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Leave it to the manosphere to further elevate the national discourse about Sandra Fluke. On Gucci Little Piggy, a blog loosely aligned with the alt-right/racist/PUA wing of the manosphere, blogger Chuck Rudd suggests that Rush Limbaugh might have been wrong to call Fluke a slut. Sounds good,eh? Not when you hear the, er, reasoning behind it:
I think the term “slut” is too arbitrary to have much meaning in a political context, especially when we don’t actually know anything about the so-called slut’s sexual history. It doesn’t fit Sandra Fluke anyway as we don’t know for sure that she’s heterosexual.
Go on.
Fluke is not a “slut”, nor is she a “good citizen” which is what President Obama called her in a press conference held today. Based upon readily observable behavior and on her beliefs about what she and her favorite groups have a right to grab from tax payers and employers, it’s best to call her what she is: a pirate
Uh, what?
Apparently, in Chuck’s world, putative lesbians who suggest that insurance should pay for birth control that they personally don’t need to prevent babies, though they or people they know might need it to treat other medical conditions, are pirates.
Later in the post, Chuck links to a review of a book that suggests many pirates engaged in sodomy. Which is evidently proof in his mind that lesbians are pirates, or at least that it is hilarious to call them pirates.
Anyway, the best part of the piece is how Chuck, using the magic of SCIENCE, proves that Fluke is gay:
[P]eople who have a longer ring finger (4d) than index finger (2d) have more testosterone and, some argue, a higher sex drive.
Pointing to a news photograph that appears to show that Ms. Fluke does indeed have a long ring finger, Chuck concludes:
her ring finger is quite a bit longer than her index. It’s almost as long as her middle finger. In general, a low 2d:4d ratio in women indicates a greater proclivity towards homosexuality or bisexuality and greater tendency towards aggressiveness and assertiveness. So, yeah, pirate fits.
Thanks, Chuck.
Most of the commenters to his article seem to agree with his basic thesis.
Stickman writes:
forget the fingers… shes got strait up MAN HANDS. But look on the bright side, if she survives the up coming second dark ages, I’m sure she will do a fine job of pulling a plow.
Note: The “coming second dark ages” is a familiar trope among manospherians; the idea is that men will get so fed up with the gynofascist matriarchy we evidently all live in today that they will stop working, civilization will crumble, and the ladies will be put in their proper place, behind pulling plows.
SOBL1 adds:
As a fellow Cornellian, my guess is lesbian. Cornell has a decent les population.It also speaks more to a les to demand free birth control as a hand out from the government speaking on behalf of all women when she has no shot of getting pregnant. That’s just the thing lesbians like to do: consider their opinions the worldview of all “womyn”. At a minimum, she was a LUG [Lesbian Until Graduation]. Her face and hair are so masculine, she could pass for a male supporting character in “All the President’s Men”.
Did he mention he went to CORNELL?
One free-thinking fellow actually challenges Chuck’s analysis. Nick digger writes:
This finger length analysis from candid photos is nonsense. There are too many knuckle-bends in all directions, combined with skewed camera position, to get an accurate measurement. There has to be some standard for this, such as hands pressed flat against a flat surface, with all fingers together, or each finger extending in a straight line from its source carpal (or metacarpal, whatever it is).
Having said that, she looks like a fat, ugly cunt — which is what Rush should have called her, as it does not imply sluttiness. He’s entitled, because libs call him a fat ugly cunt all the time.
Such is the nature of the discussion amongst some of the internet’s most steadfast advocates for the rights of men.
Chuck himself adds a few parting thoughts in a comment suggesting that Fluke’s biggest crime was that she didn’t ask for birth control coverage nicely enough:
When you ask for something from someone you don’t demand it and then demonize someone who doesn’t cave in to your demands. You ask and the other person chooses whether to reciprocate. All of this is akin to someone asking a stranger for a hitch across town and then screaming and yelling when rebuffed
It’s true. In the past, activists have always been extremely polite about their demands requests. You may recall the famous anti-war slogan: “Heck no, we would prefer not to go.” The “Excuse us, fellas, but we would also like to be able to walk around at night” marches. And of course, Martin Luther King’s famous, “Guys, would any of you like to hear about this dream I had” speech.
All Chuck and his friends are asking is that fat ugly dyke cunts stop being so darn rude when they call on insurance companies to provide certain kinds of medical coverage. Is that really too much to ask?
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I’d better put that blinking
gif here, just in case.
