Slackers and Swingers

I've been looking back at notations on things that caught my attention just long enough to get a passing note in my day book. One from New Year's Eve really does deserve follow-up.

I don't know how, but there it was, another "reality" tv show that has no business being: Real Virgins. The first item featured a 31-year-old male. "Man" just seems too generous a word. He was with his fiancee, and they were planning their wedding. Their boast, on tv? That they have never even kissed each other on the lips yet, their love is so pure. That first, somewhat consummating, kiss will come just after the minister says "I now pronounce you husband and wife."

31 years old, and he claims he's never kissed any woman on the mouth. He is either a liar, or a fool. I hope he gets a massive testosterone booster shot as a wedding gift--to or from his wife-to-be. She makes the parallel claim, by the way, and looks somewhat past sweet sixteen.

They are maybe among the most frightened so-called adults I've ever heard of, or among the most weirdly "moral" idiots on the face of the planet. In fact, I'm not sure what to think of this kind of "morality." In one way, it's none of my business what two consenting adults do not get up to in the privacy of their separate bedrooms. But they did go on television (okay, so on cable) to proclaim their mutual silliness. They actually did offer it up for the delight (entertainment) and profit (education and edification) of the less moral, less strictly disciplined sinners among us.

I mean, yes, every "first time" is its own set of revelations, in my own humbling experience, and anticipation has been part of the revelation, but really...

I just hope they are not hugely disappointed in each others' physical ignorance and fumblings on their wedding night. And I hope that if they are disappointed, they don't turn that popgun peep show of Lilliputian proportions into their next twelve minutes of fame (or that I'm tuned into a program on cajun alligator hunting or some other more profitable pastime when they do).

Then again, is their celebration of their lack of experience any worse than the narcissism of couples who hire porno producers to film them at their pleasure? Or who invite company to the consummation, to keep it exciting?

Slackers and swingers: the extremes that help to define the abundantly average.