It’s one thing to delight in the glee of celebs showing up to events in consistently tacky outfits, becoming divas on the Home Shopping Network, continuing to star in movies that flop or getting caught in ridiculous sex scandals (Seriously, tweeting a crotch photo? Comical, lame and totally worth mocking).

It is a completely other story to take pleasure in another human being’s death. I don’t know what it is about celebrities that makes us forget that they are actual people. Is it the over-the-top lifestyle? Is it the way they live their lives so openly in a way that would mortify most of us? I remember talking to a friend during Charlie Sheen’s meltdown, and I asserted how uncomfortable I was with the way people were idolizing and condoning his ridiculous behavior, especially since he has a history of violence. In response, she said “celebrities don’t count.” But celebrities do count. Their actions have consequences. They don’t exist in a bubble. The way that we choose to contextualize the actions of our celebrities says a lot about our society’s values.

Sheen, the highest paid actor on TV with a long history of domestic violence, goes on some awful rants, complete with some completely unnecessary Anti-Semitism (rants that eventually led to making money), and everyone bows down to the altar of yet another privileged white man who knows how to drum up publicity and make a profit for himself. Chris Brown has still not been forgiven for his attack of Rihanna. He had a fit on the set of Good Morning America and the media was quick to paint him as angry and unstable, and I find it impossible to believe that race doesn’t have anything to do with it. He’s a young black man who sings music that widely appeals to a young black audience — ie: the majority of people are not interested in investing in him or his success. Now, I am not an apologist for violent men. I don’t think it’s hard to avoid hitting women, and I believe both Charlie and Chris should be blacklisted, but the unequal treatment is most certainly not a coincidence.

And when Amy Winehouse dies, her struggle with drugs and alcohol made people feel comfortable enough to express their delight, because they know their marginalization of substance abuse, mental illness and, let’s be totally honest here –women — is acceptable in our society. It’s even been perpetrated on College Candy. Amy Winehouse, despite winning five Grammys in one night, despite having two critically acclaimed albums, despite being a distinguished vocalist and songwriter who has sold several million albums worldwide, is still not considered “worthy” of being part of a morbid club of rock stars who have all died far too young. The impact that she has made in the music industry is undeniable.

To deny the fact that celebrities reflect the ignorant and dysfunctional norms of our culture is to deny the true extent of how deeply our collective racism, misogyny and tendency to devalue people with mental illnesses runs. It’s counterproductive and doesn’t allow our society to evolve to its true potential.

Annoyed already? But oh, it get’s so much better…

I will refer to females as “targets”. They aren’t actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.

I have to give these guys some credit. They make no attempt to hide what misogynistic, sexist, racist, horrible human beings they actually are from the very beginning, when they tilt the world backwards on its axis with this comment. I mean, really? Was there ever even a time when women weren’t at least viewed as human beings?

Drawbacks of this philosophy [not wearing a condom] are that you may have to visit the clinic more often than not, but a quick penicillin shot really isn’t that bad (trust me).

Note the complete disregard for the woman’s health and safety. Note also that the fact that not wearing a condom could result in pregnancy is not even a thought in this man’s head. It’s as though he doesn’t even make the connection that unprotected sex can result in pregnancy simply because he’s not the one who would be pregnant.

Be careful when you cheat, but still cheat.

The pride and joy of Kappa Sigma also goes on to list a ranking system for the girls, excuse me “pies,” one gets with, and gives the above advice for those ranked at number 5. I have no words.

Non-consent and rape are two different things. There is a fine line, so make sure not to cross it.

Last time I checked, rape was non consensual sex. Or did I miss something? Here is where, for me at least, this letter moves from disgusting to disturbing. It’s one thing to be a manwhore.
It’s something else entirely to be a manwhore who doesn’t understand the concept of no.