Apologize for the careless pronoun – Zie’s the Fred Clark of libertarianism.
Rutee I don’t deny that the right to bear arms was useful when the nation first started out. Being in the middle of a new continent, I don’t think folks had a choice on being isolated hermits. But the way the US is seen now, to foreign eyes its very strange that americans feel this compulsive urge to carry guns at all times, and that’s the image that sticks in peoples minds.
Zhinzy, so what your saying is that libertarianism has a built in set of checks and balances, where it goes wrong is that it relies on peoples abilities to step back from self interest and look at the greater well being of their community? Its a nice ideal.
Now, I’m really confused, by their logic. If, Ms. Fluke is really a lesbian pirate, which is proven by their in-depth statistical analysis*, wouldn’t the proper course of action would be to give her what she wants? Lesbian pirates have swords, guns and loose morals. And that is a deadly combination.
*And I have to say, I am beginning to ave my doubts when it comes to body length analyses. Take myself for example. One of my hands the ring finger is longer, but on the other hand my index finger is a little longer. I have a toe that does not touch the ground and my left ear is slightly lower than my right. So I think that makes me, if I have done my body length analyses right: a half-bi-gay-straight-lesbian-wimp-pirate-manly-accountant-trapeze artist who can talk to animals. Which doesn’t seem right, since I can only talk to plants.
“where it goes wrong is that it relies on peoples abilities to step back from self interest and look at the greater well being of their community? Its a nice ideal.”
Basically. Also, while any anarchist is gonna get taken as Utopian, I say It’s not so unachievable, except that a lot of libertarians have been over-fed on a hopped-up pop-Randianism that makes it pretty difficult to see the light at the end of the dumb-jerk-tunnel. Again, there’s a lot of act-getting-together that needs to happen in the libertarian community, but I see positive signs in a way I haven’t in a long time.
All I can do is devote my time to our growing left, and even more-reasonable middle and right, and otherwise try to clean up in-house. I think it’s worth it, anyway.
Seraph – “Apologize for the careless pronoun – Zie’s the Fred Clark of libertarianism.”
“She” is fine 🙂
Aww, I love Fred Clark! Well… except for his anti-libertarianism! 😉
I can imagine, but whatcha gonna do? As written, the teachings of Jesus are pretty much the most anti-Libertarian thing EVAR. Man was a communist.
What’s hilarious – or would be, if it wasn’t so frustrating – is watching American right-wingers combine twisted, ignorant versions of both into the horrifying mutant that is American conservatism, and pretending that the two somehow always went together.
I’m not a rights theorist at all. I use the language of “rights” at times, because it’s a more easily recognizable framework than explaining the complexities of rule utilitarianism (which isn’t too understood even in most academic disciplines). Rule utilitarianism is a recent development in ethics theory that looks sort of like a hybrid between act utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Instead of utility for each individual act, you look at utility for the ethical rule. Which is much more like how people think, and helps deal with the issue of utility monsters, without falling into the “not everybody wants and likes the exact same things” issues that Kantian ethics often presents (also, no difficult to define means-ends distinction). Also, when faced with challenges to whether something is a right or not, those who don’t try some sort of divine command or appeal to nature generally actually slip into utilitarian defenses.
On the right to bear arms, the myth that it was about a “right to rebel” is just that-a myth. Armed rebellion is one of the few things enumerated as treason (punishable by death) and early rebellions were put down fairly hard. Samuel Adams was one of the most fervent supporters of executing traitors. It’s a bit silly to argue you have a right to commit treason though you’ll be killed if they catch you at it. The notion of states worrying about losing their individual state militias, or being ordered to disarm by the federal government played a much larger role, as did the desire to continue racist oppressions of/paranoia about self defense and rebellion by native americans and black people.
Sorry, I’m a little slow. And am still trying to get my head around the whole lesbian pirate thing. But you got to admit, that is a pretty sweet and kinky image. Aarrgh !
“It’s a bit silly to argue you have a right to commit treason though you’ll be killed if they catch you at it.”
Well, I’m not a constitutionalist or a Founders worshipper but that they’d hypocritically make comments about watering the tree and yet put down actual rebellion DOESN’T strike me as all that silly. That they’d make noise about or gestures to a right to overthrow tyranny and not let one exercise it is part of the hypocrisy all over the document.
And it’s also true that denying arms to the oppressed while feeding the paranoia against rebellion has been so much of American gun politics.
