craveonline

This is my confession, my shameful secret.  I’ve run from it for too long and now it’s time to own up: I am addicted to VH1’s “Rock of Love”, starring Bret Michaels of Poison.

I love everything about it.  I love the overuse of every dating reality show cliché.  I love the way they flagrantly and unapologetically make other people’s lives into an object for mockery.  I love the way almost every episode devolves into a drunken orgy or impromptu strip show.

I even love the fact that each new episode premieres at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning.

But when I’m sitting on the couch each week, nursing a hangover, eating left-over Chinese food and watching “Rock of Love” while the good people of the world are in church, I can’t help but feel that somehow my life has gone horribly wrong.

In a way, that’s part of the genius of “Rock of Love”.  The premise of the show – a gaggle of strippers, bartenders, and internet porn actresses vie for the love and affection of ex-Poison frontman Bret Michaels, while being eliminated one at a time – is so absurd and overdone that we’re not encouraged by the show’s producers to take it at all seriously.

This is a joke, the silly music and comical cutaways tell us, but it’s a joke that’s being played on the viewers as well as the participants. 

These women may be degrading themselves on TV by having phone sex with Michaels or dressing up in ridiculous outfits and making out for his entertainment, but we’re the ones watching it.  At least, I am.  And chances are I’m not the only one.

This brings me to the heart of my question.  Does liking “Rock of Love” mean something is wrong with me? 

I’d like to think of myself as an intelligent and compassionate person, and yet here I am each week, eagerly anticipating what new depths these girls will sink to in order to get close to, of all people, Bret Michaels (so Vince Neil was busy, then?).

If you haven’t been following the show, I can’t even begin to tell you what you’ve missed.  My words can’t do justice to contestants like Heather, a stripper who doesn’t seem to own a single article of clothing that covers her entire torso.  She also got Bret’s name tattooed on her neck, such is her devotion to him.

I can’t describe Lacey, a she-devil of a woman who takes pride in manipulating everyone around her until finally being kicked off the show despite allegedly, um, servicing Bret for much of her stay in the house.

There are times when I’m watching “Rock of Love” and I can’t figure out whether it’s one of the best reality shows or one of the worst.  It’s as if the producers of the show are mad at me for continuing to support this stuff, and they way they’ve decided to get even is to give me everything I claim to want until I choke on it.

It’s as if I’m the kid who gets caught smoking and is forced to smoke until he gets sick.  Only I’m not getting sick.  I’m just getting desensitized.  My tolerance is becoming greater.  Whatever comes after “Rock of Love” will have to be more absurd and depraved just to register on my crappy reality show radar.

Shows like “Rock of Love” and “Flavor of Love” and “I Love New York” (wait, is there a pattern developing here?) are cashing in on our collective desire to see people’s personality defects laid bare. 

It gives us license to laugh at them because they willingly signed up for it, and this late into the reality TV show game none of them can claim ignorance as to how the show would later be edited to “make them look” as a defense.  After all, Lacey, they didn’t make you chug that Jägermeister.

“Rock of Love” makes me think that reality shows are the gladiatorial games of the modern era.  That’s where we get our daily dose of human suffering at a safe distance, and there are enough perceived differences between ourselves and the participants for us to feel good about it afterwards.

It’s also what makes me think that every decision in my life must have been wrong in order for me to end up every Sunday morning, so far from God, watching half-naked sluts fawn over a washed-up hair band singer. 

But what can I say.  I love it, this TV pain and degradation.  I guess if I were Roman I would have been right there at the Coliseum, chanting for blood and a loaf of bread.  At least now I’ve admitted it.  And I don’t have to tell you where I’ll be this Sunday morning.  Hint: it won’t be in church.