Roy may be a recovering sex addict (he cops to "compulsively looking at Internet porn, Internet hookup sites, phone sex, multiple Internet identities on sites such as Adam 4 Adam, intrigue with straight men, flirtation, oral sex with straight-identified men, manipulation, and lying"), but he's also an engaging writer, and he seems winkingly aware of the LOLworthiness of his entire piece. As a director, he says he was initially uncomfortable being the "talent" on Sex Rehab, or, as he puts it, "the meat in this particular pie." Dr. Drew, meet Sweeney Todd.

While Drew may not be a demon barber, he is, according to Roy, pretty much a charlatan. Roy writes,

It was immediately apparent that while Drew may be an astounding drug and alcohol specialist, he knows very little, or anything, about the precise science of sex addiction. More disturbingly, he does not believe in God, which is a fundamental prerequisite to any 12-step program. (He admitted to me that he is an atheist.)

Drew apparently simply parroted the "thoughts and insights" of sex therapist Jill Vermeire, whose breasts, Roy notes, "fit snugly in duchess satin shifts." Unlike Roy, I don't begrudge Drew his atheism, but since the good doctor has been a main culprit behind the ridiculous proliferation of narcissism trend pieces, I was pretty gratified to read that "it comes as no surprise that Drew writes about narcissism because he genuinely wrestles with his own."

Some of Roy's revelations, while sordid, aren't particularly surprising. He writes,

First, I found out that all of the women on the show-Jennie Ketcham (the porn star), Nicole Narain (the Playboy playmate), Amber Smith (the model), Kari Ann Peniche (the former beauty queen), and Kendra Jade (the former porn actress)-had been wrangled and represented by a man named David Weintraub. He turns out to be a reptilian creature feeding off of the demi-fame of people like Sean Stewart, Rod's wayward son, who had been on a season of Celebrity Rehab.

And:

The Weintraub revelation shook me because I understood with sickening clarity that the women might not be on the show for the same reasons as I was. That they might not have any desire for sexual sobriety. That I might be part of a huge pantomime.

And, most hilariously:

The other disturbing fact was that James Lovett, a professional surfer, had been paid a huge amount of money to wear named products. Hence he wore socks on his hands and odd shoes, as every logo he wore would be logged and for that he would be reimbursed.

You mean ... reality shows are often masterminded by unsavory characters, and their casts often include women who have made careers out of being hot? And some of these women might appear on the show to acquire fame and notoriety, and not out of a genuine desire for self-improvement? What's the world coming to? Still, one aspect of Roy's article seems like nothing short of a miracle: as a result of the show, he actually got better. After a breakthrough in therapy, Roy found that he "could make different sexual choices in the future, ones that did not include recreating situations I had suffered with my stepfather when I was a child." The only obstacle, of course, was his newfound reality-show fame. Roy writes that "in Trader Joe's, people smile knowingly" and that "only yesterday, a gorgeous, straight 25-year-old man came right up to me and offered to give me the sexual equivalent of an 8-ball" (what exactly would that be?).

Roy's essay discusses two diagnoses du jour — narcissism and sex addiction. It also seems to illustrate two sides of Roy's personality — the serious patient disgusted at becoming reality-TV "meat," and the man comfortable enough with fame to write a Daily Beast article about it. Roy says his persona on Sex Rehab was that of "12-step anthropologist," but he might have more in common with the average reality show viewer — or, perhaps, the slightly self-conscious reality show viewer who tells himself he's watching "ironically." On the one hand, Roy disdains everything about Sex Rehab, from Dr. Drew to his fellow contestant with the socks on his hands. On the other, he clearly got something out the experience. Like our Self-Conscious Reality Show Viewer, he got a feeling of superiority. Of course, he also got something else that the Viewer can't really hope to achieve: healing. Despite Roy's claim that "we helped a few" ordinary people with the show, it's safe to say that when we watch reality TV, the best we can really hope for mental-health-wise is to break even.

Image via VH1.

Is Dr. Drew A Phony? [Daily Beast]

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams writes that "it was a big freaking deal when Rob Lowe had a romp with underage girls or Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee enjoyed connubial bliss," but that after the creepy night-vision of "1 Night in Paris," the cultural relevance of the sex tape began to wane. She explains,

With each new revelation of a dirty video lurking in a famous closet, the shock at the genre itself dies a little more. Had honeymoon movies of J.Lo emerged when she married her ex in 1997, it might have been a cause célèbre. Now? Big whoop. The explicit sex tape and the compromising photo are no longer potential career ruiners, nor are they the hallmark of a wild, anything-goes character — not when so many of us, famous and not, have been there and done that. It's a fair assumption that if there aren't explicit images of you floating around somewhere, you may not have a sex life. Or a phone.

It's true that it's hard to imagine one of the main tragedies of Trainspotting — Tommy's life is basically destroyed after he and his girlfriend make a sex tape — taking place today. And Prejean's incriminating solo footage seems like less a source of humiliation and more a serendipitous — or even savvy — book-tour booster. But perhaps the most telling evidence of the sex tape's incipient passe-itude is the fact that Us Weekly is now linking it to yet another stale and overexposed cultural phenomenon: armchair diagnoses of narcissism.

Sex expert Dr. Jenn Berman tells the tabloid that people who make sex tapes "like the spotlight. You may have some narcissistic tendencies, and you're more likely to have an exhibitionist side." Therapist Rhonda Findling, author of the no doubt edifying Don't Call That Man!, adds that such folk "are naive and in denial," and that sex-tapery "should be considered self-destructive." But if you must film yourself fucking someone, she says, choose "somebody you can trust, who doesn't have a track record of being deceitful or damaging other people's careers or being manipulative." Sage advice: when making a sex tape, try to pick a partner who has not sold any sex tapes before. Findling also recommends "a contract or a letter of agreement beforehand saying you can't release it." Hot.

