Game Change

Dave Holmes posted something on his Tumblr  yesterday that I wish were included in every of Rush Limbaugh's calling Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute. It's forcing the debate on his terms:

"You know what’s the most horrible thing about this story that is horrible in every way? That we are somehow arguing as though Sandra Fluke’s testimony were about taxpayers subsidizing her own sexual activity. In reality, she was talking about a private health-care plan and pointing out that hormonal birth control has uses and benefits that supersede contraception and are useful even to those who are celibate."

Jill from Feministe  also weighed in on the overall tenor of this -- I don't even know if we should be calling it a debate, because there's nothing really to debate. I haven't said much about it because politics really isn't my beat and I don't always convey anger effectively online (oh but believe me, I am livid that men are, again, at the center this discussion).

"There’s a lot to be said about the language here and how this all played out, and we can get into meta feminist discussions about how “slut” and “prostitute” shouldn’t be insults. But the world isn’t a feminist blog. So while the right response is obviously not, “But she’s not a slut or a prostitute!,” it’s still pretty damn fair to go after Rush on this one and demand that his sponsors quit enabling his bigotry. He hasn’t actually apologized (yes yes I realize it’s being reported that he has, but read his actual words and tell me that’s anywhere in the universe of a real apology), and there’s no reason to believe that someone who has made an entire career out of misogyny and racism would issue an actual apology." (emphasis mine)

I bolded that sentence because it's something that's easy to forget when you're operating within the parameters of the feminist blogosphere. So yes, going after Rush's sponsors is the best thing to do -- or maybe the only thing to do in this context. I mean, it's 2012, I'm almost forty years old, and I can't believe I'm writing a post about a man who thinks the birth control pill is something a woman takes each time she has sex.