It’s the coercion, stupid
by digby
I’ve been off-line for most of the day, so forgive me if that has been aired thoroughly and I missed it. I keep reading on twitter and elsewhere that the wingnuts are saying that women being forced to undergo a vaginal probe if they are seeking an abortion is the same as having sex (so why should the little sluts object?) Here’s the lovely Dana Loesch:
That’s the big thing that progressives are trying to say, that it’s rape and so on and so forth. And in fact, this big battle that I’ve, uh, totally won with Keith Olbermann by the way, like, not only won once but twice and three times… uh, there were individuals saying, [high voice] “Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of women who are pregnant?” What!?
Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.
Usually that particular view is expressed by some leering old man saying like “if it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it” but the fresh faced Loesch (last heard saying she would like to urinate on corpses) saying it takes it to a different level. Why is it that right wing authoritarian types always equate coercion and humiliation with pleasure?
Here’s the thing that is instinctively obvious to any normal person: the women are being forced to undergo a physically invasive procedure they do not want and which has no medical purpose by state actors for political reasons. It’s like something out of the inquisition. No, these women are not virgins, but the last I heard the definition of rape didn’t require virginity. It’s about the state not being allowed to stick something inside your body in order to persuade you not to do something you have every legal right to do.
The argument about abortion is all about women’s right to make their own decisions about their own bodies. If you want to prove that this is about someone else making decisions about women’s bodies, there can be no better way to do that than insisting that pregnant women seeking abortions first have an instrument shoved inside them against their will. These disgusting little sadists are pretending there’s nothing wrong with that — but the pleasure they are clearly taking in the prospect is what gives them away. They know it’s coercive. That’s the whole point.
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