Real Chance of Smut.

Reality television may be virtual cotton candy and Baconators for the brain, the pinnacle of mind-rotting entertainment of today's day and age, but nothing compares to reality dating shows - in terms of ridiculousness, trashiness, and (contradictorily) UNrealistic behavior. But the big question is: which is the most ridiculous, the most trashy, the most DEMEANING? Here are the top three contenders:

(Disclaimer: I am well aware that 97% of these shows are staged and/or fictitious.)

Real Chance of Love

This shit personifies the all-purpose axiom "Bros Before Hoes." The first episode is definitely the most demeaning, the one in which all the skanks scramble to be chosen by the brother of their choice - or their second choice if need be. Chance is disrespectful enough on his own, as if the weird ass challenges don't make it bad enough. There is literally no limit to the girls' sexploitation of themselves on this show. They even got tattoos. And Chance didn't even pick anyone. Ha.

Paris Hilton's My New BFF

Although this technically isn't a dating show, the contestants suck Paris' dick enough for it to be considered one. They all "love" her, and make it well-known. When does admiration of a celebrity transcend into the love embodied in an honest friendship? What did they admire about her in the first place, that compelled them to take off months from work to compete for her frail, no-assed BFFship? Was it her limp fish sex tape? Her drab, monotone, "That's Hot" voice? She calls her potential BFFs "pets," does no one find anything wrong about that? How about the way she sits at an awkward distance during eliminations, with a tiara on her peanut head? It screams "I'm better than you, I just need someone to give me pedicures and make me peanut butter crackers." Paris passes judgment on every single one of these girls (and gays), nit-picking through a crop of desperate losers to weed out her optimal new BFF. Nicole Ritchie was the only bitch Paris was really meant to be with. Too bad Nicole has babies galore to worry about now.

Flavor Of Love 1, 2, and 3/I Love New York 1 and 2

The things these motherfuckers endured for a chance to be with some of God's ugliest designs. Tsk. Tsk. Every kiss on any of these five shows killed me slowly. And painfully.

All Hail Homophobia?

It's been months, maybe years, since I have gone a day without hearing "no homo." It's become second nature to heterosexual men, and even women, to ensure that nothing about their statements are taken to be GAY.

I went to see Bruno recently, and although pretty much everything Sasha Baron Cohen did was over the top, I recognized his goal in certain parts of the movie. He did a pretty good job of revealing the hatred and discrimination in ordinary people. Don't get me wrong, it was gross of him to eat an invisible ass, but take the wrestling scene into consideration. An entire crowd of people went bananas when Bruno, as a wrestler, started doing gay shit with the other guy. Slurs were shouted and shit was thrown like it was nothing. It was like these people's first instinct to try to harm anything moving that showed signs of homosexuality. Bruno's gay antics even caused person after person to walk out of the theater, and presumably get their money back.

The hatred is hypocritical though - try to envision the same scene with two attractive women. No chairs would whiz past their heads as they made out with each other. Shouts of "FAG" would be replaced by horny hooplah. Women are sexed up in the lesbian community, whereas gay men are mostly shunned, or turned into some sort of comic relief a la B. Scott on YouTube.

No straight guy I know would admit to liking the movie Brokeback Mountain, even if it was a legitimate love story. But there's absolutely nothing wrong in liking Wild Things.

We don't want to recognize gayness. We try our best not to acknowledge it. It's still considered "unnatural" and "wrong" by a lot of people, despite its lack of malevolence. Very rarely does a person's sexual life and preferences speak to their character, straight or gay. The gay community continues to get the short end of many sticks, most notably when it comes to marriage. It would make too many people upset and uncomfortable, but why?

The Last Will and Testament of a Cynical Bitch.

Every connection begins with an attraction, whether it be to humor, personality, shoes, or the fact that someone is the sexiest light-skinned swag-surfing motherfucker you've ever seen in the club.

Like ballroom dancing, someone always has to lead. Someone has to be more "pressed" than his or her counterpart. And like Saw I, II, III, IV, and V, games MUST be played. We play on the attractions we experience - flirting a little too hard by making joke after joke, spending hours to get ready just to make your sexiness seem effortless, getting involved in a subject you know your mate is passionate about, and the list goes on. Games are played whether we intend to play them or not, because partaking in these games is the only way we know how to define the delicate balance between being a "loser" and being a "winner" in potentially romantic situations, not realizing that there is no legitimate competition to win or lose at in the first place.

