Rush and Bill Maher and Prostitute C-words

I wasn't going to write this. Everything I have to say has already been said, eloquently, by a lot of intelligent women. But there is one aspect to this thing that is driving me up the wall, and I can't not address it, and I'd rather do it here than over and over again on social networking sites.

When we are discussing whether Rush, when he called Sandra Fluke a "slut", was out of line, or how out of line he was, or whether he should remain on the air, the conversation should not include the past transgressions of random liberal pundits as evidence in support of the defendant. Logically, this does not make sense.

Yet, literally every single conversation thread I have encountered on the internet regarding Slutgate includes someone (conservative and male, always) complaining that no one got so upset when some liberal pundit did one thing or another. The most common example, and the one I want to address here, is when Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a cunt.

First of all, Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a cunt has no bearing on whether or not Rush Limbaugh was wrong. Bill Maher could go around and personally call all of our moms cunts, and it still wouldn't have anything to do with this whole Limbaugh/slut fiasco. Are we clear?
Moving on,

These perpetual Maher-bringer-uppers claim that they are simply pointing out the hypocrisy in defending women in this situation, but not defending women when Bill Maher dropped that C bomb. You just don't like Rush, they claim.

True, most of the people who are really up in arms about this incident probably didn't like Rush to begin with. His storied career built around viciously attacking (via radio) minorities, women, the poor, non-Christians, drug addicts (while abusing pain medication and obtaining illegal prescriptions), the marriage-de-sanctifying gays (while being married four times), and countless other demographics has probably made him a few enemies. That being said, I know a few nice, Christian white girls who used to think he was ok, but after this incident think he is insane.

Now we get to the difference between what Maher did and what Limbaugh did. When Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a cunt, he was talking about Sarah Palin. He was talking about a specific set of personal traits and beliefs that led him to find her distasteful enough to use that word. Should he have said it? No. Is that an ok word for men to use to put women down? No. But was Maher making implications about all women when he said it? No. Aside from condoning the use of a word that should be long gone from the male vocabulary, Maher was committing a straight forward personal attack.

When Rush Limbaugh addressed Sandra Fluke on his radio program, he wasn't just talking about Sandra Fluke. Fluke, as the woman who addressed (and then didn't) Congress in the birth control mandate hearing, was representative of anyone who desired birth control outside of her economic reach. Beyond that, as Limbaugh expanded his attacks, he started making implications about females at large.

Limbaugh said that by asking "us" (taxpayers) to pay for her birth control, Fluke was asking us to pay her to have sex, and therefore a slut. He didn't seem aware or concerned with the fact that many women use birth control pills to treat unbearable menstrual symptoms, acne, ovarian cysts, and to prevent certain cancers, among countless other medical uses. By implying that a woman who asked us to pay for her birth control was asking us to pay her for having a bunch of slutty sex, he implied that all women on birth control are having a bunch of slutty sex.

The truth is, you have to take the pill every day whether you are having a ton of sex or a little sex or no sex at all. However, in the chance that a woman does have unprotected sex (consensual or non-) when she does not want a child, it is best for her and for society at large that she be on the pill. There are enough unwanted children in this world as it is. Rush clearly disagrees.

In the ensuing debate after Rush's initial name-calling, Rush jokingly suggested that women who are provided government-subsidized birth control be forced to post their sex tapes online. It was a very funny joke, except it wasn't, because it spoke to the unfathomable chasm between the way man-sex and lady-sex is perceived in our society. Men, who have not grown up on the shit side of this insane double standard, have trouble really identifying with this, in my experience.

To put it simply, a man who has a bunch of sex is widely considered cool, whereas a woman who has a lot of sex is a slut. Add to that the impossibly thin line we ladies have to walk between being a frigid prude and being a skank, and it's a tough landscape for sexually active young women. Men are encouraged to express and act on their lusts, while women are still largely required to maintain a virtuous appearance to be considered "good".

So, when Mr. Limbaugh spent three days basically calling sexually active women sluts, and then implied that it's ok for men to just, you know, masturbate to unwilling ladies' sex tapes...

Well, it was just really, really offensive. Offensive in a way that a guy calling one specific woman a cunt for specific reasons just isn't. It doesn't make me or anyone else who is enraged by this Limbaugh thing a hypocrite if we didn't really care about the Maher thing. Because they are not the same thing.

That is all.