The Apprent-ass

I love Hollywood logic. It stinks like a pound of fish in a dumpster covered with a homeless man's urine on an August afternoon in New York.

Reality TV “stars” (and I use the term star with as much reverence, application, and value as those in porn who call themselves the same) burn through their 15 minutes of fame seemingly quicker than anyone else, but thankfully Playboy is there to slow the clock down. These glorified game contestants will do anything to have some fame, or keep what little they have going, and they have no shame in doing so. Take this Trump show reject for example...

A few years ago, Kristine Lefebvre was diagnosed with cervical cancer, the postscript to two years of infertility treatments and two miscarriages. She underwent a radical hysterectomy, but as she tells any media outlet who took the time to ask, had a period where she questioned her womanhood and wondered whether or not she’d be able to please her husband again. Her spread in Playboy is the liberating affirmation of her confidence and the will to inspire others. To get implants. And be airbrushed more than a t-shirt on the Venice boardwalk.

I know I’m a bastard picking on this helpless, hapless cancer survivor who had no avenue but a venerable girly mag to turn to for self esteem and confidence, but I’m calling bullshit on that. Kristine must not have paid too much attention in her health class in junior high, because even I know that the uterus and cervix are not the key components to pleasing a man – you’ve got lots of other parts. If she was in an industrial accident where her breasts were caught in a combine, both hands were severed, and every orifice had some heavy duty coagulant sealing it shut perhaps then I might think she should worry about it, but there’s still a world full of fetishists and amputee pervs who’d still dig her. Maybe she ought to read that Carmen Electra book...

“I want people who have gone through what I’ve gone through to realize they’re still a whole person,” she said. “I hope there’s one woman out there who has had breast cancer and is willing to go back into her lingerie drawer and pull out that lace bra - not to make her husband or her boyfriend feel good but to make herself feel good.”

You didn’t have breast cancer. You didn’t have reconstructive surgery to reshape yourself so that you did not look asymmetrical. You’re not even trying to be emblematic of women who had the same cancer ordeal. You are trying to sell me on your choice on the justification of inspiration but I’m not buying. Especially not when I know the other reason.

“I will be using some of my Playboy money to get a surrogate so we can have our little frozen babies turn into the real thing.”

Oh, I see.

Look, women get naked all the time, but spinning it into some highbrow tale of redemption from sickness and depression is not only a lie, but impugning real survivor’s tales of triumph, small and great. Kristine Lefebvre is not an everyday hero. She’s an opportunist who lost on a game show but got a second chance at zeitgeist showing her tits, and let’s be clear it’s not anything else but.