Bring me the wire brush!

"You can take my garter belt off now, Honey!"

I feel so dirty, and not in a good way: this morning I read a Miranda Devine column.

I know Miranda Devine's sole purpose at the SMH is to provide 'balance' for all the people who have a brain in their head, and to stimulate people like me into tossing aside their better judgement and writing to the letters page, but... I couldn't help myself. At least I'm not writing to the letters page and shamefacedly revealing that I read her column. I can do that here. As if it wasn't already bad enough, it's on the topic of the 'Royal break-up' between Prince William and his girlfriend. And no, I'm not going to link to it. It's shit. What you'll read here is bad enough.

The blurb under Devine's headline was what caught my eye:

Kate Middleton has been displayed humiliatingly to the world as Prince William's "practice chick", writes Miranda Devine.

Yes, it really contained those words. 'Practice chick'.

Inside, it got even worse.

As is her way, Devine relied on tabloid droolings for the 'facts'. But it was her own interpretation of the break-up that was, even for her, rather breathtakingly chauvinist. Some choice quotes follow:

Poor Kate Middleton, dumped by the second in line to the British throne then displayed humiliatingly to the world as Prince William's "practice chick", the mere recipient of some of his wild oats.

[...]

Still, as the British TV agony aunt Denise Robertson wrote this week of the break-up: "There are undertones of 'droit du seigneur' - a maiden dishonoured and then discarded."

It is an old-fashioned concept, but Middleton's fate is a salutary lesson for young women contemplating shacking up with the love of their lives rather than holding out for a firm commitment.

[...]

But the idea of "try before you buy" gives all the advantages to men, who get the benefits of marriage with none of the responsibilities. They get sex on tap, domesticity, companionship, and probably nutritional and hygiene improvements. They can test-drive the merchandise for as long as they like.

But for women, the immovable biological fact of declining fertility means the deal is inevitably unfair. And if marriage comes at all, it often is a utilitarian choice after all the magic and mystery has been used up in a tenuous coexistence in which neither partner fully trusts the other and one foot is always out the door.

If Middleton had really wanted to marry William she never should have set up house with him. Smart girls don't give away marital perks free.

I'm agog at Devine's insinuation that, in a Western society in this day and age, women are such passive partners in a relationship that all sex involves on their part is to lie back with their legs spread for receipt of their partners 'wild oats'.

I'm aghast at the idea that Devine can perpetuate the idea that a woman who has a pre-marital sexual relationship (and in Kate Middleton's case, an apparently harmonious one for much of its duration) that does not end in marriage is somehow dishonoured. Dishonoured? And Devine has the gall to regularly castigate muslims for their attitudes towards women. Dear god.

I suppose it should not be surprising, then, that in a later paragraph she refers to women as 'merchandise', and implies that they receive no benefits from pre-marital cohabitation. It is the man who gets 'sex on tap'. What's this? Do women hate sex? Are they forced to 'put out' every time their male partner wants it, regardless of their own desires? In Devine's world they are.

In Devine's world, it is the men who enjoy the 'companionship' of a live-in relationship, not the women. Domesticity? What is this thing called 'domesticity' that a man allegedly receives by living with a female partner, but not vice-versa?

I'm not quite sure what declining fertility or supposedly reduced chances of marriage have to do with pre-marital cohabitation, although Devine raises them as evidence of a raw deal for women. Cohabitation is a decision made by two people who are perfectly equal as human beings. Women make this choice not because they see it as part of the process of roping a man into marriage and forcing him to help them make babies, but because they either love or like their partner enough that they think they will enjoy living with him. Women with their heads screwed on correctly, I should say.

Again, Devine raises the notion of woman as chattel when she refers to giving away 'marital perks' for free. Here, I assume, she is either advocating that women exchange sex and 'domesticity' for money, or that sex is a 'marital perk' that, presumably, a man can only enjoy after he signs a piece of paper committing to marriage. A woman's enjoyment and sexual desire doesn't even come into the equation.

One could make all sorts of imputations about Devine's private life from the material she has written here. I won't bother, however. Her writings are sickening enough already.