You may recall that all-dude panel of “experts” at that recent congressional hearing on contraception. One of the reasons it was an all-dude panel was that congressional Republicans wouldn’t let Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke testify on the costs of birth control. (She later testified at a separate hearing held by Nancy Pelosi.)
Apparently stating publicly how much contraception costs when it’s not covered by insurance is basically the equivalent of pooping on the flag to some misogynistic assholes, among them the always charming Rush Limbaugh, who has denounced Fluke as a “slut” and a whore, saying, at one point, that she
went before a Congressional committee and said she’s having so much sex she’s going broke buying contraceptives and wants us to buy them.
Actually, she didn’t testify about her own experience at all.
Also, does Limbaugh even know how contraception works? Yes, the number of condoms one buys depends on how often you have sex. (Or at the very least how often you hope to have sex. Who knows how many boxes of condoms, purchased in moments of optimism, have quietly expired on the shelf waiting for their purchasers to finally get their mojo working. )
But the costs of many other forms of contraception have no relation whatsoever to the frequency of sex. Women on “the pill” take a pill every day, regardless of whether they are having sex that day or not. Women using IUDs don’t run down to the health center to have one installed every time their vagina expects a visitor.
Birth control, in short, doesn’t work like Oxycontin or Viagra, the two pills about which Limbaugh seems most knowledgeable.
Sorry to belabor the obvious, which apparently isn’t so obvious if you’re a right-wing, woman-hating asshole.
Anyway, now Limbaugh seems to think he’s entitled to watch Fluke having sex:
So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. … We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.
Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Here’s the excerpt from his radio show in which he makes this creepy demand.
That thing you tend to support.
I actually don’t support “patriarchy” because I think women have as much a responsibility to provide for the families they choose to have and defend the country they live in as men do.
Try to keep your apology brief.
IR, you have enough to answer for yourself, Mr. Preggo Punchout.
I mean, men’s equality means men losing out relative to women, because men are advantaged compared to women.
Yeah, we all know feminism is more about taking from other people than anything else. Thank you for disavowing all that “zero sum game” hogwash and brandishing your true colors.
Uh huh. And that’s why you’re having an endzone dance over antifeminist dudes making more money
You realize this boilerplate shit fools nobody, right? XD
Translation: Giving women limited rights and limited responsibilities isn’t sexist enough for me! Women should have limited rights and all the responsibilities.
…Sort of like how we should be solely responsible for birth control, yet denied access to it…
Equality is not a zero sum game if you’re not Able Whitey McStraighterson III. Only a vanishingly small number of people will lose in total; the upper and middle class able bodied, straight cis white men.
As it happens, when society favors you to the exclusion of all else, equality means society h as to stop favoring you.
Wow, he must really be desperate for hits on his tiny blog.
You mean his superior ‘aryan’ intellect isn’t doing it for everyone else?
I actually do think that the end of patriarchy will leave the vast majority of people– MEN AND WOMEN– better off. Look at the previous achievements of feminism: reproductive rights means men also have a reduced fear of a child they don’t want to care for; women’s employment means that straight men don’t have to be able to support a family on one income; feminist legal victories, such as sexual harassment law, recognition of rape and domestic violence, and paternity leave, benefit men as well. Not to mention the benefit of having half the population– men’s friends, family, and lovers– have more and more equal rights and opportunities.
I mean, yes, now married men aren’t issued a wholly owned domestic slave anymore, but I do think the benefits outweigh the cost.
I’m serious about that by the way, he really has no one in the MRM commenting on his blog, and nothing but quotes from this site. The occasional hits from us are his only traffic.
How sad is it when the people you are sucking up to don’t even bother to visit?
I just realized that my last sentence could erase the suffering of ACTUAL slaves, about half of whom were female– even in the worst days in which free, married women were considered legally a part of their husbands, their living conditions were often far better than those of slaves, and I don’t mean to deny that with my sloppy use of language.
My kingdom for an edit button.
@ Shadow
The solution here is obvious. We need to play Freaky Friday with the trolls. FF wakes up in EN’s life, and EN wakes up in FFs life. Preggo Punchout will suddenly become a lot more trippy and interesting, and FF will perhaps learn that white men are not in fact the most oppressed people on earth. It’s a win/win.
