I don't think we've got the concept in the West that male desire degrades men. Or that if men become sexually active, they become debased in some way, or slutty. Or lose status.

Is the beauty myth good to men? It hurts them by teaching them how to avoid loving women. It prevents men from actually seeing women. It does not, contrary to its own professed ideology, stimulate and gratify sexual longing. In suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a numbing effect, reducing all senses but the visual, and impairing even that.

Women who are beautiful or who achieve beauty according to the imposed standards are rewarded; those who cannot or choose not to be beautiful are punished, economically and socially.

The woman wins who calls herself beautiful, and challenges the world to change to fit her vision.

When I went on Fox News people asked me why I was going on those shows. Are you kidding? You have to go, especially to people you don't agree with.

Liberals roll their eyes about going on "Oprah" to reach a mass audience by using language that anyone can understand even if you majored in semiotics at Yale. We look down on people we don't agree with. It doesn't serve us well.

Since Madonna is positioned as always "cooler than thou", we all are primed for schadenfreude if something in her fabulous life goes amiss.