Jersey Shore: The Ho Double Standard
In the world of Jersey Shore, the most important sociological experiment of our time, the men are praised for sleeping around but the women are demonized for it. The creature known as Trash Bags feels this sting the worst.
Yes, Trash Bags is awful, and no, it's not because she beds multiple partners on subsequent nights. It's because she's a liar, a hypocrite, and a slob. She is someone who is so self-unaware that she holds herself to different standards than she holds other people. It is a shock that one of the bellicose members of this tribe haven't already punched her in her head.
But before we get to a further discussion about how awful she is, there are a few words we need to add to our vocabulary so that we can fully understand these exotic creatures.
- Coocha: A slang term for a woman's genitals. We have learned that, due to intense exposure to UVA and UVB rays in tanning beds and interbreeding, the guidos are actually physically mutated versions of homo sapiens. One of the differences is that women have "vagina bones." We're not sure exactly what this looks like or how it affects their sexuality (though it would make the word "smashing" very appropriate), but women openly discuss the trauma of breaking their vagina bones. There is no known cure for this ailment. This distinct anatomical distinction, however, might be why there is a totally separate word for their nether regions.
- Matinee: When a guido picks up a mate in the middle of the afternoon. If a man does this, it is proof that he is "fresh." If a woman does this, it is proof that she's a "ho."
- Hamster: A person who is physically dirty, just like a caged hamster, who basically lives in its own filth.
- Beached Whale: Adding to the menagerie of slang terms the guidos have taken from their closest ancestors in the animal kingdom comes this unimaginative term for unattractive women lying on a beach.
- Zoo Animals: There is a second definition for this term, more commonly applied to unattractive or unruly women. It also implies a group of people who like to create a physical mess and not clean it up. A group of people who like to create an emotional mess and not clean it up are called "guidos."
- Herb: This is not something one smokes or uses to make marinara sauce more flavorful. No, it is a sloppy person who doesn't dress well. A nerd, a dweeb. Since this word came into the vernacular via a suited man that Snooki obviously didn't like, we're not sure if it deserves a place in the guido lexicon, but it is clearly a term they understand.
Now that we have the language down, let's look at the ways our guidos use it. The creature known as Trash Bags uses it to lie. Let's enumerate her falsehoods in last night's transmission: she lied about telling Jose he couldn't sleep with other girls, she lied about sleeping with Jose, she lied about cleaning the house, she lied about dancing with Snooki's ex Dennis, she lied about waking Snooki up for her nail appointment. She just lies about everything, great and small, so that she never has to be inconvenienced or do something she doesn't want to do. This proves that Trash Bags, though physically an adult, has the psychological development of an eight year-old.
Her most interesting lie, of course, was telling everyone she had sex with Jose, her betrothed who bought her a Fossil watch. Jose is what would generally be considered a catch. He is nice, caring, attractive, attentive, and obviously smitten with Trash Bags (which also makes him, what, stupid? Crazy?). She goes out on a double date with Sammi and Ronnie and we learn that Trash Bags told Jose that he's not supposed to sleep with other women. Say what?! She has hooked up with Vinny (and reluctantly confessed) and isn't hooking up with Jose yet. She just strings him along for weeks while she meets and mates with other men without paying him any heed. That is the worst kind of hypocrisy—the kind that leads to blue balls.
When Jose spends the night, all signs point to the fact he's getting laid: he bought her dinner, they've taken up occupancy in the "smash room," and it's his birthday. Not only in guido culture but in all the world over, a man is practically guaranteed sex on his birthday. It's sort of an unwritten rule of humanity. But not Jose. Trash Bags doesn't put out, saying that it's "her time of the month." Well, Trash Bags, after everything this man has done for you, you can't spare a little oral stimulation for the poor guy? It's his birthday!
The next day, Trash Bags says she slept with Jose even though she didn't. She would rather everyone in the house think that she's a "ho" than think that she's a prude who continues to string this guy along. Trash Bags is really stuck between a rock and Jose's hard place on this one, because no matter if she slept with him or not, everyone is going to tease and judge her. So yes, they all think she's a whore.
[There was a video here]
This double standard isn't just a problem for guidettes but for all women in the world. What can we do to correct it? Well, we can stop demonizing promiscuous women. And we try not to do that to poor Trash Bags. After all she has demonstrated that, like DJ Paulie Disciple said, she has got serious game. Check out the grade-A piece of tail she picked up on the beach? The problem isn't that Trash Bags sleeps around, it's that she does it while she's dating a guy who bought her a Fossil watch who she won't put out for and she does it while keeping all the other members of the house for engaging in casual intercourse. She is horrible not because she is a "loosey goosey" (thanks to Vinny), but because she is two-faced about it.
Knowing that she would be harshly judged for either sleeping with or not sleeping with Jose, why did she choose to be scorned as a slut than as an ice queen? It's because, even though the double standard is in place, the guidos prize promiscuity. In fact, it's a source of pride and power, ever for the women who are considered "sluts." As Trash Bag says, it's the women who get to decide whether or not sex is happening and when she decides, she is powerful. Either that or she's drunk and foolish. Either one.
Now that everyone hates Trash Bags for being a liar and a cheat, they also hate her for being a slob. When The Situation cleans the house, he finds that she has left a used sanitary napkin on the floor of the bathroom. This is a vile insult, not because there is anything shameful or dirty about a woman's menstrual fluid, but because it was found on the floor of the bathroom. If this sanctum sanctorum of the guido's temple is sullied in such a way, it shows that Trash Bags is not only a slob, but has no respect for her people's one refuge. The Situation responds by leaving it on her bed.
