We're all a little bit slutty

A woman walks into a bar (this is not a bad joke, I promise) wearing a short skirt, fishnet tights, a low-cut top and stilettos. She is coated in fake tan, has spent the last two hours doing her makeup, and it looks likely that she has had a boob job. She flirts casually. Her friends might tell you that she has had more than a few sexual partners in her time, and she appears loud, gregarious and looking for attention.

She is no more a slut, a bimbo, a slag, a tart or a whore than you and I.

She is a product of our world, of images like these, and "news" articles like these. She has seen Katie Price being lauded as a "businesswoman", has established the link between glamour and success, and perceived "unattractiveness" and mockery and shame. Men find tits and arse sexy, and this appreciation feels like validation. She likes sex (God gave women the clitoris for a reason, no?), and when the whole world is talking about it, showing it and selling all conceivable consumerable goods with it, why are we surprised that she does?

Why do we affix derogatory and degrading labels to women who satisfy the culture we have created? Why do we worship women like Madonna and Rihanna on the one hand, hold them up as icons for women all over the world, and then pass off the women who attempt to emulate them as "sluts", "bimbos", "slags", "tarts" and "whores"? The woman in our bar is not surrounded by an army of security who will rugby-tackle the man who gropes her without invitation, and the chances are she can't afford weekly salon trips for professional spray-tanning, or an on-call makeup artist with 20 years' experience. Maybe she hasn't had more than a few sexual partners; maybe that's just what she lets people assume. But then again, maybe she has, and if she has, why are the men who regard her as something dirty and classless also the very men who don't mind dipping themselves into more than their fair share of honey jars?

We have been raised in a world where sex is always on the menu, where women are not regarded for their intelligence, wit or talent unless you might want to f**k her too. We buy into this culture, and then we criticise those who fall victim to it.

If she is a slut, we must be too.