Todd Akin |
By now most of us have heard about the interview with Congressman Todd Akin (R-Missouri) in which he was asked if abortion should be allowed in cases of rape. He said “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Now he is being castigated for his remarks, which is deeply unfair. Settle down, people! In this country we are free to express our beliefs, and we should not discriminate against people just because they live a different reality-style. That is simply factsist.
Bryan Fischer |
Besides, Mr. Akin has plenty of company. State Rep. Stephen Freind (R-Penn) is on record as saying that the odds of a rape victim getting pregnant are one in “millions and millions and millions.” As he elucidates, the “traumatic experience of rape causes a woman to secrete a certain secretion” that kills sperm. It’s a secret secreted secretion, you see. Brian Fischer of the American Family Association agrees. “When you have a real, genuine rape…there’s a very delicate and complex mix of hormones that take place that are released in a woman’s body and if that gets interfered with it may make it impossible for her…to conceive a child.”
I admit that this last statement gets me pretty fired up. Where is the subject-verb agreement? But the position itself is really very empowering for women. Previously, raped women were seen as victims, and now, according to all these gentlemen, they are anything but. They are magical sperm deflectors in control of their own destinies, able to decide on a cellular level whose sperm lives and whose dies, which is still legal in most states. We are strong. We are wily. We are Vulvarine! I for one am thrilled that our womanly power is being acknowledged in public circles at last. In particular, I like the description of my complex mix of hormones as “very delicate.” I’ve been known to disparage my own hormones as cranky manufacturers of mayhem, at best. Now I realize they are just misunderstood.
A legitimate rape, or a real or genuine or “forcible” rape, is the kind that is bad, as opposed to the kind that you didn’t really want but after it happened it turned out it was just what you needed all along. Unfortunately sometimes things go wrong. As Rep. Akin says, “let’s assume that [the “way to shut that whole thing down”] didn’t work or something.” It’s possible a woman could in fact conceive a child from a rape, even if she did not have an orgasm. It’s a one in a millions and millions and millions chance, to be sure, and most of the pregnancies that did occur have been shown to result from contact with public toilet seats, but it could happen. Fortunately, Mike Huckabee is here to remind us that in that unlikely event, sometimes a truly extraordinary person is created, such as Ethel Waters. Scientifically speaking, the process by which this occurs is that the really good-person sperms are the ones most likely to try to put some distance between themselves and the legitimate-rapist guy. And in such a circumstance, it is only natural and proper that a woman’s own powerful maternal instinct take over and she offer up her womb for the better part of a year to see that blastocyst to completion. In case it’s Ethel Waters.
You're amazing
I am Vulvarine!
She is! You are!
Murr — If you're Vulvarine, you'll need a superhero costume. My mind reels at what symbol would be used on the costume, though! 🙂
On a more serious note, Akin's comments were truly vile. I can't believe that someone could think those things in 2012. The scary part is that such people are running for office.
This should be, at the very least, on the op-ed page of every major newspaper in the country – the ones that still exist.
Hey, I'll settle for your Facebook page, darlin'.
Interestingly enough, it sort of WAS on the op-ed page of the Scranton Times-Tribune, which may not be "major", but sure does look at things with a clear and critical eye, just like our Murr.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/legitimately-dangerous-1.1361932
I can't wait to see what Jayne has to say about this!
I know, right? Probably she hasn't even noticed the subject.
Sorry to disappoint you both. I have fallen down on the commentary job of late, but I see that the very talented Murr has it well in control. My mind, like my vagina, is turning into a dickwad deflector, lest a torrent of dickwad dictum impregnate my already declining brain cells with the deadly viral stupido causing me "like" Mitt Romney on Facebook.
Holy cow. So that's what happened to my mind. Same thing that's happened to my vagina. At least I get to have dry wit.
I am tempted to link on Facebook, but I guess I shouldn't.
If there's one thing we have learned, it is that we should always give in to temptation.
