Black Champagne

“Sluts” and Media Whores

One of the more entertaining political bloggers around is Roy Edroso, who writes at Alicublog. His main thing is to read some of the craziest of the ring wing blogs and quote their words, while adding corrections, outrage, or astonishment. Mostly ridicule though, stemming from the ancient proposition (often taken up by modern atheists) that it’s the best way to counter truly idiotic ideas.

In addition to his own blog, Edroso contributes a weekly column to the Village Voice, which is a longer form adaptation of his blog style. In it he generally picks the outrage of the week, scans dozens of right wing blogs and editorials about it, and then weaves them into an article with numerous quotes and a deft humorous touch. Reading a new installment is always one of the highlights of my Monday morning (by which I mean late, late Sunday night).

This week’s focused on the latest outrageously sexist/racist/homophobic/etc comment from Rush Limbaugh, in which he slobberingly attacked a young female college student as a “slut” for daring to testify before congress about the shortcomings of her university’s student health insurance. The woman is a law student at Georgetown University, which has a founding connection and is partial subsidized by a Catholic organization, and therefore the student health insurance does not cover birth control pills. This was news because a new extension of “Obamacare” requires employers (and apparently universities?) to offer full health coverage to their employees, and not just treatment for the diseases or conditions they consider acceptable.

I’m not going to get into that issue at this point; I’m just bringing it up since it’s the background of why the law student was testifying in the first place.

Like most “conservatives,” Rush is opposed to every part of Obamacare for a variety of principled reasons. 1) Obama is a Democrat. 2) Obamacare would help poor people. 3) Obamacare would improve the public health. 4) Obamacare would lower health care costs in the US. 5) Obamacare prioritizes basic health care for women and children and prevention of disease, rather than financing hugely expensive treatments mostly of benefit to aging white males. 6) Etc.

That this new wrinkle of Obamacare would force religious institutions to stop depriving their employees and students of health care on religious grounds is just another flag against it, for such people. That part is a bit ironic, since I can’t believe that Rush has any sincere religious belief. He’s far too venal, vile, and selfish to adhere in even the slightest to any philosophy more advanced than Objectivism. And sure, he’s playing the televangelist/carnival barker to some extent, just like other right wing media types like Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck — where they make their livings rabble rousing and moralizing, before retiring to penthouse suites full of whores, drugs, and every sort of indulgence they regularly fulminate against.

In Rush’s case that’s not just a metaphor, as he’s a convicted felon and drug abuser, and one of his more humorous arrests came when he was detained at customs while returning, alone, from a short visit to some third world tropical island paradise with a suitcase full of Viagra and condoms. The Viagra was contraband as it was a prescription medication… someone else’s prescription medication.

Anyway, I’ll briefly quote Edroso’s summary of Rush’s remarks, on the moral depravity of a young female law student who wanted her health insurance to cover birth control pills, a prescription medication something like 99% of all adult women in the US have used, at one time or another.

Among Limbaugh’s bon mots on Fluke: “She’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills,” “Essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute,” “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

That last was almost funny, as you can be sure that since his “detained by customs” adventure, Rush is obtaining the Viagra he requires for his prostitution field trips via his own prescription, and that it’s no doubt subsidized by his health insurance. But since no one on Earth would request a Rush Limbaugh porn video, he surely felt safe in making his rather wacky request.

The other funny thing is something I saw in other right blogger quotes about the matter. To again quote from Edroso’s column:

“Let’s face it, I’m sure most people, including Liberals/progressives, though ‘my goodness, how much sex does she have a day? Does she ever study?’” fantasized William Teach.

I assumed that knowledge of the function of the human female reproductive system, in conjunction with the birth control pill was fairly universal, but perhaps not? I’m not going to explain it all here, but no, the number of pills a woman must take has absolutely nothing to do with how often she has sex. There’s a pill a day for 3 weeks, plus 7 sugar pills for the “time of the month.” Those 7 don’t need to be taken; they’re just included for women who want to stay in the habit of taking a pill every day, so they won’t forget.

At any rate, birth control pills are not like condoms; you don’t use one every time you fuck. A woman can have sex with fifty guys or zero guys, and lots of women stay on the pill for a variety of health reasons that have nothing to do with avoiding pregnancy. It’s very useful to establish much more regular, less painful and bloody periods, in my first hand observations. (And that is of as much or more benefit to the man dating the woman as to the woman having the period.)

That said, it’s understandable that someone like Rush Limbaugh would be confused on this issue, as his sex life has undoubtedly been largely conducted on a, shall we say… transactional basis? So naturally he associates sex with the question of, “how much does it cost each time?” I’m just surprised that so many other right bloggers don’t seem to know any better than that. Or assume (perhaps correctly) that their readers don’t.




Incidentally, right up there with the absurdity of allowing elderly male virgins to speak as experts about women’s health issues, is the fact that some heterosexual men oppose wider use of birth control pills. You guys realize that lesbians don’t really need them, right? They might take them, for various health reasons, but you can be pretty sure that a woman on the pill is sexually active, or at least willing to be… with a man! And speaking as a currently single man, I consider that a very good thing. What single man (or even non-single man with a straying eye) doesn’t?

Furthermore… have these guys ever had sex? With a woman, I mean. Not to brag, but I have, on a number of occasions with a variety of volunteers. And let me tell you… having experimented with a wide variety of prophylactics, the pill is far and away the best, from the male perspective. Condoms can be fun for variety once in a while, and I’m sure men who can’t last find them useful for their sensation-deadening effect, but barebacking feels soooooooo much better.

It’s not just better like “more intense” better, but better in so many other ways. Closer, smoother, you can rub and touch and play without worrying about anything falling off, you don’t have to pause between foreplay and intercourse to roll it on, you’re not worried about anything breaking, you don’t have to decide in advance how and where you’re going to “finish,” etc, and most importantly, the sensation of intercourse is vastly improved. It still feels good with a condom on, of course, but then it’s just a sort of squeezing sensation. Even with an extra thin condom, you don’t get to bathe in the delightful smoothness and temperature and texture, and you can’t feel the moisture at all.

Honestly, any heterosexual man who is not all in favor of distributing birth control pills as widely as possible either doesn’t know what he’s missing, or is probably never going to find out. In either case, keep your psychoses and religious absurdities hidden in the closet, where they belong, and stop trying to butt into the public discourse on medical issues that are really none of your business.