Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck Know Exactly What They’re Doing

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck: two incredibly rich, hot consenting adults, performing mild soft-core porn for public consumption.

In case you are living under a rock(s that I’ve got): In 2002, when Lopez and Affleck were first dating, Lopez released a music video for “Jenny From the Block.” In one scene the couple lie on the deck of a yacht, and Affleck lowers his mouth to Lopez’s ass, gives it a tender kiss, rubs it, and then unties her bikini bottoms and flings them away. Good for him!

Last weekend the on-again couple gave us the A-lister version of a Revolutionary War reenactment. As regular people drank room-temperature beer and cleaned our horrible little houses, Bennifer climbed aboard a yacht, took off most of their clothes, and silently re-created the “Jenny From the Block” ass caress.

They staged a scene for the paparazzi, based on a music video about being tailed by the paparazzi. They blurred the lines between life, art, and gossip. It’s like having sex in front of a mirror, but on the world stage. Bless them! This is exactly what they should be doing.

For decades we as a society have been obsessed with celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. Isn’t it nice to know that they’re just as obsessed with us? They’re playing directly to us. They need us, and they know it. Yes, they use yachts as props, whereas we own dozens of useless pieces of Tupperware. But we’re a part of the same ecosystem. J.Lo and Ben are back together. But the real love affair is between fame and fans.

It's become increasingly clear that the Hollywood machine has malfunctioned. Again and again, beloved performers are coming forward and saying their fame has been tainted by abuse, discrimination, and inhuman pressure. The brave public statements by Britney Spears, Meghan Markle, and Demi Lovato, to name just a few, remind us that women and minorities aren’t safe, even when they meet society’s highest standards for excellence. If the wealthiest and most successful people are suffering, what does that mean for the rest of us?

It feels like a relief to see two celebrities so completely in control of their own narratives. With 20 years of fame under their belts, they demonstrate the ideal symbiotic relationship between celebrities and the public: They lie on piles of money and touch each other’s butts, and we watch. It’s like Old Hollywood, without the drugs and world wars.

Not only are they not being played by their own industry, but they actually might be playing us. Celebrities are entertainers, and J.Lo and Ben are two of our all-time greats. We’ve enjoyed their movies, live shows, music videos, and tabloids. Now they appear to be staging a performance piece that combines every one of these forms. Is it true love? A P.R. stunt? A commentary on the nature of fame? Don’t worry about it! When you see a shooting star, do you turn away to ask an astronomer about the average velocity of meteors? No! You pat your own beautiful butt and think how precious this life is.

What are we supposed to do? Feel sad for Jennifer Garner? If anyone has a deeply fulfilling personal and professional life, it is Jennifer Garner! Should we feel sad for Alex Rodriguez? He’s literally Alex Rodriguez. This is a victimless crime.

Mostly, our deal with celebrities stinks for everyone: They get rich; we don’t. They are robbed of their privacy and the feeling that they have value other than as commodities, and we still have to watch movies that seem like they were written by Google Docs suggestion mode.

Where did things go so wrong? We cannot turn back the clock to when Lindsay Lohan was a brilliant, unknown child actor, running into Natasha Richardson’s arms. We cannot rescue Britney Spears from decades of hellish indentured servitude. Bennifer have been around the block in every sense. They do not seem to be ensnared by nefarious family members or publicity teams. They’re serving us the full fantasy—boats, butts, Ben, and Jen.

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.

Originally Appeared on Glamour