If, like me, the term "rinsing" is new to you or you assumed it had something to do with one of the cycles on a washing machine, let me explain. "Rinsing is the art of getting gifts from men and promising nothing in return". Apparently this "new breed of women are exploiting men's weaknesses and relying on their charms to get what they want".
The show features three women, Jeanette, Danica and Hollie (Jeanette is pictured above, in between two of her friends who also enjoy an' auld rinse), who thanks to their "rinsing" of wealthy men, have received Champagne, designer bags, clothes and shoes, underwear, Tiffany earrings, cash, exotic holidays, laptops, plastic surgery and bizarrely, a Huskie called Simba. In return, the men get "the pleasure of my company and my time, I think that's worth more than a present or a nice cheque". And that's all they get. The golden rule of rinsing is that "men open their wallets while the woman's legs stay closed". As if somehow this disguised form of prostitution is better than the usual more overt kind. Yeah, it's really not.
Two of the women featured, who meet wealthy men in clubs, add them to their phone messenger service where they let their wealthy contacts know what presents they want. They then trowel on some make up, hair extensions, false eyelashes and nails, gold jewelry, uber tight dresses, fake tan and highlight their surgically puffed up lips, cheeks and breasts and provide the "pleasure of their company", which as far as I could see seems to be mostly them trying to finagle more gifts out of their date.
But what do the men get out of this? Apparently, "guys have fantasies, buying women presents is one of those fantasies". Really? That's news to me. Even men who love their partners dearly loathe the prospect of present shopping for a woman and yet, this is taking place. It boggles the mind.
Terrifyingly, one of the women, Hollie, meets men in the lapdancing club she works in or while she's out advertising said club..in her underwear and a pair of stilts, randomly enough. It just doesn't really seem like the best environment to meet someone who'll treat you well. She came out with some of the more interesting quotes from the show:
"Bills are not something I want to pay for, so I'm not going to pay for them. The guys I date all have a duty to pay some of it. They date me for my appearance and that's how they pay for it."
"I like to think of myself as a modern day geisha."
"I've got no time for fairytale romance, lovey dovey stuff."
"What's the point of scrimping and saving all your life when some muppet down the road is going to treat you like a princess."
There's so many things wrong with everything she just said that I don't even know where to start. Her own mother's motto is "Take what you can, give nothing back", which explains a lot really. Worst of all, she has a young child..it seems like a crazy example to be setting for your kids that if you don't wan't to pay for something that everyone has to pay for, i.e, bills, that you just find a stranger who will and you use your looks to achieve that..whatever happened to finding a job and being independent? Gah.
Jeanette, meanwhile, studies forensic pyschology and claims that an understanding of the male pysche is "crucial in setting up the rinse" and "People buy marketing ideas cause they're stupid..it's the same thing". She also tries to pass all of this off as female empowerment, saying:
"It's about girls on top".
Really? It just all seems a bit desperate and depressing to me.
I thought all that was bad enough, until we came to Danica, who rinses men through social networking- Skype, Twitter and her very own website, which mostly is just pictures of her in the nip. A chat on Skype for 10 mins is worth 50 quid and she doesn't do sex talk- she says "men just want someone pretty to talk to". Aww, how sweet. It's a good job that there's women out there providing men with this vital service, the poor things. Vom. All was well until she said this:
"I'm using what I'm good at to get what I want, just as nurses do"...This provoked the following response from me:
Except without the "are those shoes on sale part", obviously. I'm a nurse so, firstly, "what I'm good at", like most other nurses, is using what I learnt from my 4 year degree, two post graduate higher diplomas and many years of experience to create, implement and assess plans of care for sick, vulnerable and dying people in order to provide the best possible care for them and their families. "What I want" is to be paid appropriately for the long hours of back breaking work I do and for my level of knowledge and experience. I fail to see how nursing is an appropriate analogy for rinsing men. I feel like writing an angry letter saying all of the above, but I don't know who to address it to..the ghost of feminism past maybe? Cause it seems like feminism is nowhere to be seen here. Despite all their protests to the contrary, these women are in reality, prostituting themselves by using their appearances, which in my opinion is the opposite of empowerment. And now to go and consume some mind altering alcohol (absinthe maybe?) and forget these awful people exist.
I guess bad reality television isn't' just limited to the U.S. then. These women sound like con artists/frauds to me. So much for wanting to be treated as a person instead of a commodity. A great step backward for women.
ReplyDeleteThen again, it also doesn't say much about the men either. They want the emotional connection of being in the company of women except they're really not getting that at all.
O.o; The whole concept is dysfunctional on so many levels, I'll just stop here.
I hear ya! To be honest, I just found the whole program so offensive. I'm all for women living their lives how they choose to but this is just perpetuating the notion that women are only there for the pleasure of men- just cause they get presents out of it doesn't mean they're empowered, quite the opposite. I could rant about this forever!!
DeleteEugh, this whole thing is just horrible! It sounds like those girls have nothing but contempt for men, which is really sad. They clearly have some completely overblown sense of entitlement too, if this quote was anything to go by: "The guys I date all have a duty to pay some of it." Get ta fuck! It IS pure Daily Mail fodder though.
ReplyDeleteAnd that cat picture is possibly my new favourite thing! :)
The whole program was just horrific, it seemed as if Channel 4 were condoning it too, they didn't really focus on the dangerous aspects of it enough and seemed to be going along with the "female empowerment" vibe. Bleugh. I think my jaw remained slack for the majority of it, such was the shock that these people actually exist. Actually, the girl on the right in the photo above seemed to be an Irish Traveller, bizarrely. It doesn't really seem in keeping with their traditions and culture.
DeleteAlso, I agree re:the cat, I swear I pretty much made that exact movement and expression when she said it..except obviously not as cute.