You can read the letter in its entirety over at Jezebel, but it’s pretty much just one horrifying comment after another. But there’s really not much I can say about this letter that hasn’t been said before. It’s a degrading, insulting, disgusting, sexist, misogynistic piece of trash that is a disgrace not only for Kappa Sigma but for men in general. (Okay I guess I could think of a few things to say.) And for that reason I can see why the rest of the internet (like our gal pals at The Frisky) is freaking out over it, because I am too.

But what I can’t understand is why they’re so shocked that stuff like this exists out there. On Tuesday, I wrote about the shocking statistics that prove that women are still very far off from achieving equality, and about how we don’t always acknowledge or even realize that. And this letter is proof of just that.

Behind closed doors, when guys aren’t trying to score a “Guap n’ Drop” by taking women out to dinner and pretending like they actually believe they are human beings, this is how a lot of men talk. Not all men, but a lot of them, and especially a lot of college guys who have yet to reach the stage of wanting a real relationship and are only concerned with scoring “pies”. (I apologize. I can’t not use the air quotes. It’s just too ridiculous.)  As a college girl in a college setting have I experienced college guys being misogynistic? Yes. Sexist?  Yes. Degrading and demeaning? Check and check. Just because every guy who embraces this type of thinking doesn’t type up an e-mail (or a newspaper article) and send it around to all his friends doesn’t mean this stuff doesn’t happen. That doesn’t make it okay, but it does make it reality.

A reality we are not always aware of.

So while the writer of this letter claimed he would track down and take the soul of anyone who sent his e-mail to anyone outside of Kappa Sigma, I for one want to shake that man’s hand. Not because he thought this e-mail was too funny not to pass along, but because maybe now a few more people will realize exactly what women are dealing with.

Thoughts? Comments? Angry rants? Share below.

This article is nothing but a load of misogynistic crap about women being submissive to men. It open’s with: “Women like to be controlled and dominated. Don’t fool yourself into believing that they don’t. They do… Secretly all women desire to submit to the will of their man.”

Of course, he is sure to include a disclaimer: “First off, I’m not promoting any man to beat any woman. You can dominate her without putting the “smack down” on her.” That’s right boys, stick to verbally abusing your women, please.

And it only gets worse – much, much worse – from there.

How should a man respond when a women is nagging him? Because that’s all we ever do, right?
Miller suggests saying the following:  “WOMAN! Last time I checked I was the one with the penis in this house. You better go in that kitchen and get my dinner on the table!” Miller goes on to explain that if she tries to talk back and argue, “just shake your head no and point to the kitchen. She’ll get the message. By doing this you will subconsciously reinforce the fact that you are the dominant one in the household. You’re the man and your word is the only one that counts in the end.”
I say: Is this guy for real? Does he honestly think any self-respecting woman is going to just scurry off to the kitchen because the man with the penis said so?

And what about when you’re out shopping and she wants a new dress?
Miller suggests: “Look, you ain’t getting no new dress. Matter of fact, you be lucky if I took you to the thrift store and bought you a dress for fifty cent.”
I say: Apparently it is impossible to dominate a woman without also abusing the English language.

As if dominating women in the kitchen and at the store isn’t enough, Steve also thinks it’s important to dominate us in the bedroom.
Miller suggests: “Make sure you have her perform oral sex on you. She’s your wife and she should be willing to do that. It’s part of her being submissive. You must wear her out. You should wear her out.”
I say: I agree that a good partner should want to please you in the bedroom, but I don’t agree with raping your wife’s throat. And I most definitely don’t agree with not returning the favor.

Miller goes on: Even more important than getting a blow job, though, is making sure she makes you a sandwich afterward. Why? “The reason why you do this is prove that she has been thoroughly dominated and she will express this by submissively getting ‘her man a sandwich.’ Matter a fact, she should be telling her girlfriends ‘My husband, did it so good to me, he had me up making sandwiches and kool-aide after we got done. And I could barely even walk, girl.’”
I say: I feel sick…

Have you girls had any experience with men like this? Do you think there is ANY truth to the idea that women want to be dominated?