I guess the message for young people today is: go ahead and make sex tapes if you feel like it. Probably no one will give a shit. Of course, if you get caught "sexting" while in high school, you might get accused of child pornography or thrown off the cheerleading squad. Because for everyone who claims there's no hysteria left surrounding a particular sexual practice, there's somebody ready to fan those hysteria-flames right back up to bonfire levels — or just to pick a slightly new practice to freak out about. So while sex tapes may now be the province of tired trend pieces featuring questionable experts, the next rainbow party is just around the corner, and our appetite for sex is matched only by our desire to judge others for having it.

The Celebrity Sex Tape Jumps The Shark [Salon]
Expert: Stars Make Sex Tapes Because They're "Narcissistic" [Us Weekly]

Says one of Aleksander's youthful friends of her particular CM, "Rarely do I hang up the phone with her and feel comforted. Usually, I feel anxiety and paralysis about the decisions that I need to make to avoid everything she warns me about." The Cautionary Matron is all about soul-baring, stories of disillusionment, failed relationships, the realities of marriage, the hazards of staying single. They write essays and books and star in sitcoms, and their message is: the reality's not all it's cracked up to be.

Aleksander interviews both a number of these professional confessors, as well as the younger women they've traumatized. Says writer Sandra Tsing Loh, who wrote memorably about her disillusionment with marriage, she and her ilk are moved to bare their souls,

I think because we're really surprised! In our 20s, the world was totally our oyster. All those fights had been fought. We weren't going to be '50s housewives, we were in college, we could pick and choose from a menu of careers, and there were all these interesting guys out there not like our dads. We were smart women who had a lot of options and made intelligent choices and that's why we're writing these pieces. We're shocked!...It must be very confusing...We were the protégés of old-guard feminists: ‘Don't have a baby, or if you must, have one, wait till your 40s.' We were sold more of a mission plan and now you guys … Well, sadly, it all seems like kind of a mess. There is no mission. Even stay-at-home moms feel unsuccessful unless they're canning their own marmalade and selling it on the Internet. You just have a bunch of drunk, depressed 45-year-old ladies going, ‘A-BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!'"

And, eulogizes one of the author's friends,

They are the first generation of women who were presented with choices...I think they are in the process of reflecting on a half-century of existence and are realizing that ‘having it all' was really a lie. Sometimes I think the idea of ‘having it all' can almost be more disempowering than ‘having it all' because one is never allowed enough time or energy to excel in one area of their life.

So, is this the way of the world? Are things really so bleak? And are we in a creepy, antagonistic us-and-them relationship with women half a generation older? Sometimes it seems that way. After all, why are these writers bent on saying all this, sharing all this, imparting this "advice?" Part of it's the natural instinct towards sharing and guiding, I really do believe. But I also think there's something else at work. This isn't really about helping people make better choices. It's not really about other women at all. Rather, it's about themselves. The same people thought they were fascinating and representative in their 20s, and nothing has changed as their lives have followed a course that wasn't novel when Flaubert and Tolstoy took it on in the 19th century. There was always disillusionment. There was always age. And there was always youth, just not openly deified. Sometimes today it seems like every generation wants to co-opt youth. Our parents did it - never again would Youth Culture match theirs. Now we're being told we'd better not even compete with those a few years older; these few writers have done youth, and it's overrated. If they can't have it, it sometimes seems, no one can.

So. If there's one lesson I think we can learn from this spate of self-congratulatory self-flagellation, I'd say it's not about when you marry or who you marry or whether or not you have kids. At the end of the day, each of these stories is personal and particular and it's the assumption of smug, knowing universality that's most annoying. Because what can you say? As writer Lori Gottlieb tells Aleksander, when younger women don't want to hear these hard truths,

I think it's part denial and part arrogance. I get it because I used to be that way in my 20s. I wanted the fairy tale. I thought that I deserved to have it, that it was my inalienable right! So that's the arrogance, and the denial is that they simply can't acknowledge that they, too, could become these older regretful women who wished they knew what was important in love earlier on. We're not envious-we're wiser.

Hey, she's the one who used the word "arrogance."

First of all, I don't think these women represent their generation, married women, anything. If I were their age, I think I'd quite resent being painted as a disillusioned, embittered casualty of idealism. These are squeaky wheels, and, dare I say it, narcissists who assume that their experiences must be universal. No one objected to Elizabeth Wurtzel's bizarre Elle I-hate-aging piece because we couldn't handle what she was dishing out, but because it was pretty clear her priorities, which she presented as universal, didn't speak for the rest of us. We weren't weirded out by Gottlieb's "Marry Him!" essay in the Atlantic because it burst our ideological bubble, but because it seemed flatly contradicted by so much reality.

And, assuming she is representative, what does Gottlieb want? For younger women to accept her words as law, throw in the towel, have kids/never have kids/settle/not settle and all-around admit that our lives are bound for disappointment? The piece is rife with young women getting depressed by their elders' gloomy prognostications. But, really, this violates every tenet of youth, and I don't really see how it would help anyone, save that maybe we'd crank out fewer personal essays ourselves.But, that said, there is wisdom to be gained. A big danger, to me, seems to be everyone thinking she's the protagonist - tragic, or comic, or romantic. And the truth is, most of us aren't protagonists, we're bit players or sidekicks or secondary storylines, and there's nothing wrong with that. For the most part, surely, our experiences are both unique and common. I don't think people always felt entitled to the spotlight; and maybe Rita Wilson's less glamorous than Meg Ryan's Annie, maybe Celeste Holm is less dramatic than Margot or Eve, but I'm guessing their lives are calmer, happier, or at any rate more private. There are worse things. I'm not a heroine; I'm a best friend, an observer. It's a good deal easier and if that's settling, it's a kind I can handle. (Oh, and let me add here something that Commenter Coreybear said: "What people need to remember is that they're not the heroine of EVERYONE's story, and that seems to be the problem with these women." Much better put, but that's what I meant to say!)

