Q: [She] and some of her low-life pals are sorry excuses for what goes on with most of today's teenagers. She was [a] Rosie Roundheels sleep-around slut, with the dirty underpants to prove it.
Even if she wrangles money for bull she's caused, you can bet dollars to donuts it'll go up her nose or down her gullet in a New York minute. Then let her blow that out the other end as she bends over to flash her tattoo.
—Lynn
A: Jimminy Cricket, grandma, you sure got your knickers in a twist! (For those of you born after 1928, "roundheel" is a euphemism for harlot or strumpet, i.e., a whoooooore.) Tattoos! Nose candy! Underpants! Guess you gave me what-for!
Of course what Lynn is yammering on about in her own, inimitable 1940s-cliché-riddled way is a column I wrote about the importance of that most underrated of utterances: the apology ("The 'S' Word," 9/14). The event that inspired this piece was the half-assed I'm-sorry Kobe Bryant delivered to the woman he was accused of raping. Now, I don't know whether Bryant forced himself on this broad; nor do I know if his accuser is an innocent victim, a malevolent force with an all-consuming, pathological vendetta against professional basketball players, or just a confused, fucked-up girl who wanted some attention.
Innocence or guilt wasn't my point. The point I was attempting to make was that if you're going to bother apologizing, do it correctly and do it with style.
Judging by the flurry of berserk emails I received, some readers didn't fully comprehend what it was I was trying to communicate. Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough. Then again, maybe the only people who wrote in were mental cases (which, if you were ever to look through my mailbag, you'd see is a very viable scenario).
For the most part, hate mail causes me to cackle with glee. Far from riddling me with doubt about my talents or lack thereof, castigating letters generally serve to feed my ego. I like to picture the hater sitting alone in their mother's basement (which they've valiantly tried to fool themselves into thinking is a separate apartment), trembling with rage as their salami-greased fingers clutch at their paper and pen, all the while cursing my name to the heavens (or parents) above.
But this particular batch of mail was a wee bit disturbing. Why? Because of the insane amount of venom directed at Kobe's accuser.
Nobody but the two parties involved really knows what happened, yet still, I got all these letters accusing the alleged victim of being an unrepentant tramp, thus someone who deserves to be shot and peed upon. Oddly enough, the nastiest of the bunch were written by women.
So much for the sisterhood.
What I want to know is if indeed (and that's a big if!) Bryant's accuser is/was a slut—what in the hell is wrong with that? I've certainly gone through promiscuous decades—I mean, periods. Some of my best friends (of both genders) are slutty, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Who wants to sit around and point fingers with an uptight prude when you could be enjoying refreshing cocktails with a loose-lipped fun-haver? Say you were sentenced to live inside your tv set—would you rather hang out with the champagne-quaffing, drug-snorting, underage-boy-defiling ladies of Ab Fab? Or the pious, dreary Touched by an Angel bunch? Don't know about you, but I'll take Patsy over Tess any day, thanks.
Sex statistics are notoriously inaccurate (like drug-users, sex-havers fib about numbers—especially women), but I just read a survey that estimates the average number of sex partners for single New Yorkers between the ages of 21 and 40 was five. Yep. And that's not per hour, week or even per month—no siree. We're talking five partners over a lifetime! Gulp.
(Note to self—you're sluttier than you thought.)
And, hello—speaking of Lucy Goosies—we're talking about a professional athlete here. Not to indulge in stereotypes, but adult men who make approximately a kagillion dollars a year for chasing a ball around are not generally known for their moral restraint. They're right up there with rockstars in the male-whore hall of shame or fame, depending on your P.O.V. You can be certain that your average NBA/NFL/PGA star gets more tail than the ASPCA on free-spay day. So let's watch the name-calling, shall we?
I suppose I was under the impression that because one in six women has been the victim of a sexual assault during her lifetime, a woman would be more inclined to believe another lady's story. I supposed wrong. If anything, the women who wrote were more virulent in their condemnation of his accuser than any of the men. Does anyone else find that depressing? Makes me wonder what would be said about me if I ever got raped (again) and decided to press charges.
Because here's the thing—slutty girls can still get raped. Just because we're casual about spreading our love around, doesn't mean some jackass is free to take it without asking. o
