In the news: a woman known as Anna Chapman is accused of being some sort of Russian spy (Russian spy? Seriously? I didn’t realize we still had those. It’s comforting to know that at least some beloved artifacts from my idyllic Cold War childhood endure).

This LA Times story, the gist of which is gripping speculation concerning Chapman’s future as a reality show celebrity or the subject of “blockbusters”, is a real breathtaking pile of asswipe antifeminist hate speech. The authors don’t seem to know, or care, who or what she is, or isn’t, beyond the assertion that she is a “sultry red-head.” This is demonstrated by the photograph accompanying the article, which is about as sexy as a yearbook picture, and is therefore worth a thousand sexist words.

Here is a selection of the delightful metaphrasery employed in this article (some of which the authors breathlessly quote from other “news” sources). Chapman is

a “sexy antagonist”

a “red-haired beauty”

a “femme fatale”

a “Natasha”

a “secret sexpot” who “partied, shopped & schmoozed”

a “modern-day Mata Hari”

a “vivacious vixen”

a “practiced deceiver”

an “attention-seeking sensationalist bimbo”

a “beauty with a captivating tale”

a “romantic young woman”

a “billionaire or a hooker”

Because Chapman is such a red-haired sexy romantic billionaire mata vixen, her 15 minutes as a bankable piece of ass appears to be in the bag. On the subject of femmes parlaying their fataleity into fame and fortune, one interviewee was moved to recall that the woman Eliot Spitzer paid to rape now has a sex column in a newspaper. Sluts sell!

The LA Times omits to cite any evidence that Chapman is/was, in fact, a prostituted woman, but this is America, and evidence is hardly necessary. According to the authors, Chapman’s Facebook page reveals all relevant information: she is hottt, so obviously she’s a whore, which apparently renders the entire nation verklempt, and that’s all we need to know.

There are 10 other spies in the spy ring, but the LA Times doesn’t speculate about their marketing potential. A separate article reports that one of the dude spies jumped bail in Cyprus, but neglects to provide details about his sexiness, vivaciousness, wealth, hair color, or the dollar value of his “story.” Instead, the reader is forced to make do with boring minutiae such as the charges he was brought up on (failure to register as a foreign agent), and trivia regarding the diplomatic relationship between the US and Cyprus.