On The Right to Slut

Four days ago, a blog post surfaced called "What the Right Doesn't Get About Elections."  I am not going to link you to it, mostly because I don't want the asshat's blog to get any more traffic than it already has.  What I will tell you is that The Guardian, Gawker, and Jezebel have all done response pieces that use actual excerpts from the post, and you should go find those.

Basically, what the post explains is that Romney lost because Barack Obama won the "Slut Vote," young, unmarried women.  These young, unmarried women take birth control, get breast exams and cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, support their own or other women's rights to have dominion over their own uteri, are poor black women, rich white suburban brats, and single mothers.  And they want the government to pay for their "right to Slut."

Now, we've talked a bit about Slut Shaming here before, but let me reiterate what it means, despite the fact that it is not the main purpose of this post.  Slut shaming is the idea that a person's worth can be inversely correlated with the number of people they have slept with -- that the more partners or pre- or extra-marital encounters a person has, the less they deserve to be treated like a person.  This contributes, in large part, to the disgusting societal idea that a woman who is not a virgin cannot really be raped, that she "was asking for it."  Slut shaming is a problem.  A person's sexuality does not determine their worth.  You totally have a Right to Slut, if that is what makes you happy and seems like the right choice for you.  You also have a Right to Abstain, if saving yourself until marriage is something that really matters to you.  A person's sexuality, regardless of how it coincides with your personal beliefs, does not determine their worth as a person.

What we're really here to discuss today is Mr. "bskillet"s ideas of what defines a slut.  He points to women who are young and unmarried, because "older and married women vote Republican."  Clearly, every unmarried woman is a slut who wants the government to subsidize her promiscuity.  Despite the fact that many unmarried women either abstain or only have a single partner before they marry.  But clearly, SLUTS AHOY.  He goes on to say that poor, black women voted for Obama because he supports their rights to get government handouts for the babies they kept and have the government pay for the babies they didn't want.  The fact that this disgustingly frames all poor, black women as baby-machines that want to do nothing more than have sex and pop out children so the government will pay for them apparently eludes this man.  I also wonder if he's ever met a black woman or if he's only heard from Fox News about what they're like.  Actually, I'm just going to expand that to all women.

And theeen we get into my favorites: all women who take birth control or go to Planned Parenthood are irresponsible, promiscuous, rich, white brats.  The majority of Planned Parenthood's work includes important medical services like breast cancer screenings.  Last I checked, tumors don't care whether you're male, female, sexually-active, or celibate.  And free breast exams are the best kind of breast exams.

So not all women who go to PP are whores, but of course, why would you take birth control if you weren't slutting it up all over the place?  Well, aside from those women who, again, only have one partner but aren't ready to be parents, married women who are still on the pill because, again, they are unready to be parents, and girls who are exercising their perfectly healthy right to control their own sexuality without the risk of pregnancy?  Medical necessity.  The most common treatment for ovarian cysts?  Hormonal therapy - also known as birth control.  Debilitating cramps that leave you out of work or school for days?  Birth control.  Severe migraines?  Some doctors will suggest birth control.  Abnormal periods?  Birth control.  Bad acne, hair loss, breast sensitivity?  All can be treated with birth control.  There's this funny thing about birth control in that it contains large doses of estrogen and other synthesized female hormones -- which means that it's often exactly the right thing to fix whatever lady-problem you might be having.  None of these are problems that "putting an aspirin between your knees" is going to fix.

The takeaways here: not all women are sluts, there's nothing wrong even if they are, and the far Right REALLY needs a lesson in how birth control actually works.

Yours (But Still Entirely Mine),
Rachel Leigh, proud member of the apparent "Slut Vote"

On This Little Thing Called "Slut-Shaming"

Sub-title: "Why Rush Limbaugh is Still a Big, Fat Idiot"

I'm sure you've all heard about Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke.  If you haven't, it basically boils down to "Fat, old white guy with a radio show calls a Georgetown Law Student a slut and a prostitute because she wants government health care to cover contraception and therefore, in his mind, wants the government and tax payers to pay for her to have sex."


This guy.

Leaving out the fact that Rush clearly doesn't understand how birth control works or the plethora of reasons outside of sexual activity that a woman might be using birth control (in a Congressional hearing, Fluke cited her friend who is on the pill to treat ovarian cysts), there's another issue at hand here.

Let's talk briefly about something called "slut shaming."  Because really, that's what Rush is doing here.  Slut shaming is the idea that a woman can be judged as a person in virtue of whether or not, and the extent to which, she is sexually active.  It directly correlates the value of a woman with whether she is sexually active and ties her into a system that my spiritual guide, the late John Hughes, describes as a "double-edged sword."

 "Well, if you say you haven't, you're a prude. If you say you have you're a slut. It's a trap. You want to but you can't, and when you do you wish you didn't, right"

The idea that a woman can be judged for her sexuality relates back to a culture that believes that a woman who isn't a virgin can't be raped, or that a woman who's sexually active in her own right is "asking for it."  And Rush, your comments -- your idiotic comments which equate the desire to have a medical expense covered by your insurance policy (which I know is a horrifying concept) with prostitution and a foray into internet porn -- contribute to this horrible excuse for a justification.  So, congrats.  You're an ass.

Fumingly yours,
Rachel Leigh