I'm sitting at my computer and hear screaming, hysterical girls below my window. Many of them have been here since 4:00 a.m. waiting, just waiting in the freezing cold to get a glimpse of Brian, or Nik, Kevin, AJ or Howie. I walk out of the building into a crowd of hormones. The abundance of sexual energy in this crowd is warming my whole body. The Back Street Boys are back and the girls are going crazy.

As I walk through this electrified, screaming crowd of girls, I wish I had been a bit more "boy band crazy" when I was a teenager. Instead of actually engaging in sex at the tender age of 15, with a rocker named "Brian," I could have fantasized about "Brian" from the Back Street Boys. He could have been my dream boy, my Romeo who would sing me love songs, dance with me and then sweep me off my feet, kissing me passionately. He would make sure that the 'real Brian' would treat me as his equal and with respect.

And then, of course, my girlfriends and I would talk about 'Brian and the boys' as if God herself had created them for our personal pleasure. The Back Street Boys would be the source of our desire, the center of our conversations, and the epicenter of the universe. They are also an excuse for us girls to get together and scream, jump and dance. At home, in my bedroom, my dream boy Brian would be the way I discover what turns me on. He would be my favorite plush toy on which I direct all of my masturbatory energy.

But as I brush past a sobbing suburban 12-year-old, I wonder if maybe this girl has not discovered her clitoris yet. Could all of this energy - this screaming, hysterical crowd - have gathered together today because they haven't yet learned to masturbate? As the story shows, when these girls are asked what they want to do with their favorite Back Street Boy if they had them in a room alone, they can't even articulate their desire. They start to choke, sputter, and then laugh nervously.

And so I think, maybe the "dream boy" and the "real boy" can never come together. Throughout history, girls have experienced boy craziness and many boys have filled the role of "fantasy fodder." Whether it be trading "Boy Crazy!" trading cards or sticking a poster of a Back Street Boy on my bedroom wall, these boys are projections of the budding yearnings of female sexual desire, they represent the turbulence of hormones and emotions awash in the teenage body, and their image becomes the blank page on which a teenage girl writes her personal tales of romantic love. Imagine what this combination does when these girls truly begin to learn about their bodies.

As I walk back into the station, I stare at the face of a jumping, twitching and ecstatic 16-year-old and I have to stop myself from running into the Much Music environment and smothering the band with kisses.

Michelle Melles
Segment Producer, SEXTV