Bottom line – terms like “slut” and “whore” are pejorative terms directed only at women for the purpose of attacking their sexuality. As far as I’m concerned there is no room in civilized society for such a thing.

Pity Poor Paris
Posted by Jill @ 11:10 pm

When I wrote this, my point was that the dialogue surrounding the Paris-Hilton-goes-to-jail affair h [...]

All the glee that some people have over Paris Hilton’s fall reminds me of certain cultures that treat human sacrifice victims extraordinarily well for a time before they’re sacrificed, like the Aztecs’ sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca. It’s this ritual that we perform, over and over, with our celebrities, knowing full well and anticipating what will come with at least some of them.

Yeh, good call. Except for now Mel Gibson’s gonna come along and make a movie about the Aztecs starring Paris, or something.

“Slut” is such a shameful word that the “you’re just jealous” response simply doesn’t work so well, and people know that even if they don’t realise that they know that, and that is why they go with “slut” etc.

I don’t know. When I was called a slut when I was younger, I’d come back with a, “You’re just jealous — I’M GETTIN’ LAID.”

I was a shit, though.

What does it say about our culture that we would rather call her a whore than a snobby, entitled brat when we want to insult her?

At least some of it is that the automatic comeback to “snobby entitled brat” is “you’re just jealous”. “Slut” is such a shameful word that the “you’re just jealous” response simply doesn’t work so well, and people know that even if they don’t realise that they know that, and that is why they go with “slut” etc.

I think what he DID care about was a spoiled child who decided that the law just didn’t apply to her.

I don’t think he really cared about that either. From my reading of the situation, the judge was pissed off that the sheriff’s department made a unilateral decision regarding PH’s sentence based on medical evidence he did not see. Throughout the hearing, the judge pointed out that the evidence which the sheriff’s department used to make the decision to send PH home was at no time (even during the hearing) presented to him so that he could consider it.

Yes, there’s a question as to whether anyone else would have received a jail sentence for doing what she did (as far as I can tell, the answer is probably “no”).

She drove drunk with an invalid license, then violated her probation. You can bet your ass if I’d done that (and I’m a “nice looking” little white lady) I’d have gone to jail. I was once pulled over sober with a suspended license (I didn’t know it was suspended) and the cop wanted to take me to jail right there -he was actually kind of adorably cluelessly jovial about it and looked genuinely surprised at my dismay – but I manage to talk him into letting me go if my boyfriend drove. Now imagine if I was drunk. Now imagine I’d been busted for both those things and put on probation then violated the terms of my probation. No way in hell I wouldn’t get jailtime.
The rest of it though is dead on. I’m sick of hearing about how much of a “slut” or a “skank” she is. There are legitimate reasons to dislike her, why does she need to be persecuted for her imagined sex life.

I don’t know how many people hate Paris for being a “slut”. I am sure there are quite a few, but most of what I have read over the last week in blog comments has absolutely nothing to do with her free style sex life. It has to do with class.

Yeah, and I think this is true, but why are people using slut as shorthand for brat? And why can’t I even think of an appropriate slur to use against someone who is too rich or high class? The default language seems to be misogyny when people can’t express their disdain accurately.

On Saturday, I went to work for overtime and on the 7 AM NBC broadcast was the news of Paris Hilton’s return to jail – first news item. Second was a meeting between the chief executive of the world’s largest superpower and the chief executive of the world’s largest religious organization on the morality and ethics of the continuing [Civil] War in Iraq. Burn my tongue for saying this but Bush and His Holiness deserved better. So did the soldiers at Walter Reed who are learning in occupational therapy how to use a urinal while standing on a titanium leg.

We Americans who crow arrogantly about how “good” we are fueled this insanity. We have gotten so used to being convinced of our greatness that we as a people have forgotten decency and prudence, if we ever knew it. L’Affaire Hilton is a petty sign of our vapidity as a people. One strains to imagine the Belgians, the Dutch, the Moroccans, the Thais engaging in such a piece of stupidity. Imagine how losers gave up other activities to put ink to signs proclaiming “Free Paris!” around the LA County courthouse; one hopes perversely that they were actually losers-for-hire paid off by Hilton’s Hollywood publicity machine to be there, rather than volunteer losers working pro malo publico.

Maybe this country is actually not worth saving, one wonders. Maybe it’s time to amputate and cauterize, rather than save, if one wealthy LA County drunk driving probationer outranks the Pope and the President combined on a matter of life and death.