Yikes!

My husband doesn't understand my fascination with other people's miseries (and writing it out like that makes me sound both mean and ghoulish). Last night I watched "Zoo," a documentary of men gripped with zoophilia, focusing on a Seattle man who died of internal injuries after enjoying a private moment with a horse. While shocking, more than anything the film shows the sadness and loneliness of these men. I didn't even bother to tell my husband about the movie, because I know the gross-out factor would overwhelm everything else.

I did tell him about the website I looked at, where men who own Real Dolls (lifelike doll-women that cost thousands of dollars) discuss photo shoots, private weekends, and technical problems (apparently the hip socket is easily broken with frequent manipulation). In the "Was My Face Red" section, a man wrote that, with his wife's amused consent, he retreated with his red-headed doll to the basement for an evening of romance. He'd poured the wine, lit the candles, and started the music, when his teenage daughter burst in. He panicked, threw a blanket over the doll, and screamed at this daughter to get upstairs. After calming down, he headed up to the master bedroom, where his wife was laughing with his daughter. Apparently, the girl had thought her father had killed her mother and was planning to have sex with the corpse. Imagine the relief when she learned it was just Daddy and a doll! (I found this site after I watched "Lars and the Real Girl," a very sweet movie I've now seen twice.)

I also skipped telling Bill about transabled.org, a site for sufferers (and they do suffer) of Body Image Identity Disorder (BIID). These people are obsessed with becoming paraplegic or amputee. I first learned of this disorder on Primetime Live (or 20/2o - what's the difference), where they interviewed a woman who parked her car in a secluded area, packed her leg in dry ice, then waited for hours until her leg would be too damaged to save (if I remember correctly, it took more than one try). On this website, these sweet, sad people share their struggles (and sometimes their triumphs when they succeed in disabling themselves).

The shame is in the voyeurism, which I rationalize by noting that a market exists for these stories (HBO documentary, feature film, and TV program). I don't think I'm looking for a thrill. Actually, I know that I'm looking for a validation, along the lines of, "At least I'm not that fucked up." Obviously, I'm not the only member of the audience, so it's not so bad to watch, right? And I guess for the zoo groups, the Real Doll forums, and transabled website, their consolation is that they're not the only ones, too.

A while ago, I was checking out at WalMart, and I saw that the clerk's name was Laken. I mentioned how pretty I thought her name was. She told me that her mom named her after a character in the soap opera "Santa Barbara." She added that she'd even met another Laken (though spelled Lakin) at a softball game. I said, "Wow, that's got to mean something. I just don't know what!" She thought a moment and answered, "I guess it means I'm not the only one." (That line's more effective if you sing it like John Lennon in "Imagine.") I found that thought quite comforting.