Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 99

American Bumper Stickers

95

Sometimes I wake up grumpy, other times I let her sleep.
Endemic in the narcissist population is also a fascination with oral sex. This
narcissist’s favorite also symbolizes his selfishness and need for non-reciprocated
fulfillment. There are many stickers dedicated to celebrating the pleasures of
(receiving) oral sex:
It’s lonely at the top, but you eat better.
Life’s a buffet, so eat me!
Nice people swallow.
Yeah, right! Like I’m going to put that icky thing in my mouth!
Narcissists find the competition of sexual promiscuity to be their path to
success. Promiscuity becomes another form of material attainment the narcissist
engages in to demonstrate a winning character. Constantly tonnented by self-doubt,
the adult narcissist is obsessed with peer competition and the need to achieve a
high social status in order to forget one’s insecurities. Consider the following:
So many men (women), so little time.
Numerous bumper stickers exemplify the performance aspect and the
competitive character of the popularity contest of sexual behavior:
Athletes score more.
Divers do it deeper.
Vegetarians taste better.
Over-preoccupation with sex, constant excitement and self-doubting fears of
inadequacy make for a combination of performance anxiety and insatiable sexual
hunger. The narcissistic self’s main preoccupation is that of performing, as if in
front of an audience whose acceptance represents the ultimate prize and the only
motivation for acting. This sticker illustrates well this point:
The sex was so good that even the neighbors had a cigarette.
The sexual act for a narcissist is an occasion for admiring one’s successful
self and proficient body. These stickers, however humorous, seem to reflect how
one is much more thrilled by the attractiveness of one’s own shape than by being
attracted to a lover:
Does this condom make me look fat?
It could be worse: what if sex was fattening?
Narcissists challenge themselves to be recognized to be the best at it, those
who get it the most, and also from the best catches. At the light of these observations
it is perhaps easier to understand one of the possible messages stickers such as the
following may send:
My other wife is beautiful.
My other toy has tits.
The first sticker stresses out the importance of beauty and does so by offering
some kind of a boastful justification. It is as if the owner of this sticker had been