Another Teachable Sexism Moment
This has to stop. More than that, it has to be forcibly denounced by everyone.
Hustler ran a photoshopped image of conservative pundit S.E. Cupp with the headline, “What Would S.E. Cupp Look Like With a **** in Her Mouth?“:
S.E. Cupp is a lovely young lady who read too much Ayn Rand in high school and ended up joining the dark side. Cupp, an author and media commentator who often shows up on Fox News programs, is undeniably cute. But her hotness is diminished when she espouses dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the method pictured here is Ms. Cupp’s suggestion for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy. [Hustler via Mediaite]
If you don’t get why this is so very, very wrong, please turn in your Progressive card. This sort of behavior is abhorrent on every level, and my heart breaks for Ms. Cupp. This image exists. It doesn’t matter that it’s PhotoShopped. It exists, and will be sent across the internet. Can you imagine how Ms. Cupp feels (how you would feel) knowing that her friends and family will see such a thing, an image that will never go away? I’m not a lawyer, but I hope she’s able to sue Larry Flynt for every penny he’s worth.
Lindsay Beyerstein sums it up:
I’d like to think that the scumbag(s) behind this feature hate reproductive rights as much as they hate outspoken women. How better to tarnish two objects of contempt at once? The more disturbing possibility is that the creators think of themselves as feminist allies.
The fight for birth control isn’t just about freeing up women to service men, as the guys at Hustler fervently hope. It’s about freeing women to participate fully in all spheres of life, including the public arena. We value women’s reproductive freedom because we value women’s freedom in general, including the freedom to express unpopular, offensive, and just plain ignorant views. Using sexualized attacks to silence women is antithetical to the struggle for reproductive rights.
Here’s the deal: If you think this sort of behavior is okay because it’s directed at Ann Coulter or Sarah Palin you are NOT a progressive. If you think you can use sexist attacks against women who you don’t like and excuse the behavior by making me the exception you are NOT a progressive. Why don’t you try using the N-word in front of your black friends and then telling them that you didn’t mean them?
I have had it with this crap. And I don’t want to hear any nonsense about pandora censoring you. Been there, done that. I get that’s the go-to argument when this subject comes up. I get that rather than addressing the situation at hand it’s easier to get your free speech righteousness on. There is no justification for this. None.
Emily L. Hauser says it best:
Here’s a radical notion: If you’re a man and you call yourself a Progressive, you can’t sling sexist insults at women.
Any women.
Not just Progressive women. Not just women you like. Not just your mom.
If you want me to take you seriously and believe that you are genuinely committed to the Progressive agenda, you may not take sexist swipes at Conservative women, either — not even the really awful ones.
[…]
It’s everywhere, this treatment of women, everywhere. And it is most certainly not limited to Famous Men. It’s in conversations, and on Twitter, and on reddit, and in blogposts, and among comments on blogs, and on Youtube, and at the work place, and at school, and on the street.
It’s exhausting. It’s demoralizing. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s fucking everywhere.
If you are a man somewhere on the left side of America’s political map and you don’t understand these facts well enough to understand that pulling old-school sexism out of your back pocket and wielding it against Conservative women is just plain wrong — you’re betraying me. You’re betraying me, and all the Progressive women in your life, and any daughters you may have, and ultimately, the cause of Progressives everywhere.
If we don’t speak out for Ms. Cupp then we don’t speak for Progressivism. It’s as simple as that.
Tags: sexism, Women Issues
It is abhorrent and it is just plain lazy. It is also the kind of thing that Hustler has made alot of money doing for a long time. Not to excuse that, but to point out the market is still pretty robust for this kind of thing. And Larry Flynt is pretty immune to the usual shaming and naming, but we should do it anyway.
Actually, I’d like to substitute the word “American” for “progressive” in this post.
But I take your point.
Hustler still exists? Speaking as a liberal man who has pulled out old school sexism to use against conservatives once or twice – I get it. I am hereby reformed.
To try and rationalize my past transgressions, I’ll say that I think there is an impulse in the lizard brain to go for the jugular. If you know that sexism is the jugular – then…
That was the old me though. The Jason330 from 15 minutes ago.
I really really really don’t like S.E. Cupp, to the point that I will change the channel when she’s on a panel because she makes me yell at the tv too much.
Still totally unacceptable.
I anticipate this post will get like 4 comments because the gentlemen among us won’t want to touch it.
Bravo, pandora! Bravo!!
But it’s “progressive” men who need to understand this the most, because when they take part in what they view as “harmless” sexist behavior they are giving cover to all sexist behavior.
Thanks, Valentine!
Just about every female public figure (and males too) has been photoshopped all over the Internet in all manner of undress or degrading positions. Have you seen what they have done to Nancy Pelosi? (just one example).
Normally you don’t see the most sexual images thanks to Google family filters – unless somebody makes a big deal over it like this. Of course it’s not right, but what you are seeing here is the Streisand Effect. Nobody is ever going to see this picture except idiots who email it around to other idiots.
This is nothing new, and honestly progressives have better things to do right now than to try to turn Larry Flynt into a better person. It wastes our time and annoys the pig.
I haven’t read all the coverage of this and I don’t intend to. But given the banality of rudely photoshopped public figures, is Cupp just getting her conservative victim on here? Is she parading this picture herself and saying “Liberals did this to me?”