I find rule utilitarianism interesting but am not as up on it as I should be. *sad philosophical face*
Technically Washington never said that-it was that fatuous Jefferson who said that the tree of liberty needed to be watered with blood. Then again, Jefferson spent most of his time off in France during the revolution so he was never part of the actual real struggle to break from England. Since Washington was, he knew the price that was paid and no whiny farmers were going to get away with trashing what he worked so hard to get done.
My problem with the Founders fetishizing is that those who do it tend to ignore that there were about 50 founders total (for the Declaration and the Constitution) and they all had differing views on the proper role of government, a person subject to the government’s power, what power it should have, should not have…in favor of just picking whatever the fetishizers agree with at the time.
And even then those who became President ignored the words in the Constitution when it suited them. Talking to you Adams (and Jefferson.)
Yes, Jefferson on watering the tree and many other fine things written from safe, comfortable places. I have at times expressed ideas that I’d call “Jeffersonian Decentralist,” for those Greens and others who grok such, but only if I can be very sure it’s known I mean Fake Jefferson, not like, Real World Jefferson. :p
“Since Washington was, he knew the price that was paid and no whiny farmers were going to get away with trashing what he worked so hard to get done.”
There’s the theory Hamilton raised the excise taxes TO incite rebellion, and draw Washington out to act and increase federal power, but that’s probably too conspiracy theory even for Hamilton.
“My problem with the Founders fetishizing is that those who do it tend to ignore that there were about 50 founders total (for the Declaration and the Constitution) and they all had differing views on the proper role of government, a person subject to the government’s power, what power it should have, should not have…in favor of just picking whatever the fetishizers agree with at the time.”
“And even then those who became President ignored the words in the Constitution when it suited them. Talking to you Adams (and Jefferson.)”
Exactly. It’s one of the reasons I try to avoid any such arguments when it comes to anything other than “Hey, History!” along with just not feeling it’s moral or in any way logical for me to do so as a, well, anarchist, and all.
And that, my friends, is MRAL in a nutshell. This ought to be his slogan or his motto.
@ Darksidecat:
The articles you linked to seemed to were about demonstrating how heterosexist the assumptions made by the media and, to a certain extent, the original researchers in presenting the correlation between finger length and sexual orientation.
This heterosexism is definitely a problem and something that needs to be called out, especially when it’s found in scientific research. I’m very glad that these people are criticizing the heterosexist assumptions in both the mass media and in scientific works.
But while heterosexist assumptions are definitely at work in the presentation of the finger length – sexual orientation correlation, that doesn’t mean that the correlation itself complete pseudoscience. The articles you linked to didn’t show that the statistics presented in support of this argument were incorrect. Just that the presentation of those statistics was heterosexist.
I suppose I should note that I realize that this correlation could be presented as pseudoscience. For instance, if someone were to argue that digit length ratio causes sexual orientation or that the correlation is universal, that would be pseudoscience. (Simply because people with different sexual orientations and genders are more likely to have a certain digit length ratio doesn’t mean that one causes the other or that the correlation between digit length ratio and sexual orientation is true in everyone. As a straight woman whose ring finger is definitely longer than my index finger, I should know.) I’d argue that Chuck Rudd’s interpretation of this correlation and attempt to use it to argue that Sandra Fluke is a lesbian is certainly pseudoscientific. But I don’t think that the correlation itself is necessarily pseudoscience.
I live in Canada and Nicaragua. In Canada you can’t walk around with a gun, in Nica you’d never know people walk around with guns until you see them checking them in when they enter the bank. Nica’s don’t talk about gun control, they talk about getting people fed.
I honestly believe that North American culture can be summed up by saying when people have noting to complain about they will find something to complain about.
This whole Limbaugh craziness just has me shaking my head, what a way to come back to Canada.
It should have never been news or at least not the headline news. There are people with real problems besides what some crazy right-winger says.
What bugs me most is apparently this man has made HUGE racist remarks in the past without sponsors leaving. That really bugs me.
If by “recent” you mean “at least as old as utilitarianism itself” 🙂
I will read your links about 2D:4D digit ratio when I get home from my Thursday activities. It seems like Anathema has already read all of them, though, so maybe I will just read your response to their post.
Yeah, he worked to raise taxes to pay for the last rebellion or something. Hamilton may have been a cheating ass, but he did know his finance.
Quick note… the comment was not that Ms. Fluke would be behind the plow, but in front. Dragging it, as a beast of burden.
