Dehumanizing depictions, breast implants, sugar daddies, and violence against women

I found the following three websites, and I asked some female friends of mine which one was the most horrible--they were all pretty bad.

With one vote, we have a pageant of "comely mugshots of selected [female] arrestees" from a local prison with instructions for the (male) readers to "review the cavalcade of incarcerated corn country cuties, and vote for the one that sets your heart a-twitter." (hat tip to Feministing). These men are literally gazing at these women through the eyes of the state and participating in their discipline and punishment. It probably says a lot about our society that men choose to gaze at, rank, classify, and mock powerless women kept under lock and key.

Tied for second place, also with one vote, we have "sugar daddie dot com," a dating service that hooks beautiful women up with rich men (and rich women with good-looking men, but they don't really announce that). The problem isn't so much that such a site exists but that we've reached the point where it's "necessary." There are definitely advantages to be found on both sides, and such a relationship can be (or at least seem) empowering for women that get pampered by their "sugar daddy," but it's still... creepy. The other striking aspect of this site is the class issue. Someone could probably write a really insightful research paper on class using this site as Exhibit A. There are dozens of lines like these:

• Successful men wanting to be a Sugar Daddy are ultimately caring individuals. Sugar Daddy dating delivers to people who are aware of the finer things in life and understand that good living is not a luxury, but a necessity... Second best is not an option in online dating and we understand the needs of single people when delivering an unrivaled matchmaking service that is admired by many, but equaled by none.


• Millionaire dating is exclusive and people nowadays see that, the more exclusive it is, the more of a must have it becomes.

I'm ashamed that members of my species are drawn in by this tripe. The whole site is like a bizarre parody of itself. The page design tries to be classy, extravagant, and elegant, but it tries too hard and ends up looking unprofessional and tacky. Especially when they start adding UPPERCASE FLASHING TEXT. And exclamation points! They scream exclusivity but look like a cheap knockoff. Furthermore,

Sugardaddie.com does not take responsibility in checking the truth or accuracy of any information posted to the website, nor do we undertake to screen the content of any information provided to it, or guarantee the proper use of such information by any party, including its members.

In other words, if you can rent a tuxedo, you can pose as a "millionaire" and hoodwink hot women. Classy. Weirdly, they also ban the terms "mistress," "goddess," and "money slave." I'm not sure how they picked those three, but they did. To top off the weirdness, almost every page is littered with weird word usages, suggesting that they're trying way too hard to sound classy but have no idea what they're talking about (evolvement? setting precedence?). I'm surprised more people's bullshit detectors haven't gone off. Even when there's nothing quite wrong with their diction, their prose often reminds me of Bush's obvious-speak ("Russia's a big country and you're a big country... Russia's big and so is China") or Tom Cruise's writing ("is there anything in a name—J.J.? Look at the Jays we have now—Jay Leno, J. Lo, Jay-Z—but he's got two Js."). Depressing.

But the third site I found really takes first place. And now, with a whopping six votes, I present to you "My Free Implants Dot Com."

Create The Perfect Girl at MyFreeImplants.com!

Your eyes haven't lied to you. That actually is an animated hand dropping coins into the back of a seductively-posed mostly-naked woman whose breasts grow with each coin added, and it really does recommend that you give them money to "create the PERFECT girl." The site really is a place where men pay for women to pay attention to them and the women are required to spend that money on cosmetic surgery so that more men will value their attention because of their appearance. It's like prostitution but without the freedom provided by the money the women earn. They don't get to use that money except to please their viewers even more. The site is pretty up-front about that: "the surgeries are paid for through the network of benefactor members in our community, and they ultimately decide on who gets the procedures they want first." Nice. According to The Houston Press,

Jason Grunstra, 28, launched the site last year. It's free for women, but men have to pay around $1.80 for each e-mail they send. The women make a buck off each e-mail; Grunstra and PayPal take the balance. So far, about 700 women and 2,000 men have joined. Grunstra, who lives in L.A., says he keeps each woman's money in a bank account until they reach their target, and he keeps the interest.

Not only that, but it turns out that once they get fake breasts, they can parlay them for even more money:

In 2003, a fellow calling himself Hugh Jass launched [pimping the poor dot com] as a way to kill two birds with one stone. Hugh and his friends claim to have an annoying boss named Kurt Smith. They also enjoy fake-boob-cyberbegging sites. So they contacted the cyberbeggars and offered them a few bucks if they would model skimpy garments on their own sites that read "Kurt Smith Sucks."

At least that way they get to keep the money.

Still, while these sites are all pretty horrible, they seem to be more symptoms than problems in and of themselves. If women want to earn a dollar every time a creepy guy sends them an email, I don't think anyone should try to stop them. But these things are symptoms of a broader problem, where women are constantly degraded and even attacked. At The Debate Link, I found a story showing how the courts treat battered women they don't like:

In California, a Mexican women [sic] went to court to get a restraining order against her husband, who was abusing her. Instead, the presiding judge asked if she was an illegal immigrant. When she said yes, the judge replied:

"I hate the immigration laws that we have, but I think the bailiff could take you to the immigration services and send you to Mexico.” Then the Judge had a creative idea: he would count to 20 and Gonzalez would disappear by the time he was finished. No trouble for her; no trouble for him. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. When I get to 20, she gets arrested and goes to Mexico," said the judge according to the court transcript. This week, in an interview with the LA Times, Judge Fink explains his intent to get Gonzalez from trouble with the INS. He also said he saw nothing more than screaming between the husband and wife, although reportedly Gonzalez had moved last month into a domestic violence shelter. The Superior Court is now reviewing the hearing.

There's also a fascinating and almost unbearably depressing comment thread over at Bitch, Ph.D. where women discuss their personal experiences with misogyny, how those experiences fit into the big picture, and how to fight back. Some of the things men do to women (and women do to one another) because of gender are unimaginably horrible, and reading these women's stories and the way they perceived and analyzed male dominance helped me understand sexual politics much better.

Some of the comments from men were enlightening as well. One guy used the analogy of living in a town with a gas chamber, knowing that you don't work there but that you're not all that different from the people that do, and that you're not really doing anything to stop them, and that basically summarizes my reaction as well. I think everyone should read it (despite its length) so more people understand women's continuing subjugation and what we're up against as we challenge male dominance. It's a tricky bastard of a system, it's linked with other systems like racism and statism, and it hurts us all, even those that sometimes benefit from it.

Tags: dave, disenchantedidealist, gender, hate, immigration, rape, sex, violence