The Cautionary Matrons [NY Observer]

Related: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off [The Atlantic]
Marry Him! [Atlantic]
Failure To Launch: When Beauty Fades [Elle]

Navarrette writes,

Among the self-centered: Congressman Joe Wilson, rapper Kanye West and tennis star Serena Williams. But this phenomenon isn't limited to celebrities and previously anonymous backbenchers in Congress basking in their 15 minutes.

There are many people out there, in all walks of life, who think they're more significant than they really are. Plagued with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, they feel entitled to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it no matter whom it hurts.

Yes, the culprit behind Wilson's "You lie!" outburst, West's Taylor Swift dis and Williams's U.S. Open threats is that now-so-broad-as-to-be-meaningless diagnosis: narcissism. See, kids today are so full of "cheap self-esteem," according to Navarrette, that they think they can just yell at the President, disrupt the Video Music Awards, and become a tennis star and threaten a lineperson. Of course, Joe Wilson was born in 1947, well before the kids Navarrette creepily says "have been the "most wanted" in American history" because of birth control and legal abortion (if only we had more unintended pregnancies, maybe those kids wouldn't feel so damn special). But that doesn't stop Navarrette from alleging that the bad behavior of Wilson, West, and Williams — plus Mark Sanford and Chris Brown! — "comes down to just one thing: bad parenting."

I'm not even going to bother with the narcissism-research rehash that makes up the remainder of Navarrette's piece. The point is, by lumping together Joe Wilson, Serena Williams, and Chris Brown and blaming all their sins on too much praise in grade school, Navarrette ignores the totally different problems associated with each situation. He ignores the fact that while Serena Williams may have threatened to assault someone, Chris Brown actually did. And the fact that Joe Wilson's outburst may have been based on racism, which is a problem America needs to confront, while Kanye West's was based on West being a dick, which isn't. And by suggesting that Wilson, Williams, West, Brown, and Sanford are all part of a problem that should be solved "around your dinner table," he stifles collective dialogue on race or domestic violence and reduces these systemic problems to personal failings.

Navarrette isn't the only one playing the social-epidemiology game. NPR's On Point discussed our lack of "civility" this week, using some of the exact same examples — and gave Camille Paglia the opportunity to voice her support for the birthers. And Chicago Tribune advice columnist Amy Dickinson got in on the act, telling NPR's Neal Conan,

I had a different response to these three things than a lot of people did. I really do see each of these incidents as, you know, individual incidents. And I became more interested in the aftermath, which is where I think it presents those of us who have, you know, families, kids, parents, siblings. This presents us with an opportunity to think about when things get out of control, when we are out of control or when somebody else is out of control, what happens next?

Good question. Dickinson use it as a jumping off point to talk about apologizing, which is important — but so is understanding the reasons why "things get out of control," and not creating fake epidemics that obscure the real problems.

Commentary: Joe, Kanye, Serena — Aren't They Special? [CNN]
Questions Of Civility, And More [NPR]
Ask Amy: What Happened To Civility? [NPR]

According to a study of British women's measurements interpreted with great nuance and restraint by the Daily Mail's Victoria Lambert, women are bigger in almost every dimension than they were the last time such a study was conducted, in 1951. With measurements of 37-27-39, the average British woman in 1951 "was the classic hour-glass, not far off Hollywood standards." But now "our hour-glass has rolled into a barrel-like 38-34-40." Says Lambert, "our vital statistics don't just carry implications for how we look - they are crucial to our health."

She goes on to write pretty much the obesity-panic piece you might expect. Despite the fact that average BMI has actually gone down in Britain over the past 60 years, and is still in the healthy range, British ladies still need to worry about those "vital statistics" because their waists are now unhealthily large. Even an increase in foot size is apparently cause for concern: "It's definitely a bad thing if the reason is weight related because it can lead to increased pressure exerted through the foot and lower limbs and back, causing additional wear and tear on joints and soft tissues such as ligaments." And of course, men don't make passes at girls who look like barrels — British hips haven't kept pace with waists, and "wide hips have been traditionally seen as attractive to men because they denote fertility."

British women's life expectancy has risen by 10 years since the 50s, but Lambert's message is clear: the average female body is unhealthy, and unattractive. By all rights, it seems, women should be filled with self-loathing. But at least according to her fellow Daily Mail writer Lucy Taylor, women today are totally full of themselves! Taylor uses a painfully oft-cited US study on narcissism as a jumping-off point to make some questionable claims about women and their egos. Did you know that narcissism has grown by 67% in the last 20 years, "mainly among women?" Or that a full 10% of the population now "suffers from narcissism as a full-blown personality disorder?" Apparently all this self-regard is bad for women, because we actually kind of suck, and will never get a man if we don't acknowledge it.

Dating service founder Margot Medhurt tells Taylor she's seeing more and more women who don't understand where they fall in "the eligibility stakes." She says,

They tend to be in their 30s, and there is a wide discrepancy between how they perceive themselves and how others see them. They are often very plain, but see themselves as being absolutely fabulous, exceptional people. They invariably reject every guy's profile I send them. But if a guy rejects their profile, there is all hell to pay. There is disbelief. They are really saying: "I'm so fabulous. How dare he turn me down?"

Men are noticing this "phenomenon" too. Says management consultant David Baxter, who admirably admits that "he's not perfect, but is told he's an eligible and pleasant guy with a lot to offer," says,

I've had three successive dates recently with ladies in the late 30s to early 40s age bracket that have left me dumbfounded. [...] You sensed that they absolutely worshipped themselves, though none of them was drop-dead gorgeous or had amazing personalities, jobs or anything else to set them apart and elevate themselves into some superior position. I also thought it was quite telling that none of them had ever been married, engaged or had recently - or perhaps ever - been in a long-term relationship. I got the feeling that these women were living in a Sex And The City-inspired fantasy world. I also sensed that nobody would ever be good enough for them.

If you're a woman, being overcritical or getting angry at rejection makes you narcissistic. But if you're a guy, it makes you a sociologist. Taylor lets "professional golfer-turned-financial consultant" Neil Hay close out her article. He says,

I spent three hours on a date with one woman. I thought we got on brilliantly, but then she said she didn't want to meet again. This has happened a few times. It makes me think that if you don't live up to their perfect fantasy, then that's it. It's game over before you've even had any chance to begin to get to know each other. It does dent your confidence. I'm left thinking either that there's something wrong with me or that I'll just never be whatever it is that these women are looking for.

It's tough to be a man these days, forced to live up to impossible standards. If only there were some way to make women feel a little worse about themselves, so they'd recognize how plain they were and stop turning down perfectly good blokes. Perhaps some sort of study that scrutinized every aspect of their bodies, all the way down to the feet, and pronounced their very measurements dangerous and unappealing. Then again, those deluded women would probably just ignore it — as Hay says, "it's easier for them to believe their own myths than to face reality - that they are completely ordinary."

How Women's Bodies Have Been Transformed In The Past 60 Years... With Huge Implications For Our Health [Daily Mail]
The Ego Epidemic: How More And More Of Us Women Have An Inflated Sense Of Our Own Fabulousness [Daily Mail]

There's definitely something weird going on. Sure, little girls have always been plied with pink princesses, but this used to mean handsome princes and gowns, not some kind of entitlement to homage. The more conscientious amongst us could certainly call this a lateral move, but noted husband-supporter Megan Basham worries in the Wall Street Journal that the "every girl's a princess" ethos is leading to a rash of lady-narcissism.

Basham cites the rash of Super Sweet 16s, "Juicy Couture Princess" shirts and "princess makeovers" involving tube tops and makeup, the racks of entitled-skanky-baby gear in every mall. Oh, and did we mention the sinister "Christian Princess" trend? "Christian retail outlets like A Different Direction carry "God's Girlz," glamour dolls dressed in princess shirts and spandex with sparkling tiaras on their heads. And check out the church-apropos tee bearing the words, '"Yes, I am a Princess." The small print underneath: "I'm a daughter of the King."'

Says Basham,

Maintaining a diva daughter has become one more way to one-up the Joneses...Now researchers are finding that parents are promoting attitudes of superiority in their daughters. Jean Twenge, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, tracks the rising egotism on college campuses in her new book, "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement." She has found that college-age women are developing narcissistic traits at four times the rate of college-age men. She attributes the startling discrepancy in part to parents who put their girls on a pedestal.

This arouses very mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are glad girls have healthy egos and are made to feel worthwhile; but the point of Twenge's book is to distinguish between self-esteem and narcissism. And Twenge's hypothesis is controversial; other studies have found that narcissism is no greater than it was 30 years ago - it's just manifested in more aggressive, pinker ways. Or, as Dr. Drew would have it, being encouraged by celebrity culture. But is that even the issue? Whether we're more narcissistic or just more blatant about displaying it, it's really not about "putting girls on a pedestal," it's encouraging a sense of worth and entitlement based on what used to be considered unattractive behavior - or at least the domain of opera legends of a certain age. What does it even mean to be a "diva" or a "princess?" That you're pampered and entitled? Well-groomed? It's distressing less as a manifestation of narcissism than as a focus on the wrong things.

But that said, Basham's argument rankles. She's not who we want to hear this from - you'd better believe she'd like to see more selflessness and humility! If young women are becoming "narcissists" it seems like it's at least partially because a culture of objectification that values the trophy wife or girlfriend. And while young women may meet a more obvious, Fendi-toting definition of classic narcissistic materialism, Twenge's book also cites the rising narcissism epidemic - among men, primarily - as the cause of the financial and mortgage crises. Besides, whatever the levels of campus narcissism, one can certainly argue that these young women have far less to do with determining cultural direction than a few narcissistic adults, mainly men. By definition, an obviously "princess" is not going to do as much to influence the world's course - more's the pity.

Is it naive to hope that this ethos is a leftover from pre-Recession? Even in my own generation, now pushing thirty, there's a pernicious sense of being entitled to everything - yet having nothing to prove. We are all safe in the knowledge of our own vague "specialness" regardless of the outcome, and the buck doesn't tend to stop at our own failures. In this regard, although it's horrible, the current economy may prove a boon in some ways: I've spoken to a lot of friends who, while they obviously deplore the pain and difficulty of the current situation, recognize that, as one friend put it, "it's the first test we've really had." And how much more true will this be of children growing up in its shadow? Okay, maybe not for the "baby bitch."

Bringing Up Princess: Turning Girls Into Narcissists [Wall Street Journal]
Narcissism Epidemic: Why There Are So Many Narcissists Now [Us News]
Narcissism Epidemic Blamed for Economic Woes [NBC]
Is Narcissism On The Upswing In The Young? Studies Disagree [USA Today]

Earlier: Beside Every Great Pile Of Bullshit, Or: Crap Book From A Chick

We've written about this before, but Raina Kelly's piece in Newsweek this weekend sealed it: we are in a narcissism epidemic article epidemic. Spurred partly by several new books on the subject, and partly by whatever cultural forces conspire to name the human-failing-of-the-month, journalists all over the country are obsessed with narcissism. Despite the fact that scientists disagree about whether narcissism is on the rise, the disorder is the new ADD, or, as Sadie says, the new sex addiction. It's the latest way for writers to wrap all the ills of our society into a neat little package, give it a psychological name, and then diagnose everybody with it.

Most narcissism-epidemic articles have a few features in common. They identify the causes — usually permissive parents, grade inflation, and participation trophies. Because apparently we'd like to go back to the days when all 100 kids in the fifth grade had to try out for choir, and then only three didn't get in, and those three kids not only had to sit out while everyone else sang "Dona Nobis Pacem," but also got little "does not participate" marks on their report cards . . . what? No, that never happened to me. Anyway, the next step is to talk about the symptoms of narcissism. These are quite wide-ranging, from simply being confident (student Sharise Tucker tells Newsweek, "at the end of the day I love me and I don't think that's wrong") to "failed marriages, abusive working environments and billion-dollar Ponzi schemes." Apparently it's a slippery slope — one day you just feel kinda good about yourself, the next you're Bernie Madoff. Usually, these articles end up with a prescription for curing narcissism — usually by reminding the narcissist that he or she is actually not special.

We're willing to believe that for some people (the APA estimates 1% of the population), narcissism is a real problem. What we're not willing to swallow is the idea that our culture is caught up in some sort of narcissism maelstrom, with excessive self-regard causing all the ills of our society, from self-absorbed teens to the economic crisis.

First of all, a little self-absorption is pretty much a hallmark of adolescence. It's certainly possible to spoil your kid, but do we really want to return to a time (if such a time even existed) when kids felt they weren't special, that they couldn't do whatever they set their minds to, that they wouldn't succeed in life? Narcissism-epidemic articles tend to argue that people don't work hard if they think they're great, but actually believing that you can accomplish a task may increase your commitment to it. And while excessive self-regard has its problems, low self-worth can lead to bullying, bad relationships, and even abuse. The Newsweek article focuses on kids who think highly of themselves, but there are plenty of kids who are belittled at home or in school, who grow up full of fear and self-doubt, and whose lives are hobbled by lack of confidence. You might not always be able to tell by talking to them — an inferiority complex can look a lot like narcissism — but plenty of kids might benefit from a little more self-love.

All that aside, to blame social problems on psychological problems is to let society off the hook. If we say the economy crashed because people were greedy or grandiose, then we don't have to improve regulations, create a better safety net, or reform lending practices. We just have to stop feeling so freaking special. Blanket-diagnosing people with a psychological illness not only trivializes the difficulties of people who actually have it — it shifts the burden of reform from the community onto the individual. We'd probably be better people if we practiced "humility, [...] mindfulness and putting others first," but these qualities on their own aren't going to get families back into their houses or provide unemployed people with health insurance. For that, we need a new public policy — and if anyone can come up with one that solves our devastating problems, that person would be pretty special.

Generation Me [Newsweek]
Is Narcissism On the Upswing In The Young? Studies Disagree [USA Today]

Earlier: Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Everyone's Doing It
Hard-hitting Times Piece Tackles Narcissism, Shopaholics, This Thing Called "Hotornot"
Allure's "New Narcissist" Not New, Maybe Not A Narcissist

According to T (in these tough times for publishing, we hate to question the relevance of any publication, but seriously, why does it exist?), narcissism is totally hip right now, but it will destroy both narcissists and those around them. Writer Holly Brubach reports on a new book by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, which offers a fantastically tone-deaf and out-of-date list of our society's narcissistic symptoms.

"Average Americans" — like the ones on "My Super Sweet 16" — want to keep ambulances off their streets during their birthday parties. Time Magazine made "You" the person of the year in 2006! And if that's not enough, there's "a Web site called hotornot.com, where people post pictures of themselves for strangers to rate their sex appeal." What will they think of next? Some kind of webternet application where people can post profiles, take surveys, and even send messages to online "friends"?

Twenge and Campbell offer some solutions for this obviously crippling social disease (after all, if the kids on "My Super Sweet 16" aren't grounded and altruistic, who is?). The solutions sound pretty decent — "saving rather than spending, practicing gratitude and mindfulness, telling children no, applauding hard work rather than talent or brains" — although the last one might feed into the A-for-effort epidemic. But Brubach says these fixes "may not go down easy with the shopaholic candidate for a tummy tuck." Um, the what?

Honestly, Brubach's piece made us worry less about narcissism and more about journalism. If newspapers just spew random assortments of trendy phrases, no wonder nobody reads them anymore. And if the New York Times is going to uncritically regurgitate Twenge and Campbell's list of three-year-old cultural references, I'll just read their press release, thanks. Whatever — I have to go Facebook my Myspace page so I can find a Botox rainbow party to go to in my Harry-Potter-O.C.-Dawson's-Creek costume! See you on Friendster!

Enough About You: A Little Narcissism Goes A Long Way [NYT]

As the NY Times would have it, commissions for enormous vanity portraits are on the rise in La-La Land. Salma, Angelina, George Hamilton (who, oddly, has eight portraits) and a slew of producers and directors have exercised the rich person's time-honored prerogative of having an artist slave for hundreds of hours over a life-sized likeness of themselves. Many cited in the article claim to have "agreed" to have themselves painted to help out an artist friend, several of whom are described as the wives of big execs. It must also be said that the portraits appear to generally be cheesy and awful. But it's not all fun and vanity!

Still, even for those used to being trailed by a crowd of photographers and sized up in every waking moment, living with a portrait can cause a certain amount of angst. What, after all, does hanging a life-size portrait of yourself in your living room or bedroom risk saying to others about the depth of your narcissism? Even in a town famous for ardent self-love, isn't there a real possibility that your portrait will make you the butt of jokes at the Grill?