Trash Bags is upset when she finds this, not only because someone invaded her space, but because Mike, the hot dude she picked up at the beach, now knows she's a gross slob. He may not be classified as a guido, but if he is, he won't want any woman who can't cook and clean like his mother. This is established fact. To make matters worse, The Situation brings up that he left a sink full of dishes for her to wash. He makes a point to say that he saved it just for her because she never lifts a figner. Evidence has shown that she is sloppier than a frat house the morning after a kegger, and The Situation wants her to pitch in.
Maybe Trash Bags is right and Sitch is only doing this because there is another Mike in the house—the next victim who will dine at Trash Bags Sloppy Seconds Cafe? Maybe this is another way to shame someone who they think is using their sexual power fiendishly? Maybe it's just because he doesn't like her and she is disgusting. Regardless, their fight escalates.
[There was a video here]
Naturally this exchange ended in blows. Way to really impress your new man, Trash Bags.
Speaking of men, JWOWW's boyfriend Tom (who really needs a nickname) came to visit. The best thing about JWOWW is that she is a constantly reversing expected gender roles. She's always willing to scrap like the boys, and she is praised for her promiscuity, just like the boys, even though she's always loyal to Tom (but we know what she was like before!).
When T-Bag (is that a good nickname?) arrives, the best part is we get to see the Sammi and Ronnie relationship in reverse. Tom finds a number of an ex in JWOWW's phone book and freaks out. He threatens to leave the house and says he's "done" multiple times even though we all know that he's not actually going to break up with her. Hmm, haven't we seen this exact same scenario play out before? Clearly it takes a womanly man to trap a manly woman like JWOWW in a relationship. Eventually JWOWW convinces him to stay and stop being so passive aggressively angry and lying motionless on a bed (seriously, did this guy take a correspondence class in Relationship Management from the Sammi Sweetheart School of Romance).
[There was a video here]
See, one of the anatomical differences of the Guidous Americanus from the regular homo sapien is a collection of nerve endings at the tip of the nose. This was originally thought to create a heightened sensitivity to the thumping bass of house music, but now it's purpose is clear. This is a universal erogenous zone for the guido. Just playing with or "picking" the nose of another can lead swiftly from fighting to full arousal. This is particularly effective for the guido male, whose genitals have been known to shrink and atrophy from the assistance of hormones in maintaining their bulky and elaborate frames. Also, it is less painful than "smashing" or having such vigorous intercourse with a woman that it causes her vagina bone to break.
Still, check out the end of that clip. For someone as macho as JWOWW, what she really wants is a man to take control of her, to pin her down and slap her ass. That is why she is still with Tom. He may act like a woman, but when he gets really aroused, he is all man.
The bass in the house music at Tantra (or was it Klutch? Dream? Octagon? Velveetaz?) got The Situation so turned on that he went looking for a Canadian model, and he found one thawing in the Miami heat (not the basketball team). He was so turned on by her that he whisked her away to "smoosh" post haste.
[There was a video here]
Now, you might think that the guido who wants to bed a woman in the rest room of a nightlife venue is trashy or wants to humiliate the girl. The exact opposite is true. He is so turned on by her, that he can't wait to take her home. That makes her powerful. Also, as we know, the bathroom is the most sacred space in the guido's domicile, and the same holds true for the club. If a man wants to bend a woman over a toilet and take her from behind in a stall while a line of shifting men in elaborate T-shirts do the pee-pee dance waiting for them to finish—well, that is just the greatest compliment a man can pay a woman.
However clubs do have security and the guard (who was clearly jealous that he wasn't fucking Canada's Next Top Model in the john) breaks up their little party. In all the Confusion (was that the name of the club?), Sitch loses his lady and goes home empty handed.
But wait? What do they find the next day scribbled on a note on their front door? Canada's Next Top Model Samantha's phone number with instructions telling The Situation to call her. Now, as we have learned, the guidos only have two classifications for women, good girls to marry and girls they only want to sleep with. Of the latter type there are the two deadly substrata: whores—who are just promiscuous and not to be trusted—and "stalkers"—who are so clingy they will drive a person wild. Samantha is clearly of the latter type. Why doesn't DJ Paulie PTSD warn The Situation about stalkers. As he reminded us last night, he's still in recovery from his run in with Danielle the Agent of Mossad who tried to trap him back in Seaside Heights.
Could it be that Samantha isn't really a Next Top Model, that she's some great spy from up north that wants to entice our Guido Americanus with her free health care and season tickets to the Oilers and whisk them off to her motherland? Sure, they have Newfies, but they aren't nearly as colorful or famous as our guidos. Keep your hands off our our anthropological subjects!
Or maybe she works for someone even more fiendish than the Canadian government. When The Situation called Samantha and set up their date, we thought we could hear in the background, faint and horrible, some distinctive quacking. Yes, it was the call of the Duck Phone, the guido's forsaken household god. He will finally have his revenge by getting a woman into that house to do his will. She will defile their bathroom with the blood of a million tampons and, as they fall to their knees in horror, she will cut off their noses, leaving them disfigured and impotent. Only then will the guidos be punished for forgetting him. Only then will they learn to respect the promiscuous woman, for she will have defiled them all!