The Royal Slut, 20 Years After

Goodbye, slut.

Almost twenty years ago the Royal Slut, who had been giving scandal all summer – for the joy of the rubbish press – merely to show a very long finger to Queen and Country (particularly the former) died in an accident which was, in itself, the epitome of the arrogance of these people, thinking they can do without punishment what would cause me and you to go to jail very, very fast.

Make no mistake: during all the Summer of 1997 the woman had been treated by every sensible brain for what she was: a trollop slutting it around in wanton abandon of family, children, morality, conventions, and her role as still bearing the title (even after the divorce) of “Royal Highness”. The biggest Italian newspaper for women had made a famous reader survey, whose result famously was: she is a slut.

There you have it. From woman to woman. Pretty blinding obvious, too.

However, when she died something utterly knew to me happened: the sudden rise of a fishwives' religion.

Overnight, the woman became the object of what can only be called a cult; a cult feeding on the desire of what was already a large number of godless wordlings to feel good with themselves as the metre of what is right or wrong.

I realise now that this was the first phenomenon I witnessed of post-Christian mass hysteria, with an army of people without any moral compass instantly ditching obvious morality instances in order to make their own religion, for their own selfish enjoyment.

We saw the mass hysteria at work in other issues (global warming is a prime example), but I think the Royal Slut was the first of such astonishing magnitude. It was the horrible birth cry of a new generation of people, screaming their right to declare good what makes them feel good.

All this would have been impossible in former times. No generation before ours ever dared to proclaim the right to overlook moral instances formerly impossible to ignore. No generations before ours dared to excuse the slutting of the wife with the infidelities of the husband. Heck, you see Harry's photos and compare them with one of Diana's former lovers (I think it was the photographer, but it may have been the bedyguard?) and it gives you the creeps.

The tragic, highly illegal death of the Royal Slut was the first instance of a religion of self that has only been growing since. Twenty years later, many more Christians have died and many more “make me feel good with myself” cultists have started to vote.

Not good at all.