I’ve been concerned about Bret Michaels all weekend. I immediately googled him when I woke up on Saturday, even foregoing my email Inbox and Facebook statuses, to monitor the condition of his health.

This isn’t because Poison was my favorite band growing up; it wasn’t even one of my favorite hair metal bands (ahem, Guns N’ Roses). But “hair metal” as a concept has had a greater effect on me than the music itself. You see, I was 10, 11, 12 when these bands got big, and therefore, their popularity coincided with several landmark events: puberty, the arrival of cable television, and realizing I could save up my allowance to buy cassette tapes. 

At this age, I was discovering both music and boys in ways I hadn’t before—through hormonal discombobulation. Hair metal was still as accessible and fun as regular pop, but it was also mischievous and dangerous in a mysterious-adult kind of way, not like sneaking-an-Oreo-before-dinner kind of way. These hair metal guys looked like girls—pretty and coiffed—yet hard and dirty, but I was less interested in them than I was in their lady friends. The video vixens with long, teased manes, red wet lips, legs for days, pointed heels and pouring cleavage were seductive and sexual and unashamed to be either. They were nothing like I, a sheltered, suburban kid, had ever seen before. Back then, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have pointed to a groupie. 

Some could make the argument that this is why society is fucked and why young girls shouldn’t watch videos like these. I would instead make the argument that there’s nothing wrong with a woman accentuating what makes her woman—curves, lips, hair—and owning it. Pre-this era, women were emasculating themselves (sharp severe suits, shoulder pads, billowy sweaters) and apres-this era, women are supposed to be 100-pound teenage boys, or 100-pound teenage boys with 20 pounds of plastic on their chests.

Granted, I was too young back then to understand that these groupies could be objectified in another way—for free blow jobs and backstage anal sex. None of these antics crossed my mind because my parents also had some influence on what I should be or be exposed to (thank god). All I saw on the screen, all I chose to see on the screen, was that these women were confident, had cool dance moves (i.e. hair swinging, heels strutting) and put guys at their mercy. 

I should also note that part of my concern for Bret comes from how he has pleasantly seeped into my life over the last few years. He is the only “personality” of this era that’s consistently in the public eye, and having once been a groupie’s groupie, ”Rock of Love” (i.e. a study in the tragic-yet-thoroughly-entertaining side of 80s slut idolization) was a compulsion of mine. Also, lately, I’ve been rooting for him on “Celebrity Apprentice,” as he surprisingly seems quite genuine and endearing. 

So Bret, I’m wishing you speedy recovery. I look forward to many more years of you reminding me not to take life too seriously. Please don’t burst my bubble.