By Steve Almond
During an early episode of Rock of Love Bus (RoLB), the latest installment of VH1’s reality-TV franchise, the former Poison front man Bret Michaels takes four of his prospective soul mates on a "special date" — to a strip club called Big Al’s.
The girls are hooted onstage to perform, but one of them, Beverly, refuses to shake her moneymaker for the assembled mob. A confused Bret takes Beverly aside to find out what’s wrong. "I’ve got three kids at home and honestly I’m worried about what their friends are going to see," she tells him.
As the father of two daughters, Bret assures Beverly that he understands. To the TV audience, he takes a slightly different tack. "I’m not asking her to do anything she doesn’t wanna do," he explains earnestly, "but right now, I gotta be honest: she’s being a little bit of a buzz kill."
Those unfamiliar with the charms of RoLB — whose finale airs this Sunday, April 11, on VH1 — might expect this to be the moral nadir of the episode. They would be wrong.
A few minutes later, we are treated to an interview with another of his dates, a troubled soul named Brittaney. "I’m not ashamed that I was a producer and director of porn. What I did was, you know, empower women," she informs us, apropos of nothing. "It’s not that I’m ashamed of my past," she adds, her voice now cracking. "But it’s in the past and now I’m a different person. I want to have a family."
The images being flashed on-screen during this heartfelt confession include a drunken Brittaney writhing on her back and simulating sex acts with another stripper. Ah, the rituals of courtship on VH1! You must expose your heart and your labia.
But I bring all this up not simply to deride the molten and shameless exploitation of the reality-TV genre. That's pretty much its bread and butter. No, what fascinates me about this season's RoLB is that it has shattered the barrier between mainstream television and the porn industry.
I should preface this by noting that I've watched all three editions of Rock of Love, online no less. (I could blame this on my wife, who watches the program religiously. The truth, as we shall see, is more damning.)
Some quick context, then. The inaugural season of Rock of Love offered the sort-of-believable-for-reality-TV premise that Bret Michaels — one-time heavy metal heartthrob turned middle-aged hair-extender — was looking for true love. VH1 rounded up twenty-five women, put them in a mansion with free booze, and let the cameras roll. Back in those innocent days, the "bad girl" was Heather — a professional stripper! She lost out in the end to designated "good girl" Jess.
This is how the producers tend to orchestrate things on RoL. They set up showdowns between "good girls" (who don't work in the sex industry) and "bad girls" (who do). Bret chooses the "good girl" in the end, which helps foster the illusion — so crucial to the entire reality-TV genre — that the star is truly seeking love, rather than pimping a sagging career.
This illusion has been tossed out the window on RoLB. Bret mouths a few platitudes about "getting to know" the girls, as he kisses and gropes and beds them. But there's no real feeling on the show. It is, in this sense, eerily like a porn film. This should come as no great surprise, given that nearly half of this season's cast are sex workers. Here's how sad it is: when the insufferable Taya claims, "I'm a centerfold model for Penthouse, and I'm the classiest one here," she's right.
Of course, shows like RoL are designed to bring out the worst in people. But this year's version, lacking even a hint of eroticism, has relied on physical and emotional violence for drama. The highlight of most episodes is a physical altercation between two women, which is replayed a minimum of six times, usually in slow motion. In this sense, the program has managed to channel the dark heart of most hetero porn, which is not about the pleasures of physical congress, but the sexual humiliation of women. RoLB — along with its skeezy brethren — offers viewers the inherent sadism of porn, minus the stigma. Instead of watching young, emotionally unstable women straddling cocks, we watch them digging through dumpsters, writhing in mud, punching each other, and vomiting in hotel rooms. Think of it as spiritual bukkake.
For years, of course, the adult industry has been looking for ways to infiltrate mainstream culture, where the big advertising dollars are. Reality TV has simply proved the best available beachhead. Not only has it become a developmental league for porn stars — several RoL alums have used their platform to venture into porn — but producers have been quick to pounce on ideas that exploit the allure of porn. Perhaps the most brazen example is My Bare Lady, a British show in which four porn stars are given formal training for the stage and forced to compete.
But just as reality TV has embraced the tropes of porn, so, too, has porn sought a reality makeover. Gone are the stilted scripts and nurse costumes. For some years now, porn's been dominated by low-budget "gonzo" productions, in which the idea is to stage sex scenes as if they were being conducted spontaneously by "amateurs" — that guy in the van who just happens to roll with his camera man, and that anorexic chick in the parking lot who just happens to have breasts the size of small babies and no gag reflex. Even the Adult Video News has had to acknowledge the rise of reality porn, by adding two new categories to its annual awards: Best Amateur Tape and Best Amateur Series.
There are two questions looming over all this. The first is why women like my wife watch shows that are so degrading to women. I could tender a bunch of excuses here. (Noting, for instance, that my wife is a former hair-metal chick.) But the truth is a bit darker. I think women are reacting to the pornification of the culture at large, the absurd and enraging pressure women feel to disfigure their bodies — via surgery or starvation — for approval. And the growing sense that their only cultural power resides in their sexuality.
When my wife watches RoLB, most of what she feels is a kind of gratifying disgust. She enjoys watching the contestants claw at each other and weep on camera. They represent the most degraded aspects of our culture — and of herself.
The irony, of course, is that she’s just feeding the beast. As the message boards fill up mostly female viewers railing against the female contestants, it's the producers and advertisers (oh, and Bret of course) who are laughing all the way to the bank. With very little overhead or imagination, and an almost impressive absence of human decency, they've managed to create the hottest girl-on-girl action around.
But what about me, Mr. Judgmental. Why, given my obvious contempt for RoL, do I watch the show? My motivation is even sadder, frankly. It’s certainly not for the sexual turn-on. No, what I get off on is the fantasy of absolute masculine dominion. Lame as he might be, Bret Michaels has a harem of women who will do whatever he asks.
Reality TV producers like to claim that they’re peddling the dream of "true love." But for male viewers, they’re peddling the ultimate porno fairytale, a world in which women exist merely to debase themselves for their man. If they had any guts they’d cut the bullshit and just go all the way. Here’s what I’d like to see: a show called "American Porn Star," in which women (and men!) compete for a contract with Vivid Video by performing sex acts for celebrity judges and viewers at home. I might feel guilty watching such a show, but at least I’d be getting off on sex, rather than hate.
Previously:
