hippies think bodies are beautiful

As long as we are on the topic, let me tell you about giving naked pictures to guys. My senior year of college, when my relationship suddenly became long distance, I gave my boyfriend a stack of naked pictures of me. They should have come with a letter saying—I mean, demanding—“Get off to me!” Or, maybe a slightly gentler, “Please continue to get off to me.” The message was unmistakable. When I tell guys that I gave naked pictures to my boyfriend, unsolicited, their responses include words like “sweet” and “thoughtful,” not “manipulative” and “self-serving.” This puzzles me.

I slipped them in his band-practice book, hoping that they would fall out during, well, band practice. When I say “band practice,” stop picturing batons and hard hats with feather dusters erected, you perverts! He was in a heavy metal band. I wanted his drummer, who had a girlfriend of four years, and his bassist was so gawky and awkward that picturing the look on his face would more than make up for my boyfriend’s embarrassment. Unfortunately, my boyfriend discovered them without incident.

Weeks later I was at his house with a group of his friends, and one of his friends opened a book about heavy metal, which was placed on his coffee table. You know how when someone calls you to report a death, you know something tragic happened—you can just sense it in their voice. Well, from the look on his friend’s face, in combination with the rapidity with which he dropped the book, I knew exactly what he had found, despite being unaware of the book-to-book transfer. Even though only one other person in the room saw the photos, I think we all knew what he had found. There was a moment of group catharsis. It’s okay, I turn red in class when prompted to speak, so de nada.

People always ask, “But Genie, aren’t you scared that he is going to show other people—distribute them over the internet—out of vindication?” My answer is: First of all, he is a hippie and only frat boys distribute things over the internet. Hippies think bodies are beautiful and would not consider widespread distribution of attractive pictures to be insulting. Second, he is incapable of executing anything and barely uses a computer. At the time, he didn’t even have a facebook account. Third, He has a history of absent-mindedness, not meanness. Lastly, I look cute in those pictures and he would only be embarrassing himself. Nothing reeks of desperation like distributing pictures of an ex-girlfriend who dumped you, repeatedly. It would be like sending a mass e-mail saying, “Look at the hot chick I used to fuck.”

Oh yeah, and then there is the fact that he knows me too well and would never give me the satisfaction of moral absolution. Knowing how tortured he still is by me is ego-stroking enough for even the most pathological narcissist. Naked photos need not be distributed. That’s a bit much, even for me.

I will leave you with my new, favorite comment from the interweb: “I really want to cut myself, for having the hots for Chuck Bass like I do. I make myself sad. And my dad even loved me enough, in the proper way.”