I’ll be back after I do the shopping for supper. I’m going to try doing a charbonnade, with leeks and mushrooms, and then baked into loaves as individual pies.
@Anathema, what statistics? The only ones I have seen are a single British study with plenty of methodological issues, and a few small scale studies done by a single homophobic, racist, sexist fingerlength obsessed quack. The correlation thing is a highly suspicious claim (given the long history of similar attempts to pathologize queer bodies) with extremely weak at best support. At best, you have that among a self selected group of participants at a streetfair in the UK, there was a slight correlation found, even setting aside the homophobia of the researcher of that study as at huge risk of having contaminated the results.
Chuck, my question got lost up thread, but I’m really dying to know your answer: advocates for the mentally ill have worked long and hard to achieve parity in mental health coverage–usually through government mandate. Are the mentally ill pirates?
@ Chuck Rodd,
Birth control pills need to be covered because PCOS and endometriosis,( two conditions which are typically treated with birth control pills as a first resort) lead to complications which can be fatal. PCOS for example, causes severe anemia and can cause abnormally large cysts to grow and burst. Those bursting cysts can cause internal bleeding leading to death. Endometriosis can grow on any abdominal cavity tissue including the pancreas (which can lead to the development of diabetes), liver (which can cause liver failure) intestines (which can cause intestinal blockage) uterus and Fallopian tubes (which can cause ectopic pregnancies, an often fatal condition) and on and so forth. Every other option to treat these conditions are far more expensive, invasive, time consuming, and come with a much higher chance of risk.
More from PZ on the actual stats from Manning http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/03/08/digit-length-ratios-and-overinterpreting-the-data/ And he doesn’t even go into Manning’s homophobia and sexism.
Your first link was to an article criticizing a Nature article that claimed to have found a statistically significant different between the digit ratios of straight and lesbian women. The article you linked to noted that in the original paper, there was no statistically significant difference between the digit length ratio of straight and gay men. The article also criticized the original paper for its use of heterosexist language and for arguing that the difference in digit length ratio between gays and straights was caused by prenatal hormones. (A difference which, as your article noted, the study itself admits might not even be found in men, given that they only found a statistically significant difference in digit length ratios between gays and straights in women.) But that article did not dispute the original study’s finding of significantly different digit length ratios in straight women and lesbians. It seemed to accept that. But it could well be that that particular article just didn’t focus on any methodological flaws, but that others have.
By searching PubMed I was able to find some other studies done on the subject that are not by the fingerlength obsessed quack John Manning. But I haven’t read them and couldn’t speak to their quality. It could be that they are significantly flawed or written by cranks as well. And there weren’t very many studies either.
You are probably right about it being pseudoscience.
And of course, there’s Patrick Henry’s famous “I’d Like Either Liberty Or Death, Please, Whichever’s All Right With You.”
Chuck: She’s pretty manly looking, no? And on what grounds can Fluke demand birth control?
No, she’s not. And the grounds she can demand it are that she’s paying for health coverage, and this is a basic coverage issue.
Simple enough for even the meanest understanding, one would think.
Wisteria: I had a kidney stone about 6 years ago. For four hours in the ER (a Sunday morning), the charge was about 8,000. That included an overbilling for meds I wasn’t given.
Because I didn’t have insurance the entire bill was due. If I paid in a hurry, in full, less than 21 days, I’d be allowed to pay half price. If I’d had insurance the cost to the insurer would have been about 2/5ths.
That’s the way the game is played. Insurers demand “rebates” so the uninsured pay more than the going rate. Because I was poor I was given a pass, so the out of pocket was only about 1,200 bucks (the $500 they demanded at the door, and fees to the CT scanning company).
I’m so glad, since I had another one a couple of months ago, that I’m now getting socialised medicine (Veteran’s Administration; because I’m a disabled vet), and it was thank you very much, and home I went.
Chuck: Why should she, as a customer be demanding a service if she’s paying for it?
I don’t know… because she’s a customer?
Why should the gov’t be involved? Because the insurers are granted certain exemptions and a limited monopoly, and so are subject to considerable regulation of what is a service plainly relevant to, “promoting the general welfare” and which, per the various rulings of the Supreme Court (some written by members of the moset common present majority) the Gov’t, per the Commerce Clause, has not only a right, but a duty to so regulate, and this falls inside that purview?
if birth control is mandated to be carried on all insurance policies and if it has zero co-pay, do you think it is free? this is a crucial question.
Only if the insurance isn’t charging the women any premiums.