I linked. Why not? You only live once.
Bless yore mortal linky bones, dear.
There's a one in a millions millions millions millions chance that one or more of those distinguished gentlemen quoted has a brain…oh wait..no there's not. Possibly they are the result of a failure to produce those self protecting secret secretive secretions. Yeah..that must be it.
Let's just call them extraordinary.
"factsist" – my new favorite word.
Help yourself!
It took YOU to make me actually laugh at this whole insane episode. Thank you…
Well, if we didn't laugh, we'd…secrete something?
People voted for those bozos. They were, apparently, the best possible choice for the majority of voters. They make a great argument for an enlightened dictatorship.
And then there is the whole oxymoron of a "legitimate" rape. Maybe, if a baby results, that's evidence of an illegitimate rape?
People who insist on dictating other people's choices sometimes make me wish that abortion could be retroactive.
I have said those very words.
Even if there were any scientific basis in his statement (he must be one who believes it's true because he saw it on the internet), Akin's statement is irrevalent in the context of his election. It's another version of "I can't find you a job, so let me remind you about women's private parts…"
So tell me, "Dr." Akin, where did you go to medical school?
It's on the internet? It must be so. I'll have to rewrite this thing as soon as I get these bonsai kittens out of the jar.
Gee and I thought Wonder Woman had all the magical powers.
Oh and incest does such wonders for the gene pool.
The gene pool has special chlorine secretions to sanitize all icky interactions.
Where did you find a picture of Akin without that smarmy arrogant smirk on his face? Photoshop?
If you look closely, you will see a little smarm leaking out the corners of his mouth. Pretty sure it's smarm.
Might be one o' them secret secretions…
If anybody could make me laugh about this, it would be you… but I just can't. These morons have their heads so far up their asses they have to talk through their belly buttons. And it's obvious which intestinal secretion has replaced their brains.
Also, bile.
I was hoping you'd address this, and you did not disappoint 🙂
These people don't get the difference between science and science fiction, do they, whether it's global warming or reproduction or the age of the world or …
I almost didn't write this. So often when it comes to this kind of stuff, the stuff they say is so much funnier than anything I can come up with. Every time I write something designed to be hyperbole, it turns out one of the damn fools already went and said it.
I know what you mean. It's why I've been having so much trouble writing Sunday Recaps lately.
Exactly. Just quote 'em, if you're going for laughs!
Applause. We need more women to run for office.
God I hope you don't mean me.
Empress, Mr Akin, according to his website, went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Boston, which I sincerely hope is undergoing a crisis of conscience. He majored in something called "Management Engineering." I'm not making this up.
WPI! Right down the road from my alma mater, Clark (Clahk), in Worcester. Did he move it to Boston? That IS some engineering!
Oops, I'm the one who moved it to Boston, using my training in English. Worcester and Boston are different?
Oh you know them tiny little New England states. Everything is all smashed together.
Hey Murr! How do these people get elected?! And who found them under a rock? Indigo x
Wherever they were, they weren't under a rock. The salamanders would have kicked their fannies.
Once again I am ashamed to admit that a NC State Representative said it first. In 1995 Rep Henry Aldridge said, "The facts show that people who are raped—who are truly raped—the juices don't flow, the body functions don't work and they don't get pregnant."
I reckon "truly raped" is the same as "legitimate rape."
The JUICES don't FLOW?
Oh well. At least that proves that every single child ever born is wanted and cherished.
I think "legitimate" rape is the kind sanctioned by law, which is beginning to sound like what these ignoramuses would like to set in place.
So, I just got a hit on my blog from the Executive Office of the President, and it looks like he followed a link from here. Good work! (I hope he sees it my way, on the vegan banana bread versus the ocean debate. Sheesh. )
Nice post.
Excellent! I wanted to get the Execs over to your blog all along.