Here’s the deal: Camille Paglia was the Ann Coulter of the ‘90s. She wrote a book, Sexual Personae, which dealt “shockingly” with issues of sex and gender, in that it basically re-iterated the talking points of idiot wife-beaters across the nation. (Here’s a sample quote: “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.”) This book turned her into a popular media personality, and spawned countless essays and TV appearances; she was the go-to girl when conservatives needed to call upon some random crazy to bash women.

The peak of her career, of course, came when she took it upon herself to defend rapists, by saying that women who got drunk or wore skimpy clothes in the presence of men deserved to be sexually assaulted, because men simply could not be expected to contain their awesome sexual power. In her words, “woman’s flirtatious arts of self-concealment mean man’s approach must take the form of rape.”

However, I also enjoyed it when she claimed that women should be beaten for getting uppity (“much violence against women originates in emotional territory that they already command… women are in total, despotic control of their marriages”), and that feminism turned dudes gay (“middle-class men, neutered by office life and daunted by feminist rhetoric, are shrinking… male homosexuality is increasing, because masculinity is in crisis”). It is true, however, that nothing beats the opening chapters of Sexual Personae, in which she claims that only men are capable of creating civilization and technology, because… wait for it… they stand up to pee, and their urine streams help them transcend nature.

Yes, she actually says this.

No, I am not kidding.

Yes, it’s in the chapter where she says that women’s periods make them incapable of rational thought. Check it out.

Now, this is the thing, boys and girls: you cannot make a permanent career out of shocking people. Before long, you run out of obnoxious things to say (“only a dude could have created this Diet Coke, because it is so sparkling and transcendent – like male urine!”) or else people get tired of you. People got very tired of Paglia. The last time I saw her, she was on a Star Wars documentary special, claiming that “there is nothing sexier than Darth Vader.” This triggered, in any rational viewer, two responses: a) yes, there are lots of things sexier than Darth Vader, and b) why is that crazy old lady on my TV?

For that matter, why is she presenting lectures on feminism? It’s true: as reported by the infelicitously named journal Arion (say it aloud a few times), Paglia recently delivered a lecture on just such a topic. Her main thesis: that the feminist movement excludes dissenting points of view. Her main supporting point: no-one will accept her, Camille Paglia, as a feminist. Here’s a sample of her epic whine:

“When my first book, Sexual Personae, was published by Yale University Press in 1990, that 700-page tome on art and culture was compared by Gloria Steinem, who clearly had not bothered to read it, to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. When an op-ed I wrote on date-rape for New York Newsday in January 1991 was reprinted via syndication across the US, there was a huge reaction, including what was clearly an organized campaign of vilification: the president of my university in Philadelphia was besieged with calls from around the country calling for me to be fired from my teaching job.”

Yes, it’s true, Camille: when you say that women are incapable of creating culture, and stand up in support of rapists and wife-beaters, people might not think that you are a feminist! They also might not want you teaching their children, given the whole “rape is hot – GO DO SOME RAPING, KIDS” issue. (“You have to accept the fact that part of the sizzle of sex comes from the danger of sex. You can be overpowered.”) It’s not that we’re fascists; it’s simply that we tend to believe paid teaching professionals should not endorse crime, or, for that matter, blatant stupidity.

The fact is that feminism has one basic premise, which is that women deserve full equality and full human rights. If you agree with that, you are a feminist, and there is plenty of room within the movement for debate on how to achieve those goals. Paglia clearly doesn’t agree with it, and she never has – so her choice to carp about being “rejected” or “excluded” from the movement that she routinely attacks is just more baseless attention-mongering from a woman who’s built her career on empty ploys for notoriety (well, that and an apparently staggering love for men’s pee-streams).

I must say, though, that her lecture did impart one very astonishing fact: somehow, despite all reason, Camille Paglia still has a job.

