Paris Hilton and Double Standards
I haven't seen the Paris Hilton tape yet because I am
not willing to shell out the $30-60 asking price on the web,
but I have seen the very brief trailer (see e.g. celebrity-gallery.com
for the clip). But it seems that everyone, men and women
alike, most of whom haven't even seen that much of it,
have the same reaction: what a little bimbo, ho, pig, tramp,
slut, etc. The unanimity of this response got me thinking
"what's going on here?".
Clearly it's more than the general understandable
jealousy of her hotel heiress multimillion dollar celebrity
supermodel crazy partygirl international jetset lifestyle.
I think that a lot of it relates to that old double standard
that is all too alive and well even in the 21st century, the
notion that nice girls don't, or at least if they do
as part of their wifely or womanly duty, they try their best
not to enjoy it. Hopefully this outdated moralistic relic
from the Victorian era of two centuries ago is not that prevalent
on this site, but I will bet you that plenty of members who
read a profile of a woman looking for no-strings sex sex
sex are going to have the same opinion of her as of Ms. Hilton,
and that that opinion is going to differ somewhat depending
on the woman's appearance, whether beautiful or unattractive.
I recall working with a woman many years ago that I'll
call Brenda. She seemed thoroughly conventional, the
basic nice girl. But what made her stand out was that she
would come in and talk to her boss about her sexual exploits
- her fondness for being tied up or handcuffed and performing
oral sex, her passion for anal sex, and so on.
Naturally since he was not asked to keep silent on these
stories, he would relate the juicy (in more ways than one)
details to others. My own reaction was like everyone else's:
"What a little tramp. I would never have expected
that from her. She seems like such a nice little girl."
But I started thinking about it, and wondered why I felt
that way. Ultimately what I came up with as a rationale for
my opinion of her was this. The difference between a nice
girl and a pig is that a nice girl keeps it to herself and a
pig doesn't. A classy lady can get as down and dirty
behind closed doors with her partner or partners as the
slut does, and she is just as entitled to the same sexual
pleasures of acting out in real life her secret sexual fantasies,
however raunchy or deviant they may seem, as any man or any
other woman. It just isn't prudent to talk about your
exploits in public to people who are not your close friends.
Such comments can invariably color the opinions of others
in a decidedly negative manner. It's not necessarily
the acts per se, whatever they may be. Probably we would
all be astonished at what goes on behind closed doors if
we only knew. The point is, we don't. In a more nearly
perfect liberated world we could all talk about everything
as explicitly as we wished without consequences, but the
fact is that in the real world some people are more modest
than others, have different value systems, and don't
want to hear it. They shouldn't have to.
Why did Brenda talk so openly about her romps? I think the
answer is a complicated psychological issue. She was a
truly pretty girl, but she was also terribly flat-chested,
as bad as I have ever seen, and she was understandably quite
self-conscious about it. She was always telling her boss
how much she wanted to save up the money for implants. She
told me once that she had had to endure from time to time from
cruel and thoughtless bastards the usual ignorant jokes
as 'a carpenter's dream, flat as a board',
and so on right to her face. That's so rude and uncalled
for, and I am sure it devastated her self-esteem. She probably
felt so unattractive and sexually unappealing that she
would relate these stories to others in order to demonstrate
to the world that in fact men did want to be with her, that
she did have something to offer. The stories were not made
up fantasies of hers, by the way; she dated one man I knew,
and he verified them to me with additional details. Eventually
I just felt sorry for her, and never commented one way or
the other on her sexual activities. It was a sad story in
its own way. The world can be so cruel and unsympathetic,
and ultimately devastating to those to whom fate has dealt
a bad hand.
As far as Paris Hilton goes, my opinion is good for her and
more power to her. From what I understand the sex is thoroughly
conventional, and even if it were not, what of it? Those
who have seen the tape seem to think she was fully aware of
the taping. It was all consensual. Her only mistake, and
I do not necessarily fault her for it, was trusting her asshole
partner, who ultimately betrayed her trust and her privacy
by distributing the tape to the public for his own benefit.
Shame on him. He's a pathetic loser, and a sorry excuse
for a man, almost as bad in my opinion as a child pornographer.
Maybe some poetic justice will come his way some day. One
can only hope.
Now those of a more philosophical turn of mind may well ask
after what I have just said above whether it is ethically
appropriate for me to view this tape at all, given the circumstances
of its release. In reply, let me say this. If it were of a person
I knew and cared about, I would not feel comfortable watching
it, and I mean that sincerely. To view it would be a violation
of our friendship and far too voyeuristic, much like being
a peeping Tom peering through the venetian blinds in my
neighbor's window. There's already an astonishing
volume of porn on the net for me to watch; just go to thehun.com
to get an idea of the tonnage out there on every conceivable
topic. But where Ms. Hilton is an international celebrity
and the tape has wide distribution and therefore has already
been seen by millions, I don't think my viewing it will
have any impact. If I can find somebody who can burn me a copy,
even those distributing it won't profit a penny from
my viewing.
P.S. I would be interested in reading the responses of female
members to this piece. Send me an email. I promise to respond
if you wish with a reply as soon as I can, depending on the
volume received. Thanks. - niceperson66
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