My cubicle neighbor, Tribune TV critic Vince Horiuchi, always fears the arrival of a new reality show, because there may be a Utahn on the show that he'll have to write about every week.

Brace yourself, Vince - here comes another one.

Gawker.com is following the new season of "MTV's The Real World," now being filmed in Brooklyn, N.Y. - and, sure enough, there's a guy named Chet Bannon, a Mormon from Salt Lake City (with a fiancee at home here), whose virginity is, apparently, a topic of much discussion.

Here's how the New York Press describes an encounter with Bannon, at a club where the band Semi Precious Weapons was performing:

MTV had the kids well trained. "I’m sorry I can’t divulge that," the cast members would tell me when I pressed them for any details on life in the Pier 41 house. But Chet Bannon, the Mormon who the producers are trying to have de-flowered, was too nice not to talk. By far the most suave of the yahoos, he was wearing an H&M scarf, Elvis Costello glasses and had his short blonde hair spiked. Best of all, he admitted that they were indeed the cast of 'The Real World.'

"I love glam rock," Chet told me as he sipped a Shirley Temple, "you just don’t see anything like it in Salt Lake." As if on cue, Justin Tranter, the mascara-wearing, teased, peroxide-haired frontman of the Weapons, put a medallion around Chet’s neck, whispered something in his ear, then strutted off.

Good luck with that one, Vince.

(Hat tip to Bill Frost, on the City Weekly blog.)

Labels: LDS, Reality show