The Intentional Blog.

“How You Stay Faithful in a Room Full of Hoes” Or “What I Learned About Image-Obsession in LA”

So, if you’re my facebook friend, perhaps you’ve noticed: I quote Kanye West like a delusional Westboro Churchgoer quotes Leviticus.

And, before I dig myself into a pit from the depths of which I will never be able to escape, let me just say this: This is not about actual sluts and/or hoes. Just the concept of aforementioned sluts and/or hoes. So fear not, chaste reader, this will not be a post that offends your tender sensibilities (for a change).

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a month. To get to the point, everything people say about LA is true. But here is the corollary: It’s only true if you want it to be.

So back to the analogical hoes in question. What I’ve gathered this to mean is that sometimes you will be faced with a choice. This applies particularly well for anyone who’s taken a significant amount of time to think about what’s important to them before they attempt to apply their values to the broader societal context, but I think that everyone will feel it a little bit when they find themselves in a place that is extreme in ways so much that it becomes a parody of itself in the way that LA does.

Your choice will be simple: You can conform to the conditions of what surrounds you or you can stay faithful to what you feel is right for you.

What does this mean in the OGND-sphere of things? Well, LA is an image-obsessed place. Everyone seems to have a “slash” in their title. Everyone’s works in the business of how they seem and appear. But when I say “everyone” I mean that it’s easy to see only a given city’s initial offering. It’s easy to say that everyone in New York is a douchebag I-banker or a gritty local. It’s easy to say Parisians exist in a cloud of smoke and that butter flows through their vessels. Yeah. Yeah. We all know the stereotypes. And stereotypes are how you end up in a beret and striped shirt on the Chans de Lise getting laughed at by Parisians and giving Americans a bad name.

Stop it. There are better, more sublte things about Los Angeles (and, really, every place) beyond the preliminary stereotype. The hard part is doing the work to get beyond the initial layer of bullshit and superficiality.

So, basically, you’ll occasionally find yourself in dangerous territory, such as LA. This territory may be indicated to you by a bunch of sluts standing around trying to get into your pants even though you have a girlfriend/boyfriend that you actually love or it may be marked by every third billboard being dedicated to some diet/medical procedure/silver bullet to make you beautiful.

The idea that you really have to understand yourself and what matters to you to be able to withstand external pressure becomes even more apparent when you’re in an extreme setting. It could be easy to proclaim that it’s out of your hands…it’s just the way the world works. But it’s way more bad ass to stick to your guns.

I’m not suggesting that you pretend that these proverbial hoes are something they’re not. They’re hoes. And there’s actually a phone number 1-800-GET-THIN. What I am suggesting is that you make your way to the sanest section of the room and keep your zipper up.