Ha! Next time give me a tiny bit of warning so I can put something together that doesn't make me look insane. Oh wait, who are those men in the black suits pounding at the door? I gotta go now.
Let's see, if the odds of rape resulting in pregnancy are millions and millions to one, and if there are roughly 30,000 pregnancies per year resulting from rape, about how often is every woman in the country getting raped, just to make these guys numbers come out right? I mean, if we assume it's one million to one, that's still 30 billion rapes a year. If we generously assume there are 150,000,000 women in the rapable demographic, that makes about 200 rapes per year for each woman. If you're holding up your end, it's a wonder you had time to write this!
Well I'm getting to be an old lady, but I'm still holding up my end to keep it from sagging from all the previous raping. And thank you very much for introducing "the rapable demographic" to the public conversation.
It's a term of art, analogous to the Republican "sluts who are asking for it". I didn't think this seemed like a real Republican crowd.
I liked the concept of the "magical sperm deflectors"! I picture them as something like the spoilers on a classic Mustangs.
No. This is not a real Republican crowd. I don't even have trolls.
How wonderful it was of these gentlemen to update my own (obviously poor) understanding of my reproductive system. Learning something new every day…
Fortunately for all of us, we didn't have to know how it works to get it to work. It's just nat'ch'l.
Isn't it interesting that Romney, Ryan, et al, wanted Akin to quit his race, when all he did was say publicly what they believe…no woman deserves a choice, no matter what has been done to her.
They all want the same thing, but they don't want anyone coming out with the secretion secrets. That's super secret information you only get when you join the club.
I really wanted to see some sort of Marvel Comic-worthy graphic for Vulvarine. Because I would totally wear that t-shirt.
I am visualizing something round, with teeth. I feel certain if I google images of what I am visualizing, I will get 2 million hits. I choose to keep it in my imagination.
Go with "Vagina Dentata." No, seriously: http://www.dmoma.org/lobby/exhibitions/blockheads/v_dentata.htm
And no, it's not that catchy phrase from the Lion King.
Maybe you could come up with a type of 'canned biscuit' like Honey Boo Boo's mama talks about when she speaks on her family's new show on TLC (The Learning Channel ((should be The Looney-Bin Channel with this new entry)). To her, female parts look like those flaky biscuits that come out of a can. I bet she and Akin went to the same sex-ed class.
Love your writing – this is my first time here – but NOT my last. Keep us smiling!
Welcome! They DO sort of look like the Buttermilk Biscuits. And excellent with butter.
I sure hope there's gonna be a Vulvarine movie or at least a graphic novel. You know, all about the female reproductive system. Maybe those twits might learn something?
Whatever they've learned, they've gotten it off the Fallopian Intertubes.
I am Vulvarine, hear me roar.
Visiting via a facebook link. Great post. I'm just rooting for the republicans to do themselves irreparable damage with this nonesense. Did they learn nothing from the "mandtory vaginal ultrasound" incident?
They had better be gentle with that mandatory wand or I will snap it off with my nether teeth.
Obviously not… as a Very embarrassed Virginian.
These idiots must come from another planet where reality is an unknown concept..
Gosh, I hope it isn't Mars. I'm getting real fond of Mars.
Long, loud, sustained applause. And to think oh-my-Akin'-back is on the Science committee. Aargh!
Geez. What does the Science committee do?
Invent "science"?
Oh yeah, that toilet seat. I took medical microbiology with 8 guys – no other girls and I remember one guy had a question on the toilet's role in passing on syphilis. The teacher responded, "If you have sex on the toilet seat, than you could get syphilis from doing it there."
Must be a lot of people's favorite place to have sex.
I think you could have an abortion with one of those new low-flow rocket toilets.
It's all that faith-based pseudo science. If they believe it is so, then it must be so! Those inconvenient scientific facts, well, they are placed by the devil.
A personal friend of mine.