Sorry, I just have to deliver a small present of hilarious Mra hypocrisy if IRFF is still lurking.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/q84dv/what_is_the_opposite_of_a_white_knight/c3vk2cx
Here’s one of the new /mensrights mods, virgin shaming “white knights.” 😉 Lol, so much for that derail. Want to try again? It so much fun poking holes in your ridiculous bullshit.
IR/FF is one of those people who marches into a space and announces “I’m superior to everyone here!” and expects everyone else to be wowed by his presence. Protip: If everyone thinks you’re a joke, saying that you’re way smarter than them won’t change their minds.
Another protip: If you want to actually appear like an intellectual giant, don’t talk about gleaming Aryan horses.
The knowledge that men who believe that men’s only job is to earn money earn more money than men who believe men have other roles besides earning money is shaking the very foundations of my worldview.
I can’t handle it.
Ozy: I’ve heard that before. It might be correct, I don’t know. I also don’t really care. I mean, it’ll be great if it really does help everyone, I guess, but Able Whitey McStraighterson III is too little of the population to keep fretting about his impending loss of primacy.
I don’t think it’s like Able Whitey McStraighterson III is going to end up in the slums, anyway. He’s just not going to enjoy being on top of the heap. It’s only a relative loss.
@Cassandra
There’s a sitcom in there somewhere
Wait, is IR black? If so, was his Aryan comment supposed to be about me?!! The plot keeps on thickening!
Not so much thickening as congealing.
The way I understand it, with Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists, it wasn’t so much “stringently researched and painstakingly supported historical research” as much as “making shit up.” And they were all about the vanished golden age and the ancient societies.
Eastern thought has been cool and sexy in the West since at least the founding of the Theosophists in 1875. I think Hitler and the Nazis grabbed whatever made them look cool, and part of that was vanished Golden Ages. Mussolini was all about restoring the glory of Rome; I think the “Aryan race” thing was the Nazi counterpart. Hell, had the dice fallen out another way, it might have been Atlanteans rather than Aryans.
But still, “the gleaming opulent horse of superior Aryan intellect” is too goddamn funny.
Which is to say, Nazi Germany waved about the Aryan race as a kind of fetish without regard to actual historical accuracy … which is why they appropriated the name for a group of people in Asia and applied it to their Nordic ideal.
I guess it’s a good thing that no one in the United States today ascribes mystical powers of “being right” to an extinct group in our history….
Employees generally do not have in their contract a “morals clause.” Why? Because that went out the door with the idea that employees are subject to total control by their employers.
Trepanning has been in use for thousands of years. It is still in use today (see Gabby Giffords’ treatment after she was shot.)
It actually is not a tiny slice-the Catholic Church works with a great deal of charities and hospitals. And they are not the only ones who oppose this. So what you are talking about is all of the people who work for these companies are going to be blocked from having birth control. Both men and women will lack access because the employer has an icky feeling when one of their employees does not get knocked up or knocks someone else up when working for them.
It is not a great idea-however the people doing this did not know about things like germs. They still were doing a perfectly valid medical treatment.
That actually does not say what you think it says. Sorry munchkin.
It is not a great idea-however the people doing this did not know about things like germs. They still were doing a perfectly valid medical treatment.
I’d say a medical procedure that does harm more than good is not a valid one.
That actually does not say what you think it says.
No, a lot of people agree that it says exactly what I think it says. You can’t just go against the rest of the world and then act all snooty and undignified when we “don’t get it.”
Yeah, you’re poor and lazy and think you’re better than us. We get it, Christ.
Well yes, according to the biblical record, Christ was poor.
He was, however, not lazy nor did he believe he was better than anyone else. He did think that you needed to become righteous with the Lord else you would not be in the Kingdom of Heaven.
If the option is just letting the person die but there may be a chance if one does X, then it is a valid procedure. These were not people schlepping down to the local doc and going “I feel terrible Doc, can you please cut open my skull to cure this confounded headache I have?”
IR/FF is super rich off of the sale of Preggo Punchit!
That makes his points correct. (not really)