If You Can’t Be With The One You Love, Have Sex With The One You’re With

If there’s one thing I’ve grown to hate on The Real World, it’s the perpetual drama of these kids dealing with life away from their boyfriends or girlfriends. I don’t tune in to watch these people complain on the phone. I tune in to watch them get drunk, fight about peanut butter, and then say something either racist or homophobic. Well, too bad for me because tonight’s episode was all about fruitless flirtation and angry hometown honeys. Of course, we knew we were heading into dangerous territory right off the bat when the topic of flirting was the first item on the Real World agenda. Sarah and I flirt all the time, said MJ to the camera. This was of course followed by Sarah commenting, “I showed you my boobs today.” I feel like that somehow surpasses the realm of flirtation. It was more like slut-ation. I’m sorry. The writers of Sex and the City must have possessed me momentarily. I’ll try to keep my dumb puns to myself.Nevertheless, the point still stands that Sarah is a desperate girl seeking some sort of sexual fulfillment (also known as self-esteem for her) in order to make it through another day. Tonight’s episode was the debut of “Ivana”, Sarah’s sexual alter ego. The main difference between Sarah and Ivana? Well… Ivana wears a furry hat? Actually, the truth is that Ivana is pathetically slutty but Sarah, on the other hand, is pathetically slutty. Oh wait. Did I mention the furry hat?

It’s therefore no wonder why MJ was completely embarrassed to be hooking up with this reality trollop. I mean, if you’re banging the resident ‘ho, it’s not something you often advertise. Well, lucky for MJ, his secret is safe. It’s not like there are any camera crews or night vision lenses or microphones all over the place, waiting to transform his sexual transgressions into ratings gold. Of course, those are all massive turn ons for Sarah probably. Now, I know that I come down on her for being, uh, loose, but hey, at least Sarah knows she has issues when it comes to sex. She said so herself during an interview. But here’s the thing. Why do Real World stars think that recognizing their flaws and shortcomings equates to solving them? How many times have we seen one of these people say something like “I’m realizing that I’m very rude to people” and then go off and be rude? Realizing something doesn’t matter if you’re still doing it.

Anyway, the show took a brief detour into Sarah’s world where she finally obliged us with this season’s rape confession. Granted, it was only revealed during the interview, which means we still have that special episode to look forward to when people are coming down on Sarah about something like dirty dishes and she responds with “Well, I was raped!” I know I might be sounding callous about a very serious thing, but that’s mostly because I saw Robin from San Diego and Ellen from Road Rules both pull that trick.

With our Sarah tolerance threshold about to burst, the action shifted to the other set of lovebirds, Shavonda and Landon. With her attraction to her roommate steadily building, Shavonda jumped on the phone and called her boyfriend, Shaun to float the idea of breaking up. You see, Shavonda feels like her time on the Real World should be unencumbered by trivial obligations like, you know, loyalty to her boyfriend. I mean, what a downer! What does he think they’re in? A relationship? “What if I’m having a crush on someone,” she asked. Yes, theoretically, what if she were having a crush – not that she has one. Well, Shaun was understandably not too pleased, saying that now he couldn’t trust her. “Fine, don’t trust me,” Shavonda responded. Uh, did I miss something? Did Shavonda just make it sound like she was the victim here? Wasn’t the whole purpose of this call to say “Hey, I’m going to cheat, you can’t trust me, so let’s just break up so I don’t feel guilty about it”? And now she was getting mad because Shawn said he couldn’t trust her? I will never understand Real World logic.

Karamo didn’t understand it either, noting that he’s a real traditionalist when it comes to dating. Um, I’ll leave that one alone. Anyway, the newly single Shavonda headed out to a bar with the roomies where she proceeded to fellate a banana for free drinks. It was a difficult experience for her, she commented, because she doesn’t like a lot of attention. Note to Shavonda: if you don’t like attention, don’t give a banana blowjob on a bartop in the middle of a crowded nightclub. Oh, and don’t appear on a reality show either.

Back at the homestead, MJ sauntered around drunk from Shavonda’s free booze. He called former hometown honey, Ashley, and babbled annoyingly. The camera lingered on MJ entirely too long, and in my effort to look away from his big nipple, I had to focus on his stupid hair. Honestly, it was terrible. Anyway, with MJ drunk and craving a booty call after the Ashley conversation, he swooped in on the next best thing. Okay, not the next best thing. But about the seventh best thing: Sarah. The two got it on in classic Cara-from-Chicago-Infra-red, but amazingly they didn’t have sex. After all, Sarah reasoned, if they did, we’d know about it. I actually believe her. Sarah would probably have sent out a press release and a few T-shirts if any copulation had gone down.

Meanwhile, at the other suckfest of the episode, Shavonda continued to fight with Shaun on the phone. He seemed more tolerant during this phone call, noting that she can kiss other guys, but not Landon. Shavonda’s response? Well, I’ve opened up to Landon so I’ll probably kiss him. Does Shavonda kiss every guy she opens up to? Think of how many awkward therapy sessions that must have led to.

Shaun, for his part, was pretty awesome at trapping Shavonda in her own logic / transparent psychology. “The first person who gave you attention was Landon. That’s why you have a crush on him,” he theorized. Cricket cricket. Shavonda should have said that she wasn’t as shallow as that, but you see, she sort of is. “He’s putting limits on me while I’m single!” she complained in an interview, and then proceeded to put limits on Shawn by saying he couldn’t cuddle with his ex-girlfriend. You see, it’s Shavonda’s world. We’re just living in it. And by living, I mean contemplating suicide.

Meanwhile, tensions in Sarah’s crotch escalated. In a typical game of telephone, MJ told Melanie that he didn’t like sharing a bed with Sarah. Mel, whose forté seems to be clever passive aggression, relayed MJ’s message to Sarah, probably adding “You can thank me later.” Well, Sarah was pretty upset about MJ’s comments, but she insisted she was not offended. She was only acting offended. Big difference. And when she said she doesn’t get emotionally attached to sexual relationships, she meant she DOES get emotionally attached. Don’t know why people misinterpreted that.

Well, the good news is that we survived a double-shot of the hometown honeys storyline. The bad news is that there certainly is more where that came from. Please Bunim/Murray, make sure your cast is all single next time around.