The worst thing we can say about PH is that she's a "skanky" slut? Perhaps her most redeeming quality is that she's an unrepentant whore. Strictly speaking, it's not because she's rich and powerful that she can slut around. All us ladies can slut around if we want, if we dare. She uses her sexuality without apology. Why should one apologize for using one's sexuality however one likes. Are we concerned about her virtue? Is this the source of our outrage? Please. She's dangerous because she has no capacity for empathy or conscience, and she takes pleasure (glee?) in others' humiliation, all the more so if she orchestrated it. It's that with PH, it's not personal. Having said all that, sex is often (usually?) about establishing dominance, so it's probably just another tool in her impressive arsenal of malevolence.

She gonna get it on yeah. She got your number. SUKKAH!

I can judge whomever I damn well please. I say she's a useless skank. I work for my money and I pay taxes - therefore, I have the right to judge whomever I want. IF you don't like it, too bad.

a. Paris Hilton does not work for you.

b. She doesn't live on your taxes.

And who told you your job and your tax bill endowed you with the right to annoint yourself the moral judge of all mankind?

You have a job and you pay your taxes -- God better look out, throw the Bible and the Koran in the trash -- Mihoshi's here to kick ass on all mankind.

We all better get down on our knees to you!

Because -- if you have the right to judge Paris Hilton, then why don't you have the right to judge all mankind? It's all the same.

Either you're God, or you're just one of us sinners.

I'm pretty sure you're the latter rather than the former.

Having read both the article and the Editors' Choice letters, I am so happy to say that I wouldn't even recognize a photo of Paris Hilton. That's how little I care about her and her shenanigans. I don't watch TV news (I listen to NPR). And I don't care about any of the people mentioned above. I'm so glad.

I see now how beneficial it can be for a society to believe in a divine being endowed with the power to judge all mankind at some deferred, unknown date in the near or distant future.

It takes a lot of energy to judge people. And it stirs up violent energies. It takes time away from more creative activities.

Judgment leaves society fractured and it isolates people and creates margins and exclusion and oppression.

I guess that's why humans invented divine beings and outsourced the whole judgment business to them.

... i think you summed up this entire debate

"...women who do harm should not be tolerated..."

Thanks.

rebecca, if you're going to write the feminist beat for salon, how about writing on substantive issues instead of wasting more ink on paris hilton? by "substantive" i mean "get out your chair" and "interview people" and collect "facts" and write a "well-researched" piece. you know, journalism. women in developing countries? income disparity? status of women in professions? anything but more of this junk.

Great article. Nailed it. Needed to be said. I think Hilton is a reflection of the emptiness of so many lives, and at least shows us how desperate "society" has become. I admit I do watch, from a distance, the way one would watch a train wreck. But she is the same phenomenon as these anorexic models the fashionistas insist on. Always, the question is, who chose this? Who made Hilton such a symbol? Is Hilton part of the same malaise that brought us Iraq?

I agree with the writer who said her children look at their parents in horror, and wonder if that's all it's about -- working your ass off so they can reach the point at which they have to work their ass off, and be just enough aware to know something isn't quite right.

More and more people want to get off, but the train is going so fast trick is to step off without getting killed.

Couldn't we round up all the usless celebutantes and (involuntarily if needed) marry then off to the major cranky people folks between Egypt and India? That much vapid uselessness would certainly siphon off all the energies from al-Queada, the Iraq insurgencies, the al-Sadr folks, most of the mullahs in Teheran and probably mess up the semi-memorization of the Qu'ran in the Islamic Jesus Camps in Pakistan. We could make it their problem and it would also clear the area here so we could stop worrying about if Nicole Richie has figured out how to photosynthesize or if Linday Lohan is a few lifts short of a ski slope.

Exactly why is some spoiled rich vapid media whore worth the amount of despair and hand wringing - columnist Traister has expended? To equate the media phenomenon of Paris Hilton with the destruction of womanhood, western culture or green onions at Taco Bell, is beyond ludicrous. Exactly what cocktail of pharmaceuticals are you ingesting that motivates you to care THAT much about what or who Paris Hilton does? I was amazed to read of the perceived damage that the "succubutante" -(I did like that phrase) has wreaked on her companions such as Mother Britney or Sister Lohan. Who the hell cares what media whoredom these speedbumps of popular culture engage in anyway? Truly a waste of time and energy. And I wouldnt even be writing this - except my girlfriend asked me to.

The patriarchy is now officially off the hook as far as I'm concerned.

There is no male-led secular or religious authority that could match the viciousness women display towards other women whom they've decided to cut from the pack.

if we had a little more depth as a culture we would tap her for public office rather than critize her success...and a success she is...this is a lot of letters for any Salon article...that Traister woman is brilliant and hit a home run on this one...wonder if she gets a click thru bonus?