Vulvarine, I can't imagine why you have not yet been interviewed on Faux News. Being fair and balanced, you'd fill a great void in their prime time programming slot. Of course, we're talking a legitimate slot, but if it turned out to be an illegitimate slot, your body would instantly birth it with secret sauce all over it. Go!
You know, if everyone knows I have a secret sauce, it's not a secret anymore.
Freind is a *former* PA state representative ('73 – '98) Don't get me started. He – with a tidy state pension – trashes state workers (of which I am one). I can't lay my hands on the article he wrote – all his searches come up with more rape 'fantasies' now – can't find anything else.
Sounds like he is a genuine joy all around, though.
Men like Aikin and his buddy Paul Ryan would return women's healthcare to an equivalency of the Middle Ages. Aikin only spoke what he believes, and this reflects the legislation he and Ryan have been working to pass.
I've always thought we'd be better in a lot of ways going back a century or two, but not in every way.
I can only just shake my head and hope that the people who hear them do not take it as fact. And it surprises me that people think all on the internet is true!!!
Case in point-this website our librarian uses to teach students how to do proper research and not believe all they see:
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
Everything you read here is true. Honest.
My FB friends are coming here in droves.
Yay!
And taking your blog post to Malaysia…
Yay! Is that near Mars?
I'm really glad that Vicki sent me here!!
Yay! Me too!
"And he played upon a ladle, and his name was Aiken Drum." Children's nonsense lyrics seem apt with regard to the USA Akin.
I'm just sorry, so f#*#king sorry that the comedians, illegitimate or otherwise, in your political system are are so much better than in ours here in OZ.
Seriously, as a rape survivor, I'm appalled by these men's beliefs. As a result, I', sending boatloads of secret secretions to be dumped on their heads that will render them forever speechless. That'll larn 'em!
I'd settle for speechless. Powerless, even better.
I'm afraid I cannot gather up enough enthusiasm to even be slightly amused by all this. It is just horrific. Arkin was on the House Science Committee. If this is the Science he learned on the committee, I hold no hope for America. At all.
But don't come here. Canada, with is Romney-like leadership, is getting closer and closer to the same kind of insanity.
Yeah, that's what I've heard. I keep thinking y'all still have Trudeau up there, so it always surprises me.
Jeez, I'm old.
Rats. Hormones and juices or something. I was hoping we had teeny tiny little phasers up there we could set on "stun" with mind control tricks. Surely Spock would teach us.
Or rat hormones and juices!
Didn't know I could laugh about this, being from Missouri, graduating from the same small high school as Akin, and all my days being around dear sweet lovely older ladies who want "our country to get back to its religious roots". So thanks.
Maybe you should move. Go thou, and sin somewhere else.
I find it astounding that Akin could even get elected and that he could worries me more than
what he said. Logic has left the building. His statement would be funny if it weren't so ignorant! You go, Vulvarine!!!!!
We should pass a "you must be this educated to vote" law.
Probably. I listen to some of the Republicans my age and I wonder if they went to high school because I grew up when they still taught critical thinking in school.
perhaps we should also pass a "you must be this intelligent to hold office" law…
Oh, I think there are plenty of wily smart bastards in office.
Isn't that one of the most frightening parts of all this? A good many of them know exactly what they're doing (and saying). They're apparently hoping WE don't.
Thank you Vulvarine!
Now I finally understand why these people don't think women should be able to control their own bodies…women have super-powers!
I wonder what else we could do with such power…
Maybe vote these idiots out of office once and for all? For a start?
Again, I'd be happy to have control over my own body, but I can't even tell when I'm going to pee.
PS.
Your category labels are hilarious! Keep up the good work. We need to be able to laugh at this stuff – otherwise we'll all go crazy.
I was actually told the same thing Todd Akin claimed about rape and conception 16 years ago by a college professor at Linn-Benton Community College. Granted her doctorate was in psychology, but still…
Well it certainly takes out some of the apprehension about being raped! Oh wait, it doesn't.
