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ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MY ONLY POST ON THE BIRTH CONTROL DEBATE (I HOPE)
So. Rush Limbaugh said something stupid and offensive again.
Which should surprise no one – he’s paid tens of millions of dollars to do just that. Which is why I don’t make a habit of posting every time Limbaugh does say something stupid and offensive, because if I did, this blog would consist of nothing but incidents of Rush Limbaugh said something stupid and offensive, and then I’d have no time to post Bettie Page pictures and amateur book reviews and crap.
Still, the whole Sandra Fluke/contraception coverage thing deserves special mention for a few reasons:
1. “Susan, you ignorant slut”
The fact that Limbaugh resorted to slut-shaming Fluke to make his point speaks volumes about where he’s coming from on this. That’s worth highlighting partly because he did this simply because she’s in favor of contraception being covered by Obamacare (SLUT!), but mainly because he decided to take what has up to now been a debate about religious liberty (albeit a slightly disingenuous one) and turn it into a sexual morality issue. If you need that much contraception, you must be a slut, and we all know what they’re like, so why not put yr sex tapes online so we can at least see our tax dollars at work?
Ha ha.
This kind of thing drives me nuts because it plays into a broader tendency for people (and not just Republicans, I should note) to put down sexually active women in the same way that most people generally don’t when it comes to men. It’s a double standard, and a tired old chestnut at that: women simply can’t enjoy the same level of sexual activity as men or even express their sexuality in any way whatsoever without some people judging their worth as human beings.
But then I’m a sexual libertarian who believes sex is a positive force and that everyone, male and female, has a basic right to have guilt-free sex in any way they choose provided it’s consensual and safe, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Of course, Limbaugh has since apologized, and I’m sure the fact that the controversy caused four sponsors of his show to bail is a complete coincidence.
But if you read the text of the apology, it bears almost zero resemblance to what he actually said. So no, I don’t buy the premise that it’s everyone else’s fault for not hearing Limbaugh’s words the way he thought he was saying them at the time.
2. My taxes pay for yr f***Ing
It’s not just about the choice of words. Bill O’Reilly has been on the air making the same basic point as Limbaugh, which is that federal funding for birth control is the equivalent of taxpayers paying Susan Fluke to have sex with people. As if the whole point of having birth control is so co-eds can have sex every night of the week and twice on Fridays. As if they wouldn’t be having any sex at all if the govt wasn’t covering their contraceptive costs. As if this is such an important problem facing America that it’s worth spending that much valuable airtime attacking a female law student for taking an opposing view.
[There's also a gratuitous loofah joke here somewhere. Feel free to add yr own.]
3. The “Ignorance is the best defense” defense
The real issue for me isn’t so much what Limbaugh, O’Reilly et al think of Fluke’s sex life but the fact that none of them seem to understand how birth control even works.
Rachel Maddow has made this point already (specifically regarding Limbaugh), but it’s worth repeating because it does get to what I think is the real issue here:
The people in Congress who oppose the contraception rules under Obamacare – and are trying to change them – are primarily guys, while the main opinion leaders with the biggest audiences (Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, the Catholic Church, et al) are also guys. You would think a minimum requirement for their authoritative stance on this would be actually understanding how women use contraceptives, which ones and why – or at the very least understanding how The Pill works. But no – they are proposing to change regulations based on a complete (and possibly willful) ignorance of the subject their changes address, as well as the people most affected by them (i.e. women).
Granted, in theory they don’t have to know because, at the end of the day, it all comes back to their "religious liberty argument" and the First Amendment right of Christian organizations to refuse to provide or pay for any coverage that contradicts church doctrine. Logic and factual information are besides the point. It’s about what God wants, not what Susan Fluke wants.
Which is why church and state need to be separated. But then most of the same people don’t believe that, either.
And that's just it.
Okay, I’m done now.
Thrills, pills and bellyaches,
This is dF
Which should surprise no one – he’s paid tens of millions of dollars to do just that. Which is why I don’t make a habit of posting every time Limbaugh does say something stupid and offensive, because if I did, this blog would consist of nothing but incidents of Rush Limbaugh said something stupid and offensive, and then I’d have no time to post Bettie Page pictures and amateur book reviews and crap.
Still, the whole Sandra Fluke/contraception coverage thing deserves special mention for a few reasons:
1. “Susan, you ignorant slut”
The fact that Limbaugh resorted to slut-shaming Fluke to make his point speaks volumes about where he’s coming from on this. That’s worth highlighting partly because he did this simply because she’s in favor of contraception being covered by Obamacare (SLUT!), but mainly because he decided to take what has up to now been a debate about religious liberty (albeit a slightly disingenuous one) and turn it into a sexual morality issue. If you need that much contraception, you must be a slut, and we all know what they’re like, so why not put yr sex tapes online so we can at least see our tax dollars at work?
Ha ha.
This kind of thing drives me nuts because it plays into a broader tendency for people (and not just Republicans, I should note) to put down sexually active women in the same way that most people generally don’t when it comes to men. It’s a double standard, and a tired old chestnut at that: women simply can’t enjoy the same level of sexual activity as men or even express their sexuality in any way whatsoever without some people judging their worth as human beings.
But then I’m a sexual libertarian who believes sex is a positive force and that everyone, male and female, has a basic right to have guilt-free sex in any way they choose provided it’s consensual and safe, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Of course, Limbaugh has since apologized, and I’m sure the fact that the controversy caused four sponsors of his show to bail is a complete coincidence.
But if you read the text of the apology, it bears almost zero resemblance to what he actually said. So no, I don’t buy the premise that it’s everyone else’s fault for not hearing Limbaugh’s words the way he thought he was saying them at the time.
2. My taxes pay for yr f***Ing
It’s not just about the choice of words. Bill O’Reilly has been on the air making the same basic point as Limbaugh, which is that federal funding for birth control is the equivalent of taxpayers paying Susan Fluke to have sex with people. As if the whole point of having birth control is so co-eds can have sex every night of the week and twice on Fridays. As if they wouldn’t be having any sex at all if the govt wasn’t covering their contraceptive costs. As if this is such an important problem facing America that it’s worth spending that much valuable airtime attacking a female law student for taking an opposing view.
[There's also a gratuitous loofah joke here somewhere. Feel free to add yr own.]
3. The “Ignorance is the best defense” defense
The real issue for me isn’t so much what Limbaugh, O’Reilly et al think of Fluke’s sex life but the fact that none of them seem to understand how birth control even works.
Rachel Maddow has made this point already (specifically regarding Limbaugh), but it’s worth repeating because it does get to what I think is the real issue here:
The people in Congress who oppose the contraception rules under Obamacare – and are trying to change them – are primarily guys, while the main opinion leaders with the biggest audiences (Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, the Catholic Church, et al) are also guys. You would think a minimum requirement for their authoritative stance on this would be actually understanding how women use contraceptives, which ones and why – or at the very least understanding how The Pill works. But no – they are proposing to change regulations based on a complete (and possibly willful) ignorance of the subject their changes address, as well as the people most affected by them (i.e. women).
Granted, in theory they don’t have to know because, at the end of the day, it all comes back to their "religious liberty argument" and the First Amendment right of Christian organizations to refuse to provide or pay for any coverage that contradicts church doctrine. Logic and factual information are besides the point. It’s about what God wants, not what Susan Fluke wants.
Which is why church and state need to be separated. But then most of the same people don’t believe that, either.
And that's just it.
Okay, I’m done now.
Thrills, pills and bellyaches,
This is dF