This is a simple column by a complex woman.  
Dumb-asses need not apply.
If you flatter yourself to be a bright spot in the universe
and aren't offended by "psychotic breaks," welcome.
If you're a little frightened, well, all the better.
We kinda like you like that... with hot sauce.

“cancer as aphrodisiac” 

Much has been made against GH’s decision to return Emily recast and stricken with breast cancer, just like her deceased mother Paige. 

When TPTB turned a socially relevant storyline into a Harlequin Romanced triangle involving a conceited, self-centered, shallow twit and two handsome, charming suitors in their prime of horny manhood, the bullshit figuratively hit the fans. 

[Let me amend the Harlequin Romance reference, this genre of writers do a lot better than GH’s smut-smitten light-weights. How about poor man’s soft porn import?] 

After two mentions of nausea spells, exploiting the guest appearances of real-life, 30-something breast cancer survivors in a made-for-after-school-movie PSA cheat sheet of a group therapy session, and a close call leaving Emily nearly comatose for about, oh, one episode, the cancer was dropped in favor of some hot and heavy petting and making out, scheduled to climax on Halloween when Emily chooses Nikolas to be her one, true soul mate. 

Thanks to cancer. Cancer! 

During the week of October 20th, I almost thoroughly enjoyed GH as never before. Luke, Skye and then Coleman and A.J. enlivened the “Dead Man’s Hand” intrigue with their adult banter and sitcom-perfect timing. Sonny completely sold me on a withering, pathetic has-been giving up before the battle’s through and latching onto the edge of auto-pilot insanity, as Carly gives in to complete hysterical panic before Alcazar storms in begging for her love. 

... Until Monica called Emily in to give her the miraculous news of her cancer remission. Remission! 

As an afterthought (let’s face it, nobody was paying attention to the cancer anymore, not with Nikolas tongue-driving her in the elevator), Emily had just gone on another series of chemo treatments, a new one, her third, without suffering hair loss, nausea, weakness, diarrhea and assorted other side effects everybody I have ever known and know to this day have had to suffer through. In fact, just the other week, Emily was marveling over how great and lucky she felt at not reacting negatively at all to this third treatment, with a doctor to accentuate her great luck. 

Conveniently, Emily called her two suitors, Nikolas and Zander, over to the hospital immediately, through a nasty debilitating storm (praise the Lord for SUVs!), to tell them the miraculous news, with the actress’s usual hemming, hawing, “Um”ing and constipating. Not moments before, she’d called off any possible burgeoning relationship with either of them, after being fed up with their constant feuding over winning her love, citing cancer as a more important, more consuming issue she had to focus all her attention on. 

I watched her blinking fast, beaming her perfectly unbesmirched beauty upon the desperately in-love men who would have cut their dicks off for her hand in marriage, long, cascading brown hair with gold highlights, creamy moonbeam complexion and slim, toned, girlish figure intact, the epitome of appropriately desirable fashion statement, this supposed breast cancer survivor picked from the cast to responsibly portray a disease’s disastrous effects on real victims everywhere. 

I wanted to throw up. 

I thought of my mother, the wife of my husband’s first cousin, my mother’s best friend in the ‘70s, my online friend Honeycat, and the hundreds of other real-life cancer survivors and victims who weren’t as lucky as Emily, who never received a miraculous remission statement—or the undying, sensually alluring seductions of two studly young men. I thought of myself, pushing 40, most likely a carrier from my mother, praying to God that the shaky nine or 10 months nursing my son would help protect me from the genetic inevitability and provide for me an Emily-esque miracle. 

And then, I thought of the reprehensible, thoughtless irresponsibility on the part of TPTB for allowing such a lie (of a joke of an excuse for three youth-demo darlings to simulate seduction, angst and sexual healing) to play out on millions of television screens for millions of more susceptible and younger women out there, who don’t and can’t know any better. 

[Don’t laugh, some impressionable girls in high school have begun eating again after witnessing their soap heroines Courtney and Carly eating at Kelly’s Diner!] 

These women will now assume that getting cancer is either easy as pie or is a surefire way to attract two very good-looking, marriage-minded guys, one of ‘em preferably rich. Or both. With a few sickos actually wishing cancer could be passed on the same as a cold virus. 

Many of them will contract some form of cancer and innocently believe they’ll be like Emily, enough of the initial nausea as to appear damsel-in-distress attractive to the opposite sex, but not enough to discourage the rising, unquenchable libido and ability to remain very much sexually active, very much aesthetically shallow, very much invested in keeping up the dating scene. 

They won’t flinch when their doctors talk about chemo and radiation and negative probabilities, or the fact that an overriding element to earning a remission (that’s right, earning) involves throwing 500 billion percent solely into fighting the disease and believing they will defeat the disease in the long run, not being distracted by a nice piece of ass. 

And of course, when reality bites their romanticized version of cancer, they’ll suffer double. 

To treat such a serious subject as breast cancer in one so young and so vibrant like so much confetti concoction for the MTV set, is to do such an unforgivable disservice to humanity. It’s just plain ugly, immoral and wrong. 

In the future, TPTB of soaps, especially of GH, better rethink any attempt to delve into the disease of the week in hopes of attracting viewers with the lowest common denominator of the easy way onto enticing, sexy, relevant love connections. If they, as well as countless fans, disapprove of realistically depicting social issues as downers, for fear of turning off, depressing and repulsing the audience, then just don’t bother. 

Stick with action-adventures, mysteries, slapstick and far-fetched storylines about mobsters who benevolently rule a small town against a corrupt police department, all centered around the next babe magnet jonesing for a little poontang, accentuated by the costume design stylings of David Zyla, from now-defunct PC. 

Seriously.