Showgirls.

Now, I’ve seen bits of this masterpiece in tackiness before, but I had never sat through the whole thing — the whole edited for TV version, no less. Most people probably think watching an NC17 film on cable is lame, but let me tell you, friends, Showgirls only gets better with censorship.

Here are 5 Reasons Why You Need To See Showgirls (the Edited for TV Version)

5) Elizabeth Berkley’s Wardrobe

She may want you to take her seriously today on some boring Bravo dance show, but back in 1995, Berkley was being dressed like a whore in every single scene in Showgirls. Even when she wasn’t running around in thongs and dancing crop tops, the girl just couldn’t catch a break from the wardrobe department. Everything she wears in this film makes her look like a blind prostitute who wears baby clothes. Seriously. If you played a drinking game where everyone took a shot every time Berkley wore something that showed her stomach or asscheeks, you’d be wasted after 10 minutes.

4) That Doggie Chow Scene

If you’ve seen Showgirls (and if you haven’t, hopefully this list will convince you of your duty to do such a thing), you know what scene I mean. Nomi and her nemesis, evil bitch / slut / main dancer / wearer of horrible nails Cristal are making nice at a fancy restaurant. How do they finally bond? Over dog food. That they ate. Direct dialogue quote is as follows:

Cristal: “Doggie chow. I used to love doggie chow.”

Nomi: “I used to love Doggie chow too!”

I mean, how can anything be said about this dialogue besides that it’s so f*cking horrible it does a 360 and becomes awesome? Also, I guess I don’t even need to go into the underlying misogyny of two women bonding over how they used to love eating food for dogs. Bring it up in your next Woman’s Studies class. Bras will burn.

3) Elizabeth Berkley’s Acting

Maybe it wasn’t her fault. Maybe Paul Verhoeven is the kind of director who just sits back and goes, “yes! See how you’re totally over-acting in that scene?! KEEP GOING!!” Maybe she really wanted to do a good job but was coerced into sucking instead, but whatever the case, Berkley does not do anything half way in this film. She dances dramatically. She breathes dramatically. She thrusts dramatically. She eats hamburgers dramatically…just put “dramatically” in front of any verb and that sums up her performance.

2) The Redonkulous Script

First Joe Eszterhas wrote Flashdance. Then he wrote Basic Instinct. Then he wrote Showgirls. Then he wrote Basic Instinct 2. I can only assume Eszterhas sold his soul to the devil for the chance to write Flashdance and in return promised each subsequent screenplay he created would suck leagues harder than the previous one.

The dialogue in Showgirls is so bad it’s amazing anyone was able to say it without throwing up into a bucket first. It’s also amazing anyone wanted to sit next to Eszterhas after they flipped through his stupidly gratuitous sex scenes, let alone make his movie.

1) The EDITED ON BRAS and Nonsensical Plot After Gratuitous Sex Scenes Are Cut Due to Censorship

While unpacking a giant box filled with pots and pans, I nearly dropped 12 pounds of non-stick metal on my feet when I noticed that in certain scenes where Berkley is topless in the original film, someone went and DREW ON animated “bras”. Yes. To protect the precious eyes of TV viewers everywhere, some poor intern was instructed to animate underwear on Berkley’s body. Every animated bra is funnier than the last, and since the girl is basically topless during the entire film, her slightly squiggly purple “underwear” is everywhere.

Also, it should be noted that Showgirls makes even less sense when the sex scenes are cut out. Everyone’s motivation is suddenly inexplicable.

Thirdly, the words they come up with to replace the multitude of swears that jump out of everyone’s mouth is priceless. If you played a second drinking game where you took a shot every time a swear was replaced with an awkward word, you’d be drunk in 10 seconds.

So, there you have it. Some fantastic reasons to see Showgirls on cable. Call your friends, break out the cheap cocktails, dress up in your favorite dance thong, and drift away into 2 hours of pure stupid genius.