We've become so acclimated to playing games that many of us don't know a relationship without them. Think about the dumb things we do: text other people some eyebrow-raising shit and then "delete" with the swiftness to cover our tracks, search through your significant other's phone to unearth some dirt that you want to catch them in before they catch you, give certain degrees of the silent treatment to forge some impromptu game of tug-of-war in which you try to alter the amount given and received as far as the relationship goes, and again, the list goes on. Amidst all these games, we've forgotten how to have healthy relationships - and that's if we ever knew how to in the first place. We're too busy arguing about irrelevant issues, focusing on menial facts, and manipulating situations to work out preferably to us, that we neglect to nurture what may be the seeds to some fruitful union. Yeah, I know it sounds gay, but it's only because we've thickened our skin and become immune to this thing old people refer to as "romance." It does exist, but in vastly tainted quantities.

We must revive our appreciation of one another. Everyone has flaws, but the primary fatal flaw is failing to treat one's partner as if they are indispensable. In life, as we grow up, there aren't any people we literally need to survive, but plenty that are conducive to our happiness. The person that provides that happiness in a fashion that is exclusively catered to you, is someone worth keeping around. The guy or girl who lies, cheats, and plays around, all while claiming they possess this need or love for you, is a phony version, a Coach bag with G's instead of C's.

I'm half bad-ass, half scaredy-cat. I can barely tread water, but I'll go in 8 feet with just a skimp ass floatie. When someone comes along and coaxes me into releasing that floatie, I no longer have control. Whether or not I drown is entirely dependent on the way HE feels. And boys have proven to me that 9 times out of 10, for them, emotions are optional. There is some elusive on/off switch that seems to exist solely in the minds and hearts of the penised persuasion. I want to believe in the Cinderella story, and therefore tend to squint my eyes at times in order to skew my vision of a non-Prince Charming.

I feel like I never meet anyone remotely close to being my idea of a suitable mate. The few times I do get excited, my levels of GLEE are inevitably slaughtered by buckets upon buckets of buffoonery and disappointment. It's rare that I develop a bond with a guy that is all at once strong, undeniable, and in a position to thrive and flourish. It's hard to keep a chokehold on my hope, so it occasionally escapes the grasp of my better judgment, and I get all happy and hopeful over some motherfucker that doesn't deserve two milliseconds of daydream time from me. Sexy light-skinned bun in the club? Yeah, caught my attention, but none of my hyper-puppy-excited-tail-wagging, because in my mind I have it already thought out that he will never be what I actually want in life. He's too busy swooning every half-bad chick in the club to ever really pay me any substantial attention.

So this light-skinned bun has proven himself thus far to be much greater than my expectations, but I still don't want to believe it. He take me to work, folds my clothes and makes my bed, buys me TNT poppers from the liquor store, texts me the entire night as he's at work, yadda yadda yadda, but why don't I believe it's for real? When he tells me we have great chemistry, why do I doubt him, when I feel exactly the same way? Every time we wake and bake, every time we kiss goodbye (which is never "goodbye" for long), every time we laugh hard as shit at something retarded - why do I feel sad, like this is guaranteed to be an uber ephemeral phase in my young "love" life? I want to keep him around, but am surprisingly non-confident in how bad he'd like to keep me around. I know guys are notorious for dropping bitches like a ton of bricks. I only weigh 120. I don't want to meet that fate....again. He tells me to leave the past shit in the past, and I try my darndest to do just that. I want to have regenerated hopes for each new rendezvous. But it's like laptop memory. Over time, with use, it just decreases and decreases.

I like him a lot, and I don't want to be cynical anymore. I can't always live up to the persona of this character I've created for myself. My voice when I write speaks deep down from the bitter, forlorn, heartbroken, angry little Asian girl inside. Whenever I write a note, I get the IMs, the messages, the wall posts - "You have really bad luck with guys." Or, "You meet a lot of jerks." Or even, "I hope one day you'll find someone worthwhile." Of course I exaggerate when I write, but when it comes down to it, my shit actually is really SAD. Sometimes funny, but mostly sad as shit. I don't expect him to be my future husband and/or babydaddy, but maybe just this time I can have a happy ending. At least one that doesn't result in me egging his house.