Many, after all, face the narcissist's dilemma of not wanting to appear narcissistic while still, you know, owning life-sized portraits of themselves. Where, after all, to hang it? This begs the question: what's the point of having these done? Is it just the irresistible, ancient allure of making an artisan slave for you? Is it not enough to have the objective record of a camera: you need the trappings of classic wealth, and the carefully orchestrated proof that someone was forced to view and portray you a certain way? I've seen some beautiful portraits of people's children, and in these cases it's clear that there is a more timeless quality to a piece of art than a standard baby picture. But there's also something far... weirder.

There is a six-foot portrait of me and my ex-boyfriend that hangs over his bed, which is...strange. I have never seen the painting, which a friend did based on an old photograph and delivered post-breakup. The ex has explained that the placement is purely a subject of geography: there is no other wall in his studio big enough to accommodate it. I don't know how his girlfriend feels about my staring down from the wall judgmentally all the time; I know I feel weird having a Dorian Gray-style representation of myself hanging out in South Brooklyn. Which, I guess, sheds a little light on Hollywood's mania: with so much manipulation out of their purview, it's got to be comforting to have one representation they can totally control, own and display when - and if - they see fit. A literal and figurative reclaiming of their images. Or am I giving them too much credit?

Enough About Me. Like My Portrait? [NY Times]

This week's "Modern Love" essay comes to us from one Karen Karbo, a writer who manages to trivialize very real issues of money, identity and power with the narcissistic lens of her own experience! Karen's a woman who, while she took education and a career as her due, never envisioned herself supporting a family, and unwittingly fell into this role. It's actually a fascinating topic, the unconscious double-standard that exist for a lot of women who, while they admit it or not, actually want to have it all in a way the women's movement never conceived of — the career, the opportunities, but also the security of the traditional gender breakdown, and the secret resentment this has bred.

"While I couldn’t imagine being my mother, vacuuming on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, etc., neither did I see myself as a high-powered earner. I switched majors from journalism to physical therapy to film. I got good grades, which was something I knew how to do, but beyond that ... well, there was no beyond that.

Treated sensitively, this is actually something I'd love to see addressed.

"Treated sensitively" are the operative words. Instead we get Karbo's relationship with a chauvinistic sugar daddy type, then her two marriages, all reduced to blithe caricature. First there's an aimless deadbeat hubby who lets her run the show while he finds himself. Karbo resents this, but recognizes the benefits.

If I had been dependent on James financially, would I have walked out so easily? It brings up a question that can only be posed uneasily: Is it better for the longevity of a marriage if one party (usually the woman) feels financially trapped?

While this is an interesting line of inquiry, it's couched in such myopic terms that it's hard to move beyond the specifics. You're left thinking, in theory? Maybe. In your case? I don't care. She deems her next husband, a blue-collar exotic, "the cuddle bum." When he quits his job, her breadwinning role is made official; he becomes a house husband. But he's crap at it.

When we divorced, he wanted alimony, child support and the house — the house that was purchased with my money, in my name. During one of our last conversations, I wept with incomprehension. He wanted my house? Whatever happened to the way people divorce in the movies, where the husband packs a bag and moves into a sad hotel, leaving his wife (whom he supported) in the house?

Ultimately, Karbo learns (because, despite the incredibly specific nature of her experience, she seems to tacitly feel that there's a universality to them) that "for those of us predetermined to be breadwinners, it’s more fun to date a man than to marry him. We understand that the more people we have under our roof, the more it costs us. I am appalled by how unromantic this sounds, but there you have it." There you have it! Karbo has taken on some very complex issues, given them a cursory and highly personal treatment, and come to a flippant conclusion that a lot of people — ie, anyone who's managed to make a marriage with all its financial complexities and power struggles, work — might find both facile and inaccurate. In her world, guys are apparently total deadbeats or archaic chauvinists - and so, nothing more exists. Is it more fun for you, Karen Karbo, to date than marry? I daresay. A good personal essay should illuminate a larger truth through a specific story. A poor one is just a narcissist assuming her experience applies to the whole world. This exercise in disappointment most certainly falls into the latter category.

The Accidental Breadwinner [NY Times]

Of course, if you're in the habit of mining the wreck that is your personal life for your work, it's fairly difficult to never talk about an ex. Is it particularly mature to make fun of an ex because of his name or because he didn't know better than to try to face fuck you or because he kept standing you up? Probably not. On the other hand, I was writing those stories for what they said about me, and my relationships, and my own idiocy — and, because, now, they're funny to me. They're not intended to be mean-spirited, or floated out there as revenge or even to put me in a positive light. I puked on a guy named Ralph, I lacked the common sense to stay out of a sexual situation with an inexperienced and inattentive guy, I allowed someone to stand me up more than once. Don't you see, it's all about me!

The real problem, though, is that, like too many writers — in addition to having a strange sense of humor and way too much time to think about my failed relationships — I'm also an incredible narcissist... which is apparently how I turned a post about someone slagging on his ex into a post about me doing the exact opposite thing.

Man Who Slammed Ex Online Faces Libel [CBS News]

Earlier: What Name Could You Never F*ck?
There Ought To Be A Sign
Why Am I Supposed To Date Older Men, Again?

She writes:

The last couple of years have been an egopalooza of celebrities, politicians, businessmen, and religious leaders behaving not just badly, but with overweening sense of entitlement. Paris Hilton: Jail is worse for me than anyone else! Oprah: the Hermes store wouldn't let me shop because I'm black! (The fact that the store had just closed apparently had nothing to do with it.) And Hillary: Oh, dear God, Hillary. If she hadn't radiated an almost-cartoonish, Daffy Duck-like aura ("The presidency is mine-mine-MINE!"), maybe she would have been the Democratic candidate.

