Wow, $10,000! I wonder how many beads I could buy with that.

While the brain trust at CollegeHumor is busy analyzing hotness, I’m beginning my 21st year. Now that I can drink, my thoughts have turned toward the “party culture:” the values, tastes and practices of party-loving college students.

Not all parties or partying students are part of this culture, but many are. This is a culture best expressed by the likes of CollegeHumor, Tucker Max (who seems to have a knack for weaseling his way into State News columns) and parties where women get in for free.

This also is a culture that encourages violence against women.

The rape crisis is real. Sexual violence against women isn’t merely a crime problem — it’s a social problem. As has been highlighted recently on campus by Valentine’s Day events (including “The Vagina Monologues”), violence against women is a reflection of our patriarchal power structures.

And yes, whether we like it or not, even a joke on CollegeHumor can be a part of that. The notion that words can’t hurt classes of people is stupid and downright ignorant. Words don’t just show our values, they impact them. Each and every one of us, on some level, reads into the words of others to determine what’s socially acceptable and unacceptable, and the opinions of our friends are especially powerful in shaping our own values.

A lot of Americans, especially men, have a hard time realizing this. We love to think we’re independent, free-thinking individuals who are fully in control of our minds. But it’s a sign of maturity to recognize that we’re not just vulnerable to external influence but actually dependent upon it. We are social beings whose individual identities are inextricably locked together. The people we know don’t just change who we are, they’re part of who we are.

This means there is no such thing as a sexist or racist joke that doesn’t have tangible harmful effects. Date rape is a good example. Too many people still can’t see how a woman can go to “that kind of party,” dressed “like that,” consent to having sex while inebriated and still say she was raped the next day.

“Take some personal responsibility,” we say. And, of course, we’re “just joking” when we say women who don’t put out are prudes, or when we objectify them with online beauty contests. (Is the 10 grand a joke, too?)

People don’t like hearing criticism of things they like, and CollegeHumor is popular. It’s become easy to dismiss feminist criticism by attaching it to a self-righteous caricature: the “bra-burning radical feminist” who is obviously either a lesbian or just “too ugly to get laid.” The male feminist also is assumed to be gay; if he’s straight, then he’s just trying to get in good with the ladies or a spineless cur who lets women boss him around. And all feminists clearly are against free speech because of course there’s no difference between “illegal” and “wrong.”

Another popular way to dismiss these criticisms is to whine about “political correctness” and how it doesn’t allow us to say anything meaningful or true. The disgusting irony is that “political correctness” itself has no meaning. It’s been tossed about with such reckless abandon that it’s “PC” to be “un-PC.” We’ve come to believe that “politically incorrect” opinions are automatically true, and anyone who takes umbrage with them is a Nazi.

Well, this feminazi is not against sex, even lots of premarital sex with multiple people. I’m not against partying, complete with drinking and smoking. Having sex and partying hard doesn’t have to mean oppressing women. And to be clear, I don’t want to censor anybody — all I want is for people to realize what’s going on and choose to act differently.

In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for drinking.

Joel Reinstein is a State News columnist and an arts and humanities junior. Reach him at reinste5@msu.edu.