frequenting lately are most definitely of a higher intellectual caliber. As such, I'm sure they find my unending appreciation of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" appalling. I could watch that shit for HOURS. I detest the people on the show and generally find their antics tasteless, but it amuses me nonetheless.

Since I'm 24 and MTV is now the dominion of the teenaged crowd, I've been denying my love for a certain hyper-tanned, Ed Hardy-wearing motley crew of ill repute. That's right, I fucking love Jersey Shore.

Now I know that you, assumed loyal reader and friend, are wondering why a person reeking of cynicism and feminism would support such a vapid entertainment outlet. So hear me out.

It takes a lot of guts to admit you've fucked someone. It takes serious balls to air your dirty laundry in public. It doesn't matter if everyone wants to hear it, or no one does. Imagine if all your weakest moments were videotaped. Imagine if everyone knew you slept with your roommate, and heard your drunken outbursts, and saw your naked breasts as you writhed in a hot tub.

Now, imagine if you didn't give a shit.

This is where the brilliance of this superficial social experiment comes in. 

I love the people on Jersey Shore because they're not attempting to be anything. They're not pretending their tits are real or their storylines are genuine. The whole experience of the show is so contrived that it goes past artificial and somehow comes back to real. We can see past what everyone expects them to do; yet when they do it, we don't blame them. We can't. We created them. They are the manifestation of all the dumbest, purest things we desire. We want sex and tequila and expensive sunglasses covered in rhinestones. The stupidest part is that we deny it.

That's not to say that I'm going to go douse myself in spray tan and bedazzle some crop tops. The greatest part about entertainment is that it can remain just that. I can watch empty people make out and make tons of money, and it really has no effect on who I am or who I will be. It's just oddly comforting that there's a group of people out there, charged with doing nothing but living out the ridiculously selfish fantasies of my generation, and I can watch them make the thousand mistakes I've made. They're not ashamed. And maybe I shouldn't be, either.

2010's douchebag of the universe!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about egotism and vanity. I've realized lately that I don't personally find selfishness that offensive - but only if it's self-aware selfishness. Only if it's selfishness that someone owns and is very clear about. You want to abandon your roommates in the middle of the night without having paid rent for three months? Sleep with someone for a promotion? Do it. Just admit that you're a self-centered asshole. Deep down, we're all kind of terrible, but we're not self-disparaging enough to outwardly proclaim it. Thus, I have a lot of respect for people who know they're shitheads and have no problem letting the world know.

As such, I believe narcissism under the guise of charity is a capital sin. Let me introduce you to 2010's Douchebag of the Universe.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or twenty-five, which is about the number of words in his vocabulary.

This guy, whom I'll call the Simian, is a self-proclaimed "social media superstar," a "model" and a "promoter." Technically, he might be all of these things. He has nearly 5000 Facebook friends, a collection of photographs in various states of undress, and he hosts nights at Boston clubs. But more than anything, he is a vain, superficial, greasy, deluded moron who sells makeup on the internet and thinks he has the right to tell other people that they're ugly.

On his website, he touts the e-book of his "rise to glory" from suburban upper-middle-class friendless loser to club rat that hangs out with walking piles of hair extensions. Since I don't want to subject you to the inanity (I read it and nearly lost my lunch as well as my will to live), I'll sum it up for you: He was fat. He didn't kiss anyone until he was 17. He worked at a bank. He went on MySpace.

"This is where I made a decision. I decided I wanted it all. I wanted the girls in the pictures, I wanted the abs, I wanted the money, the cars, the flashing lights, and I wanted to be right in the middle of all of it. This is where my world got flipped upside down."

What an existential crisis! Honda Civics and glitter graphics are so inspiring! So how was he going to achieve his dream of material satisfaction?

"I figured the most logical way to get something that I really wanted was to observe and mimic the people who already had it."

Brilliant plan of attack, troglodyte. Brilliant. I mean it. He was at the very least smart enough to realize that he will never have the insight or prowess to fashion himself as a unique person. Instead, he nicknamed himself "Hollywood," (though I doubt he'd ever been there by that time), bought a lot of vests, and has landed somewhere between being a juicehead and a motivational speaker. He hawks his brand with the panache of a satisfied client on a Hair Club for Men commercial; hurling epigrams about how feeling good is looking good and taking every available opportunity to compare women to cars.

He uses his internet presence to tell everyone what he's about, which is essentially nothing. Positivity! Hot chicks and money! You're not rich because you're not working hard enough!

Still, women kiss his ass. For every banal, shallow observation about how everything he does is right and everything everyone else does is wrong, there are eight bimbos cooing about funny and wise he is. It goes without saying that these are the kind of women who are the human personifications of herpes, and are guaranteed to have fake breasts, nails, hair, tans, or all of the above. They tend to have even less substance than the men who are so desperate to fuck them.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are always about having a "positive attitude" and "achieving their dreams" are the people who have absolutely nothing under the surface? They're also the same people who don't watch the news, don't care about political issues, and claim to like all kinds of music. I guess it's really easy to be positive all the time when you spend your time not reading or attempting to contribute anything to society.

I have the consolation of knowing that in 20 years, this dipshit will be wearing Sears suits and selling used cars, but it still unnerves me that there are legions of dumb broads in America, swarming around men like him and their giant heads. It irritates the absolute shit out of me that anybody in the world thinks he's an authority on ANYTHING. But what irks me most of all is that he has the nerve to claim that he's "helping people". Here's a recent Facebook comment, full of self-deprecation and modesty:

"Do you know about the countless hours I've spent helping hopeless teenagers actually have a social life, get attention from women, change their image, have FRIENDS? Without asking for ANYTHING in return?"

Oh yes, you are an endless foundation of philanthropy! The world thanks you for your generous donation of hypocritical comments on other people's lives! You're the front-runner to win the Nobel Prize; they just made a new category for being a fucking self-absorbed worthless piece of shit! Everybody knows you're only helping your dick and your bottom line; just get over yourself.