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present - when we are physically separated by a screen from the fantasy playing out before us - we can create that mental divide that makes the sanity-defying, stereotype-rich, sexist behavior entertaining.

And that, that is how reality TV reflects reality. Because in our current reality, where we openly discuss pornography but pitch hissy fits when part of a breast is exposed during the Super Bowl half-time show which typically gains its viewers with the promise of breasts, whether they be the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders' or Janet Jackson's, we want to have our fantasies and mock them, too. We want to write in our blogs about the idiocy of Heidi and Spencer, because of course we're all so much more intelligent than they are, and how could they be so bland, and thank the heavens we understand irony and have such fantastically hilarious senses of humor, but we also want Ray J. to give us a name so we can prove ourselves to him. Because there's a part in all of us who cares nothing for quick turns of phrase and the New York Times, who thinks, I would be such a better choice. If I were on this show, I would so win. We want to be on that tour bus, embarrassing music career and plastic surgery and hair extensions and all, because if Bret effing Michaels can get girls to act like animals over him, why not us? We don't even wear that much makeup. This kind of television allows us to indulge our darkest desires, the ones to do with power and control and really, come on, sex, while still maintaining a veneer of social acceptability, a veneer equipped with enough sense and an appreciation for the tongue-in-cheek that allows us to laugh and point mocking finger to mask just how accurately Flava Flav's soliloquies on life and love echo the things that reside in the deepest recesses of our dark, ironic, Tolstoy-reading, breast-loving, catfight-watching hearts.

Learn more about this author, Andie McCoyd.
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