Note that all three of Newman's examples are women. Probably she's just considering her target audience, but the message stands — don't be like these ladies, or like Cynthia, unless you want to be pilloried in Allure. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that Newman just lumped Oprah and Hillary together with Paris Hilton, and the fact that aggressively seeking public office apparently now makes you a cartoon character — are these women really that bad?

Cynthia achieved great success after "a modest upbringing," and now she's extremely confident. She believes she'll succeed in her career, and says, "there's value in being opinionated when you have really good opinions." Maybe Cynthia isn't the most considerate person in the world, but we'd sure rather hear from her than someone who couches every statement with "I'm not sure, but . . ." There is value in being opinionated, and in being confident, and in feeling that people should listen to you — and more women and men should embrace this value.

Of course, some cases of ASN (which Newman defines as "a form of self-absorption and grandiosity developed not in childhood, as classical narcissism is thought to be, but rather [...] after an individual has acquired modest fame and fortune") may cause problems — the "luxury shame" sufferers Sadie wrote about should probably try thinking of the less fortunate for a change. But we may not have to hear from them much longer: Newman says the best cure for ASN is failure.

Cynthia, for instance, suffered a failed project and a series of bad dates, including one with a guy who said, "I don't think she asked one question about me." Now she's way nicer, even asking Newman about herself when they meet up for drinks. Cynthia could probably stand to learn a thing or two about consideration, but we're still a little disturbed that Newman's recipe for bringing an uppity woman to earth is a stinging remark from a man.

[Allure] (Official Site)

MEGAN: Hey, how's the weather there, by the way? And I don't ask because I actually, you know, care, since I know the answer is probably hot and humid but mostly so I can say that it's sunny and 70 and not remotely humid, or at least that's what I can tell from my friend's living room in Germany from where I'm currently working.
SPENCER: Yesterday it was boiling hot, as Nationals Park gave me the lobster treatment during a 5-0 loss to Houston, but now it's dreary and wet.
MEGAN: I don't envy you the sunburn. Anyway, so, should we discuss the New Yorker's Obama cover first or the supposed story inside?
SPENCER: Let's do the cover first, and see which of us can out-outrage the other. To back up, dear readers, as you may have heard, the New Yorker ran a cover that, in John Aravosis's description "shows Oval Office with Obama as tribal African, wife as afro-70s-woman with machine gun, Osama on the wall, and flag on fire."
MEGAN: It's about to run it, it's the July 21st issue.
SPENCER: oooohhh being in Germany has made you so fastidious
MEGAN: Yes, I am surrounded by perfectionists. It does bring out the worst in me.
SPENCER: it's the issue that's out today, in any case
so: your thoughts on the cover?
MEGAN: Anyway, I'm most offended by the fact that they portray Michelle in combat boots. As if.
And ugly camo pants? WTF, people.
SPENCER: btw, I don't think Obama is, contra Aravosis, dressed as a "tribal African" — he's dressed as Usama bin Laden
the shalwar kameez, the sandals, the signature turban
did you see how the NY'er press release described it?

"On the cover of the July 21, 2008, issue of The New Yorker, in ‘The Politics of Fear,’ artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”

MEGAN: No, I think it was supposed to reflect both that and the infamous Somalia pictures
SPENCER: so your only critique is the sartorial representation? Am I doing CH with Sadie this morning?
MEGAN: Actually, I mean, there are so many ways in which Michelle's portrayal are really offensive — the big lips, the Afro, the hand on the hip, the gun, the bad clothes and the way she's looking at him like "Yeah, we pulled on over on them, didn't we."
It's like, I get where he's going with the satire thing, I just don't think that it comes across as satirical and I don't know that incorporating actual stereotypes about African-Americans (big lips, curly hair, etc) gets across the other points he's trying to make.
SPENCER: dKos diarist irackobama had a good line:

How did you miss putting afros on the Obama children in stripper clothes on a pole in the background, cotton pickers outside of the window and a noose hanging in the tree?

MEGAN: Well, they are stomping on the eagle's head.
SPENCER: I mean, you're right, it's not like the artist or the editors were like, "We should really make sure people know that one of the presidential candidates is a SCARY BLACK MAN"
MEGAN: They're stomping on everything America stands for!
I mean, I actually think the portrayal of Michelle is more tasteless.
Hence with the joking about her shoes.
SPENCER: but that's besides the — hahahaha i missed that — point. The cover indicates quite a bit about how white people who think of themselves as The Good Ones believe they should get a pass when it comes to race
MEGAN: I would totally agree with that. I also wonder how much of that is about generating/manufacturing controversy rather than actual satire. Given their readership.
SPENCER: honestly, this doesn't seem like a manufactured controversy, since the New Yorker doesn't have to gin up gimmicks to sell magazines
plus they probably see themselves as above that
did you read the story? Written by Ryan "Snitch Bitch" Lizza?
MEGAN: They'd have to gin up a controversy to get me to buy it, but I'm the world's worst person at buying magazines.
I keep trying to read it, but the narcolepsy kicks in.
SPENCER: yeah, i didn't either
because NO ONE should trust a single thing Lizza writes
not his editors
not his factcheckers
not his readers
not his friends
not his family
MEGAN: Well, Ryan Lizza's trustworthiness aside, Ryan Lizza doesn't seem interesting enough as a person to be the secondary focus of the piece.
It's like, do I really need to read about Ryan Lizza talking about Ryan Lizza researching the story.?
SPENCER: fun fact: in Shattered Glass, the movie about Steve Glass & TNR, there's a hyper-obnoxious intern who keeps trying to butter Glass up
that dude is based on Ryan
wait, does Lizza talk about how he researched his own piece in the middle of the piece itself?
because if so, i wish there was a loud cackle function in HTML
MEGAN: It's all like, XYZ told me this, and Obama talked to me about this.
it's all written in the first person, I find it really annoying and I write constantly in the first person but not about how I met Barack Obama and everyone that's ever known him talked to Me.
SPENCER: (Yeah, but magazine editors make you do that, so you can signal to your readership that They could never do what Famous Glossy Writers do — it's the most anti-punk rock thing in journalism)
well, to be Serious and Substantive for a moment
check this out in the piece
Obama's reaction to 9/11, printed in the Hyde Park Herald on 9/19/01
ok, so this is Obama's response to 9/11 during a time when the whole fucking country had lost its mind

Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.

