“Slut” is not a word I use a lot, personally. I don’t care for the sound of it. I almost never use “cunt” for the same reason: it’s an ugly-sounding, ugly-used little word. When I wish to defame a woman’s reputation (and oh, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve done that), I stick with the poetic “promiscuous trollop.” The archaic usage almost gives the impression of a complement.
Aside from the sound, the logic of “slut” always confused me, no matter what person uses it. As I understand it, a boy uses “slut” to mean “girl who does what I want her to do.” I have never understood that. If you want girls to have sex with you, why would you punish and mock them for doing so? Why wouldn’t you celebrate her?
Among girls, of course, “slut” means “girl who is doing with a particular boy what I would like to be doing with him.” This makes more sense, but is equally hypocritical. Everything about the word smacks of false superiority and pretend morality.
So I suppose I ought to side with the feminists against Rush Limbaugh, who called Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” after she insisted that she ought not to have to pay for her birth control. That would perhaps be the consistent position. However…
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Contraceptives are defended as a free woman’s private choice, to be made without interference from church or state. It’s a reasonable defense right up the point where it involves someone else’s money. In the world I live in, when someone else has to put up money on your behalf, they start having all sorts of opinions on what’s being done with it. This is why Mothers of the Bride tend to get the wedding they want. Your right to privacy ends where my wallet begins.
If Sandra Fluke wants her blister-pack of PregNot or NayFamilyWay or whatever she uses, she can schlepp down to Wal-Mart or Target and pay $9 a month for generic. I have to do the same thing with my allergy meds, which I find most needful in preventing sinusitis and upper respiratory infections. The idea that she gets to gouge a Catholic university for $1,000 a year for something they consider morally wrong staggers all concepts of justice or economic sanity.
So as long as Sandra Fluke is claiming by Divine Right of Ovaries a slice of the Society of Jesus’ money, she’s demanding that Georgetown subsidize her sex life. And while I know that there are subtle and nuanced distinctions between that position and earning your way through Georgetown on a stripper pole, I don’t feel like parsing them, because the outrage is all kabuki.
We live in a time when Bill Maher can call Sarah Palin a “cunt” and no one on the Left has a problem with it. We live in a time when David Letterman can jokingly imply that one of Palin’s daughters is spreading her legs for the Yankee outfield and not a peep comes from the Feminist Establishment. Such simmering bitchiness goes in a society that doesn’t really care what young men and women do together, so long as they earn a Bachelor’s Degree.
So let’s all stop lying. We want there to be slutty girls out there. We need there to be slutty girls out there. Slutty girls reinforce our self-conception as a modern society breaking free with every sorta-orgasm of the old concepts of morality and society. As long as we’re fucking our brains out, it doesn’t matter that the government’s broke and the factories are closed and the average college graduate couldn’t give you a summary of the Declaration of Independence with a gun pointed at his head. Easy pussy equals enlightenment.
I hear tell of these things called “Slutwalks” where girls announce their sexuality in the public square and denounce others for calling them what they call themselves. That’s a little unfair; the real purpose has something to do with denouncing assault and rape. I’m sure it’s all very empowering, as only putting false exclusivities on language can be. But it strains credulity to pretend that “slut” is half the insult it used to be.
If you’re actually angry at Limbaugh for his choice of words, then I can give you a choice of two consistently Progressive options for handling it:
- Pretend that Limbaugh is a Muslim.
- Pretend that Fluke is a Republican.
It’s like the problem doesn’t even exist!
I see that Limbaugh has now apologized. Next, I want Maher, Letterman – and so many more liberals, to apologize. Of course, that would never happen. It’s only our side that has to apologize.
Breitbart would not have apologized. Not even Limbaugh, it seems, is Breitbart.
I wonder about that. From what I read about Breitbart this week, I think it might have. Granted, he was brash, bold, brazen, and relentless, but he may have apologized to her. Maybe Limbaugh just wants to get the attention off him and on the real issues. I don’t know. I got annoyed that Cardinal Dolan made a comment about it. He endorsed Obamacare when he was a bishop; now they’re bellyaching about it. My husband and I attended mass in Venice, Florida a couple of weeks ago when we were on vacation, and the priest talked about the mandate. He explained that they were doing that in all the churches throughout the country. I can honestly say that i received no grace that day by going to church – and maybe I even lost some – because my thoughts were not conducive to being in church. I don’t like the way I feel about them, but I lost a lot of respect.
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The bishops made an unforced error bowing to Obamacare; that’s certain, but it’s of a piece with the dangers of Liberation Theology. At some point, that doctrine permits rendering unto Caeser powers Caeser should not have. Maybe now they’ll start rethinking what liberation truly is.
For my part, I don’t have a problem with addressing the issue from the pulpit. This directly effects the church, and the faithful need to hear the bishop’s side of it. It’s unfortunate that such matters have to intrude on the Mass, but such is the nature of proggies.
I wasn’t upset that they were talking about the mandate. I’m still upset about Notre Dame, and I’m mad about their endorsement of Obamacare. I had no idea just how liberal the Catholic church is. They took status over principle at Notre Dame. What kind of example were they demonstating?
The church is never reliably ideological. It’s an old habit to make nice with the emperor du jour. As for Obamacare, hierarchical organizations are often blind to the pitfalls of bureaucracy.