(Updated) Sexist and sex-negative much, TV Squad (and WaPo)?

So I just reread this short blurb on TV Squad about The Washingtonienne, the TV show, and it was more offensive on second reading.

Not only didn't author Richard Keller bother to ask Jessica for a comment, he not-so-subtly inserts his own moral indignation over her sexual behavior. Memo to Ariel Levy: Female Chauvinist Pigs are NOT ALWAYS APPLAUDED in this society. Case in point.

Two years ago, Washington D.C. Senate aide Jessica Cutler shocked citizens inside and outside the beltway when she blogged her sexual exploits with an apparently large amount of men.

"Apparently large?" Why not just go all-out and say what you really think? She was a huge slut, perhaps the hugest in DC, so why the fuck is she getting a book deal? Or does that work better as subtext? Of course it's going to be a matter of opinion, but I do not think sleeping with six guys is necessarly a "large amount" - yes, it's more than one, or two, but I also don't think it's my business to judge the number of people someone else is fucking. I know how crazy that sounds, but I just don't really think it affects me all that much. Others apparently differ. There's no objectively "large amount," despite what Oprah or whoever may think. It's a personal choice, though clearly some people want to shove their shock and horror over women actually getting it on back in their faces.

Let's move on. Cutler, who had spent years naming names and how much she received when she got together with 'Mr. X', is now being very shy and declining to comment about the project. Perhaps a case of the embarrassing guilts has caught up with her.

Update: It was pointed out to me that this part of the post was culled from a link I hadn't seen to The Washington Post's article "Sexcapades in the City" so they can also take some of the blame for their catty tone and Jessica's declining to comment to them (though the "shy" wording is still suspect to me):

Look out, all you Washingtonians who ever had sex with Jessica Cutler, proposed having sex with Jessica Cutler, discussed sex with Jessica Cutler, or ever brushed up against Jessica Cutler -- the infamous Senate aide whose sexual antics scandalized/enthralled our fair city a couple of years ago.

HBO is plowing ahead with a sitcom based on "The Washingtonienne," the D.C.-set novel inspired by Cutler's blog of same name in which she discussed her exploits with a boatload of men around town in such glorious detail...

You'll get a kick out of this: Cutler, who less than two years ago was telling anyone who could use a laptop that she "just took a long lunch with X and made a quick $400," has gone all shy and reticent when we e-mailed her to try to talk to her about the HBO project. She declines to comment, a rep told The TV Column.

Again, I feel they're remiss in not mentioning the lawsuit against Cutler, as if she's just skipping away merrily to the bank. Also, there is a BIG difference between blogging anonymously about your sexploits and doing so with your real name out there, which might be why you don't see her going into quite as much detail. If his lawsuit is successful, think what a chilling effect that will have on an entire culture on the internet in which people freely discuss their sex lives-anonymously. the show is BASED ON her life, not about her actual life in every detail, just as Candace Bushnell's was, and the people she wrote about were outed and survived, didn't they? It just seems like this story is a chance for lots of media outlets to further gang up on her and make it seem as if she's the only party to this - yes, she took money from these guys, but they offered it to her. Back to my original post...

I guess 2 does equal plural, but it hasn't exactly been ages and ages since she started her blog. If TV Squad had asked Jessica for comment and she'd declined, that'd be one thing, but again, this is speculation. But then it closes with another dig, like she should feel guilty. Yet, we're told over and fucking over again, that we live in this postfeminist sex-mad society where anything goes, heaven forbid. Um, I don't think so. The moralizing in part makes me laugh and in part makes me realize just how far we haven't come. Better cash in while you can, ladies, because there's apparently a very fine line between fuckable and way too slutty for that quite prudish blogosphere.

And let me not forget...please point out where she named names. Please, show me, or is it because that wasn't her but Wonkette or The Calico Cat doing so (in great investigative detail)? Or is that whole lawsuit thing being filed by Robert Steinbuch not enough punishment for the non-existent "embarrassing guilts?" (Because, lest we forget those immortally poetic words that should bring tears to the eyes of lawyers everywhere: "It is one thing to be manipulated and used by a lover, it is another thing to be cruelly exposed to the world.")

It's kindof like when that loser guy said to me "I know you're not a bad person." Pot, kettle? We can judge Jessica's 6 lovers without ever bringing ourselves and our behavior into the picture, when in fact, making judgment calls like that in a piece about a TV deal really only makes sense if you put your own sex life in there as well to make it clear where the judgment/condescension is coming from. Instead, the minute you put even a fraction of your sex life into the public eye, anonymously or not, it's fair game for others to tell you how fucked up they think it is even when they could perfectly well be doing the very same thing (see loser above).

I'm sure this is just the tippy tip of the iceberg for the Jessica-bashing, and all I have to say is...thanks, it's gonna beef up that chapter in my book which, if you must know, is called (working title) "Monica, Jessica and Me" and is an homage to Jill Soloway's chapter in Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants called "Monica, Chandra and Me." I keep getting waylaid and down on myself for not working on it cause I'm broke and need to earn real money not fake someday-maybe-I'll-hit-the-jackpot money, but with stuff like this, the book will practically write itself I think.