I don't know y'all...I'm not really down with the whole "anything goes!" philosophy. I don't think sex workers and their buyers should be in jail or anything if it's all consenting adults. But...I disagree with it as much as I disagree with say...dealing or smoking crack. I think it's damaging to society and to the individual, even though it generally involves consenting adults. I'm not sure how it should be remedied.

I don't know if this rambling makes any sense, but I don't think that I am a bad person or a bad feminist because I don't agree with prostitution as a career choice or as a means of recreation. I would be horrified and saddened if I found out someone I love was a prostitute, or was soliciting them. It's such a desperate action to take, like a plea for help from someone who is almost dead inside.

I guess it's a complicated issue.

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Guess I gotta work on that...

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Which then enables Jezebel to swoop in and decry the state of the internet, where people are mean enough to be hateful to people they hardly know, based only on the scraps of info that have been provided in such a respectful manner by Gawker Media, or gleaned from Miss Cutler's own blog, which apparently doesn't paint her out to be a terribly nice or sympathetic character. 12,000 views and counting, with comment flames out of control.

Megan: If you're that concerned with people calling her a slut, why not condemn the original Gawker post for practically setting down a red carpet, begging people to be nasty and pass judgment? But instead, all blame is put on commenters (some of them women!) for somehow reacting with scorn and cynicism and abuse, and then accusing people of only lashing out because she was a woman who had a lot of sex. So of course women as a whole must never want any highly sexual women to ever be happy.

Anyhow, obviously I think this was a flawed and potentially purposefully manufactured argument. And even with the freaking crazy hateful commenters here, very few have been attacking her for an active sex life, or even being an escort. Sex isn't the problem most women have with Miss Cutler. It seems to be more of an issue with integrity and mean-spiritedness, the disregard for others, the glee in which she discussed indiscretions with the world, and the financial gains that came out of it.

With a long list of reasons why someone might not like this woman, it's no surprise that people would scoff at her chances of having a long and successful marriage, either maliciously wishing her evil, or just cynically predicting its early demise. Luckily, I doubt she or her fiance care one whit what a bunch of random people on the internet think, nor should they. There really was little need to escalate it over to Jezebel in this way, other than to stir things up, and create even more nasty internet comments.

Two last points:

1) If the original article had been about Tucker Max or Eliot Spitzer announcing his upcoming wedding to a woman he'd met 6 months ago, the reaction likely would have been similar, with just slight variations on the slurs used. Judgment and schaudenfreude, it's not just for the ladies!

2) Knowing little of the bond between Miss Cutler and her fiance, I predict a short shelf-life for this marriage, simply because I am always suspicious of people who get engaged and married after dating for less than a year. But hey, you never know, this could be TRUE LOVE!

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Having sex with a married man is more of a grey area, but I would hesitate to use the phrase girl-on-girl crime to define it. Girl-on-girl crime, I think, is hating on a woman because of something that is essential to her womanness (as in, not her actions or her general personality), or something that only women get hated-on for (like calling her fat/ugly/whatever), or using insults that have historically been used to silence and degrade women (like calling someone a slut or a bitch or a cunt, as an insult). Sleeping with a married dude isn't really a crime that someone does to another woman (presumably the wife of the dude you're boning), because the said sleeping-with-married-man lady never made any commitment to the wife. Is it kind of shitty? Possibly, and I think it depends on the situation. But it's not really fucked-up-creepy-bullshit, either.

Is sleeping with a married man, then posting personal information that could only lead to the devastation of the man's wife getting hurt very, very badly, and potentially ruining her life, simply to be mean a girl-on-girl crime? Most definitely. The only thing those women did to Jessica Cutler was to be the wives of men who cheat/solicit prostitutes. Because they are not culpable at all, in any way shape or form, and nothing they did led to their personal shit getting aired without their permission, in a very mean-spirited way, on the internet--the only thing they did was exist as wives. And that is hating on a woman for no reason except something about her that is essentially womanish (like being a wife) and also hating on them for something you wouldn't hate on a man for. So, Cutler is guilty of girl-on-girl crime in the worst degree, methinks, and she shouldn't be congratulated or defended for her bullshitty blog and the meanness she displayed.

Calling her a slut is also unacceptable.

To the people comparing her to Tracie--saying that what she did is shitty is not the same thing as saying that being a publicly sexual woman is the shitty thing she did. I think that excusing her behavior as an expression of sexuality (and therefore sacred in the courts of the Feminist) is to give privilege to female sexuality that blogs and posts like Tracies' aim to dispell. Being sexual and being a woman at the same time? Not. a big deal. So, if she's being sexual and a girl at the same time? Not. a big deal. It becomes a big deal, however, when she's deliberately posting things on her blog that hurt the women who are unknowingly married to the douches she slept with. To compare her behavior to Tracies' is absurd, and also insulting to Tracie and every openly sexual woman. I am not like Cutler just because I sleep around, even if I'm getting paid for it and even if I'm sleeping with married men. I'm only like Cutler if I'm then being mean about the women publicly.

And anyone who blames the married women for their husbands' cheating is fucked beyond belief. And anyone who blames Cutler for the mens' infidelity more than they blame the men for being emotionally devoid pricks who are seriously some of the shittiest people ever, are being naive and girl-hatey. They are the ones that made the comittment, they are the serious asses here. On the other hand, they never (to my knowledge) posted about their wives on the internet. Still, they are the reason for Cutler's knowing about their wives, and they deserve the harshest judment from the Feminist Court of Cimorene.

And can we please stop with the "slut" and "bitch," please? It's one thing to reclaim them. It's another to perpetuate the misogyny that's been around since men started hating women, and to participate in that hate and the double standards that are so sickening.

*Saying that you personally use the word slut to mean men as well as woman doesn't matter, because individuals don't determine the English language, the collective consciousness does, and the 21st century's English-speaking world's collective conscience says that slut and bitch are words for women.

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Karma people... your ill wishes will come back and bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

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p.s. Did Wonkette really have to put anal sex references in her marriage announcement? Wonky indeed.

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This whole new "Jezebel Tells Me How To Think Like A Good Little Proper Feminist" thing is getting ridiculous.

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But, unlike what the article states, this isn't an issue of a woman who loved sex. It's an issue of a woman who slept with others for money and made fun of the john's wives. That's girl-on-girl hate. But she's changed. Good for her.

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Also, count me on the "Hey, whatever works for you! Good luck with that!" bandwagon when it comes to Jessica Cutler. Easy to say because she's very far away from me, socially and geographically.

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Granted, I could see their divorce coming from a mile away, but I NEVER wished for her marriage to fail. In fact, I was hopeful that it would work out somehow, since she's had it rough. There's just people on this earth who believe their purpose in life is to be pessimistic and wish bad things on others. It's just not right and karma has a way of biting you in the ass.

Jessica's found someone that she wants to spend the rest of her life with and her future husband probably saw something in her that he loved, despite everything she did in her past. A lot of us have done things in our pasts that we're not proud of, but why should be dwell on the past, anyway? We can't change our pasts, but we can control our futures.

The past is past, people. Just let it go and let her be.

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Looking at that picture and reading this thread gives me a stomachache.

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