I am not sure where the appropriate venue is for confessing this but I have seen Kim Kardashian's butt. Bottom. Patootie. Backside. Cakes. Whatever. I don’t think there is a word that will make this less offensive or traumatic.

It’s odd that I have seen her butt. I don’t know her. I’m sure she’d find me just delightful if she met me but she is a rich fancy person of some sort and I hate people and leaving the house. It’s just as well. If I met her now it would certainly be pretty awkward. I am not really that sure what it is she does. But since what I do is nothing, I can’t imagine where our paths would cross.

I must assure you that I don’t make it a practice to look at other people’s bare bottoms. When my last child was potty trained I was delighted that the endless butt train had ended. Mostly we are a bare butt-free household.

I feel good about that.

I wanted it to stay that way. I feel the butt is perhaps over featured at this exact moment in time. But I digress.

I have no business interests with Ms. K. I am not sure what she is selling but the nearest I can guess it’s anaphylaxis and cameras. I am not sure how that became a market. But I am not buying so I don’t exactly run into her at work. Also, usually when I run into people at work, they are wearing pants.

I don’t watch any entertainment with her in it. I am not sure why looking bored is an entertainment but if I want to see someone pulling faces like they are just so above it all, I will turn on Blacklist and watch James Spader do it properly. He is above it all. Also, he pulls off a different caper every week. With his pants on.

I am not a fancy person. I let my hair go grey because it is twinkly and reminds me of people I love. I consider dressing up putting on more turquoise jewelry. If I am ever on a red carpet it will be because someone has spilled punch. I’ll probably be yelling.

I am unfancy, rural, middle aged, and introverted. I have never taken a selfie and can’t imagine the kind of hostage situation that would have to be in play for me to do so.

Still, I have seen the butt of this woman who I do not know, whose products I do not buy, whose opinions I neither seek nor value.

I saw her butt because a photo of her bare (and worryingly shiny) bottom was put on a magazine. I didn’t get the magazine. I didn’t have to. There were pictures on the news. There were pictures all over the internet. There were pictures on Facebook. There were pictures on the shows of the late night funny guys.

I saw a butt that I did not seek to see, want to see or need to see.

We discuss cultural shifts and new norms. “Turn it off,” we are told. If you don’t want to see, just don’t watch. But the problem with that argument is that culture does not stay outside of us. It isn’t meant to. I never had to turn on a single thing to be shown her butt.

Telling me I can turn it off is like telling a fish not to worry about poison you put in a different part of the tank. It doesn’t matter. We are all swimming in it. That is what culture is. It is a shared blend of experiences, norms and values.

It’s why we all get teary when we think about 9/11 or the Challenger disaster even if we weren’t there. It’s why everyone started saying “awesome” in 1980. Prior to that the word was reserved for things that were actually awe-inspiring like the Grand Canyon, rather than merely pleasant like the teacher dropping a quiz on which you did badly.

No one sat down and said, “What word should we grossly abuse for the next 40 years until it has lost all meaning?” It just started and moved from one person to another and another and another.

I will turn it off. I will make my kids turn it off. I will block it out. But we also have to talk about what we are introducing into our shared pond. No man is an island and all that.

Also, I don’t want to see any more butts.