GUEST BLOG: Guilty Pleasures Without the Guilt

Many of my friends have been super supportive regarding my adventures in blog writing. They also happen to be very smart and witty. (Remember you are the company you keep!) I always encourage them to help a sister out and give them an opportunity to express themselves if they so desire. I mean, why should I be the only one able to rant about my life? With that being said, here is a guest blog, the first in looong time. Enjoy. 

If you are like me and a lot of my lady friends, whether you are texting, or talking face-to-face; at least part of your conversations include a confession of indulgences followed by a rationalization or apology. Often, we call these indulgences “guilty pleasures”. 

I started thinking about “guilty pleasures” and suddenly thought…Who the fuck said we had to feel guilty about our pleasures?

After talking about this with a few of my friends, I realized, women, or at least the women I know, feel guilty about pleasures that involve three things.

Our Bodies 

Have you ever found yourself pulling out your hair while watching TV?  Your thumb and forefinger focused, fixated and grasping for that particularly coarse strand or split end, anticipating the pleasure of tearing it out and glaring at it with pride before you let it float to the floor? Or perhaps, you’ve gone to brush your teeth and found yourself absorbed, for 20 minutes or more, pinching, prying and presssing that in-gown hair or pimple, knowing you will not sleep until you are rewarded with the overwhelming satisfaction of release? Maybe you are like Sylvia Plath and you derive “sexual” pleasure from the “illicit sensuous delight” of nose picking...

What we put in our Mouths
Do you put ranch dressing on EVERYTHING? Perhaps you gleefully use your teeth to scrape the thick, salty Dorito cheese off your fingers after a particularly long day. Do you revel in the joy of fall’s first box of Mallomars; the cracking sensation of the chocolate shell, your teeth sinking into that heavenly pillow of marshmallow, repeating the act, until you have consumed an entire box? Maybe you’ve pulled a Miranda Hobbes and eaten delicious chocolate cake out of the garbage...

What We Watch and Read  

Vortex- like YouTube holes, feminist blogs, Gawker, Jersey Shore, any food blog, Facebook stalking, Erotica, Real Housewives of New York-Miami-Beverly Hills-Orange County, YA fantasy trilogies…. Which do you prefer? Oh, all of them you say? Do you pore over cat videos and celebrity gossip?  Bust the door open with delight when you know your DVR is full of reality series and repeats of 90210? Maybe you’ve seen Twilight 5 times and don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

So…

Whether you partake in one, some or all of these activities, don’t you derive some satisfaction from them?  Sure sometimes they might be “bad” for us – but why the guilt?

Now, I will be the first to admit reality shows of the “wives” variety generally make women look like unstable, disobliging social climbers that do nothing to promote women supporting women. However, that is another blog and those shows are REALLY entertaining!  (If you are looking for a reality show about women that is the antithesis of the Real Housewives franchise, you MUST check out Push Girls on Sundance.)

The last time I checked, it is fucking satisfying to get a stubborn pimple and Mallomars are ridiculously delicious! Why are we telling ourselves that things that give us contentment, fulfillment or relief are not okay? We are going to keep doing them anyway.  

By no means do I advise that you go on a month long in-grown-hair-nose-picking-reality-tv bender. But if you‘re gonna do it anyway, give yourselves permission! The next time you house a family sized Snickers bar while watching Bad Girls Club or enjoy a series of cat videos in your underwear with some freshly plucked in-growns, remember:  It’s ok! It’s a pleasure!  As a wise Madonna recently sang, “…if it makes you feel good then I say do it, I don’t know what you’re waiting for!”

Author: Lil Biscuit