Sorry. This is not sexist. It’s ridiculous and juvenile, but it’s not sexist. On an unrelated note, freedom of speech means that you have the right to say what you want (unless it causes measurable harm), it does NOT mean that I have the right to not be offended.
This is nothing new, and honestly progressives have better things to do right now than to try to turn Larry Flynt into a better person.
I can multitask.
This is not sexist. It’s ridiculous and juvenile, but it’s not sexist.
Thank you for letting little ol’ me know what’s sexist.
Sorry. This is not sexist. It’s ridiculous and juvenile, but it’s not sexist.
Which is, of course, why you see so many photoshopped pictures of male commentators in similar positions?
“Which is, of course, why you see so many photoshopped pictures of male commentators in similar positions?”
I’m sure they are there, but I’m not doing that research for you 🙂
This is in the same category as the White House/watermelon patch email. Nobody thought that was acceptable (at least they knew enough not to say otherwise in public).
I wonder why they didn’t publish a picture of what Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh would look like with a dick in his mouth?
Something else to consider: Sticking a dick in someone’s mouth is a dominance issue, not a sexual one. When men want to insult someone, they say, “Suck my dick.” (Roseanne Barr’s most shocking joke was when she would tell hecklers to suck her dick.)
That is, this isn’t simply another piece of harassment. It’s a pictoral equivalent of a bellow of rage from those who would seek to dominate the woman, to tell her to shut up. Some of the links are to stories describing basic piggish behavior. This is much more calculated.
Hell, I can’t even get progressives to speak out against tax cuts for the rich.
Republicans will attempt to use this incident as an antidote to their entire war on women. Both sides do it, don’t you know. Cable news is probably already showing split-screens of Cupp and Sandra Fluke.
If Hustler didn’t make this picture, the RNC would have had to make it themselves.
Something else to consider: Sticking a dick in someone’s mouth is a dominance issue, not a sexual one.”
Something else to consider – if someone puts a dick in your mouth one has the option of iting it
THAT’s asserting dominance…..
One does not have to assume that being in the submissive position means you are submissive- just a word to the wise
Yeah, I often look at comments in amazement that degrade Ann Coulter. I have no respect for Coulter and her intolerance of… well… everything, but suggestions of her sexuality or even her sex, have made me shake my head in disgust.
I prefer to destroy Coulter’s mind than attack the vessel that the mind lives in.
@Aoine: Yeah, you try it first. Let me know how it works out.
@Geezer – you are assuming I have not – I would not be so cavalier my friend
you have no idea.
for the record- it worked
I like Puck’s comments in this thread. In fact, I like Puck’s comments in most threads. We should meet sometime. Smart people, along with walks on the beach, and grooving to the music of Bert Bacharach, are a turn on of mine.
I can’t tell if you are coming on to me, or savagely mocking me.
“for the record- it worked”
That’s all the detail we’re going to get? Worked at doing what?
You ever see this twerp on Bill Maher? You can see through her expressions and body language that she doesn’t even believe most of the shit she spues. What she supports is ugly, along with the personalities she associates with on a daily basis. Not condoning Larry Flynt, but a lie is a lie, be it an hackneyed op-ed, a talking head gig on fox, or a photoshopped image. She just got a taste of the blowback from riding the wingnut welfare clown train.
Sexist? Most certainly. But it’s Larry Flynt, duh!
And yes, I too remember my first Campari 🙂
Well I just listened to her and she says and I am paraphrasing that “Larry Flynt has the balls to be more honest than NOW because liberal women think they deserve more respect than conservative women . . .” so if she doesn’t have a problem with it Pandora then I have no problem with it. Usually I don’t LISTEN to her filth nor LOOK at Larry Flynt’s filth so in my world they cancel each other out! Do I take this as an attack on women . . . I say GAME ON!
I didn’t know S.E. Cupp existed before today. I blame Larry Flynt.
Who cares if she is OK with it, which I doubt, or doesn’t get it or uses it to make a partisan point. It is misogynist and unacceptable. As pandora said, if you think it’s OK or don’t understand why it’s not, you are not progressive. Period. What year is this? Who hasn’t gotten the 1968 memo about not being a sexist pig or at least pretending not to be?
Note: I am not aiming this at anyone in particular, just ranting. 🙂
@Geezer. Dont be so tiresome. And dont have the need to live vicariously
Either one bites what is in one mouth coz its the normal thing to do with it- as in food
Or they bite to inflict harm- especially if there is a dominance struggle and one party in trying to dominate the other.
Use your head to figure it out- the head on your shoulders- if you use the other one – get a perscription for morphine first
Hey, I’m not the one who shared the story. When I pointed out the dominance angle, I wasn’t talking about the physical act itself but the implications, and why the image (and the insult) are used as they are. You’re the one who went all “World According to Garp” on it.
Way too much information.
What, you didn’t like “Garp”?
Garp wasn’t the problem! 😉
I have to agree with the trend, it isn’t sexist. It’s mean. First thing I thought of, was what if it was Romney (fitting considering the hair cutting incident)? What if it was Biden? What if it was Obama? What if it was Markell? Or what if it was Ruth Ann Minner?
Exactly….
It is mean, and deserves a lawsuit in the range of say…. $400 million?
It is mean. But let’s see what the reaction would be to a picture of Romney with a c**k in his mouth.