"She's The Reason Why Boys Think It's OK To Call Me A Slut And A Whore"

There was a lot of slut-shaming and misogyny on last night’s Celebrity Rehab. After Kari Ann Peniche exposed her vagina and breasts to the male patients, the female patients said “girls like that” are why men treat women like shit.

OK, here’s some background: Kari Ann was “bored,” so she offered to let the men in the facility paint a bikini on her naked breasts. Only one guy (Alice in Chains’ Mike Starr) took her up on it. It was later learned—although not shown on camera—that earlier in the day, Kari Ann had worn a short dress with no underpants, and had flashed the guys. The inappropriate sexual contact and exposure violated the behavior contract signed by the patients, and though such actions would normally be grounds for expulsion from the program, Dr. Drew decided that it would be better for their sobriety to stay in rehab, but be required to stay in their rooms.

Lisa D’Amato and Mindy McCready were both pissed off about the situation. They said that Kari Ann was more to blame than Mike for the bikini painting incident, because “she knew what she was doing,” which they decided was “a full-scale assault on the men.” However, as Mackenzie Phillips points out, the other men were asked to paint the bikini on her body, but they declined.

It was later, during a group therapy session in which the patients were supposed to process the events, that Lisa started talking some real bullshit. She said that Kari Ann “is the reason why boys just think it’s OK to call me a slut and a whore and a bitch…[She] does those things that make boys think it’s OK to treat us like that.” And then implied that this kind of behavior is why “society beats women down.” Oh, where to begin?

First of all, if Lisa believes that there is, in fact, a certain kind of behavior on the part of women that causes them to be “beat down,” then it sorta follows that she believes that it’s acceptable—in some circumstances—that women be “beat down.” Furthermore, I didn’t hear any of the men imply that Kari Ann was a whore or a slut after the bikini-painting incident. But the female patients did. Talk about beating women down. I’m not questioning which came first—in terms of misogyny—but rather, suggesting that we fucking just cut the chicken’s head off and smash the egg, and put an end to the whole cycle, starting with ourselves.