MEGAN: "fundamental absence of empathy" is also a good way to describe how much of America feels about much of the rest of the world.
SPENCER: Ok, so totally sensible, if conventional, right? but then!

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

MEGAN: Ha, "dismantling their organizations of destruction." Wonder how that's going.
SPENCER: I mean, damn. This is when everyone's saying shit about eating bin Laden's heart out of his chest and they hate us for our freedom — and those were the liberals
MEGAN: Wait, we've stopped saying they hate us for our freedom?
SPENCER: now, it turns out that the connection between jihadism and poverty sort of runs in the opposite direction — most of the 9/11 hijackers had college degrees; some were advanced and shit — but at the time no one was brave enough to say that sort of stuff — besides Susan Sontag and The Nation and they got ripped apart for saying it
MEGAN: Right, that was back when Ann Coulter was all about forcible conversions and she got fired but people were still whispering that she was right.
SPENCER: but the next wave of jihadism — call it al-Qaeda 4.0 — is, according to Marc Sageman, sort of trending the way Obama describes it 7 years ago
And that's the sort of thing — you know, an actual understanding of the threats America faces — that makes me think this Scary Black Man will be not just a good president but a motherfucking transformative president
MEGAN: Also, the Middle East is one of many places where you can have a college degree and zero prospects. It's a problem in Saudi Arabia and Iran in particular, lots of educational opportunities — sometimes even for women — and then... a life of unemployed semi-leisure and no way to advance in the world.
I think boredom inspires radicalism, not poverty. When you're really poor, you don't have time to go around being all radical and shit, you have to survive.
SPENCER: yeah, Saudi subsidizes your education — especially religious education — and then doesn't have a job for you, since all their labor to support their affluence goes to dirt-poor Bangladeshis and Filipinos
if Moe were here she could discuss that shit
MEGAN: Um, I could discuss that shit because I just did?
SPENCER: oh sorry!
i guess we should end this before i embarrass myself further
MEGAN: Aw, you're far from an embarrassment. But we could end it just because I'm going to go have an early dinner and some fun since I'm supposedly on vacation.
SPENCER: mmmm spatzle
MEGAN: I'll pick you up some before I come home and if you ask nice I'll even cook it.
SPENCER: i don't actually know what spatzle is
MEGAN: German gnocchi
SPENCER: i am to spatzle what john mccain is to the internet
MEGAN: Well, I'll teach you German potato pasta like someone (likely not Megan McCain, but someone who is getting paid) is teaching John McCain the internet and we'll call it even. You bring the beer.

Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama [New Yorker]

Never before in this country has there been such an economic imperative to cultivating narcissism. "Build Brand You"! Start a blog! Advance Your Swagger! If you want a raise, dress better! Hit the gym! Assert yourselves! If you try to count on hard work alone, you'll never have any time to Make Yourself Noticed! And anyway, the immigrants and the Chinese and the Indians and the Romanians have the work ethic thing cornered. Oh what, you don't want to be the boss, the ruler, the editor-in-chief? You'd rather be a team player, and subscribe to the pitifully naive notion that the sum can be greater than parts or whatever? Did you not hear that cooperation is over? What has cooperation done for us lately? Lesssseeee...maybe designed us a really thin MacBook? Approved a half-trillion dollar war? If you've learned anything from the reality TV you watch it's that there can only be one Top Model, one Top Chef, one Celebrity Apprentice, one Biggest Loser. And yeah, you can say that's only TV. But good luck finding a decent job on an assembly line somewhere! You're better off shooting to be the next American Apparel model.

Generation Me Vs. You, Revisited [NY Times]
Related: Want A Better Job? Stop Working Right Now And Get Your Nails Did

In a similar vein, a certain blogger who briefly dated a certain other blogger who looks exactly the same as her (blond, firm, tattooed) offered that maybe dating dudes who look like you is a way of manifesting one's love for oneself — and on the flipside, preventing those inevitable pangs of self-hate. "There is nothing more disturbing than fucking a guy who has a nicer ass than you do," she pointed out. Which brings us to a second truth: It's not so much what you actually look like, but what you think you look like. Personally, we always go a few shades chubbier than ourselves, probably on account of the body dysmorphic disorder, but with even fuller lips than ours (because we were teased about them in grade school).

Incidentally, not all of our poll candidates agreed with us. One said she actually tended to date men who look like her mother (whoah!) and another beautiful, lily-white friend of ours that an ex once nicknamed "Porcelain Doll" says she goes after almost exclusively swarthy, Pakistani 'Axis of Evil 'types. And she's the spawn of Holocaust survivors! Rebel! Both Jezebel interns date boys who sort of look like them, down to a short torso on one of them: "My boyfriend was just telling me all his friends from when he was three thought that he wore his pants high because he liked it that way, when in fact, he is not wearing his pants high, but does have a small torso. They just never noticed and thought he had a stick up his ass. Like, his torso is the size of mine. Hot! Not."

Girls Send Macho Men Packing For The Girly Guys [MSNBC]
Why Couples Are As Fat As Each Other [Telegraph]
Related: Fat Is The New Hot
In Praise Of The Homelier Man