I was told the same thing by a prof who, up until that day- make that minute- I respected. It nearly had me speechless, but I was able to say "Even if you believe that nonsense, isn't ONE such child too many?" and he couldn't meet my eyes, much less answer.
When you said "I'm on it!" I knew this was coming… and knew it would be GREAT! Vulvarine!! Yes!!!
I am Woman, watch me secrete!
You never fail to make me laugh.. and with idiocy such as this, what else is there to do?
Glad I wasn't blogging on 9/11/2001. That would have been tough.
I'm going to contact the science committee and get the secret recipe for the sperm deflectors, bottle them, make millions and run against Romney and all the other corporate corruptors.
The "rape orgasm" really makes you wish he could be treated to a prison sentence and enjoy himself throughly…
Quick, what crime beyond stupidity can we pin on Akin?
I'm told he abuses apostrophes on his website.
We could run that through a Republican mind, and let them find some obscure law under which to prosecute.
From the news, it seems the circular firing squad is gathering, so maybe they will take care of their own, and the real issue will continue.
Even then we'd still run the risk of the Zombie Republican Party.
What an amazing and refreshing commentary on the lunatic herd, down there south of the 49th. We have some of our own up here (writing from Vancouver, BC), but these guys you are writing about somehow seem to be intent on capturing the market!!
Don't worry about them leaking up there. They think they have to walk uphill to get to Canada.
Are you sure they don't slither?
Careful, there. We do not malign reptiles or amphibians in this blog!
I so appreciate that you were able to turn your wits and words to breaking this sh** down, as all I can do when I encounter these idiots' idiocies is get screamy and stabby.
To each, her gifts.
You might have noticed that I only write political stuff once a month or even less often. That's because I spend too much time getting screamy and stabby.
I'm still burning with rage over this. I actually fired off a letter to that *sshole Akin, and I'm not even American! ANd I like how these morons conveniently ignore rape as a war crime. Have they not heard of Bosnia and the Congo?
But really, how much credence can you give to a man who can't even deal with his own baldness? Worst comb-over ever!
Plus, Vulvarine, go get them!
To be fair, there is a prominent Republican who is not Akin who really DOES have the worst comb-over ever.
You need to educate me! Forgive my ignorance..as a Canadian, I'm not entirely up to speed on all my Republican comb-overs! We do have a Conservative Prime Minister with remarkable "helmet head" but alas, he's just hideous, not balding.
Well. I think he only ran for something once or twice. Do Mr. Trump ring a bell?
Finally, a sensible unhisterical evaluation on this very complicated subject.
Brillient satire!
Well, "satire" would imply that I really don't have special sperm-deflecting powers, and I can't bear to think that.
Thank you. I found you through John Rayner sharing this on Facebook, and I will share further.
I like you already.
Someone on the Washington Post website commented that a letter was sent to Akin saying "I really respect your knowledge of science and found it interesting about how 'women can shut that whole thing down'. Then he asked a question: "Say I went quail hunting and I'd had a couple of drinks and accidentally shot somebody. Can their body shut down that whole bleeding thing- 'cause it would know I didn't mean to shoot them?
Hugs, Dick Cheney
I don't think that works. I think he has to WANT to shoot somebody. I think he has to GET OFF on shooting somebody. Then, yeah, sure, it all shuts down.
Friday night. Alone at home, laughing out loud at your "dry wit".
Still laughing!
Look what you did! You spelled out "laughing out loud!" You're like a genius or something!
My hormones are going to kick somebody's ass! Vulvarine!
Oh shoot, yes. They can do it.
How the hell did I get pregnant when I didn't orgasm? Must have been a millions and millions and millions to one chance.
I'm so glad we have men of such profound knowledge making decisions for us. I never knew we had such secret, mysterious powers over sperm. Dang! Go Vulvarine!!!
You probably orgasmed and didn't know it. I mean, you must've.