I can’t help it; I have to say it. I agree with Lauren and Roy that while this whole boobies dust-up is no doubt mostly about Ann Althouse basically sexually harassing a young woman she’s trying to put in her place, it’s also about the Clenis. As Lindsay pointed out, the original joke was a wingnut in-joke that would probably blow past most of us who assume (correctly) that Bill Clinton does not grope every single woman he meets—but for people who do assume that, it made perfect sense. It’s the reality-based assumption, of course. Most people who aren’t wingnuts grasp pretty quicky that Bill Clinton probably meets thousands more people a year than most of us will meet in our lifetimes and if he was hitting on every woman he met, well, suffice it to say he wouldn’t get any work done.
For those on the right side of the blogosphere, I beg your understanding. Please forgive liberals if we find it perplexing that where we see a young woman in a sweater, you see someone fixing to break into a pole dance. And forgive us if we see Bill Clinton and think, “Ah, the former President,” instead of, “Oh my god, a man who’s actually had oral sex performed on him before!” There might be a fundamental gap here, and this entire dust-up reminded me of a head-scratcher of a post that Althouse had written before, on the subject of weddings and why we have them.
Am I the only one who thinks a big wedding is inappropriate for two people who have been living together? I think it would be tasteful to have the wedding performed privately, down at City Hall some day, and then announce the news in an invitation to a big party that occurs on another day and that specifies no gifts. There is no new household being set up, and you should be glad people want to take the time and make the effort to attend a party celebrating an existing relationship.
It seems to me that the idea of a big wedding ought to be about the beginning of the couple’s life together. In fact, the really cool thing about a wedding back in the old days or for traditionalists these days is that the couple has not yet consummated the relationship. When that is the situation, there is an excitement and the reception takes on a wonderful glow: look, they’re finally able to have sex and yet they are hanging out, dancing here with us! If this is not the case, how can the couple imagine they’re putting on a show that justifies everyone watching and celebrating them for hours?
As I noted before, I found this line of reasoning a bit odd. I was aware that people like to make smarmy jokes about whether or not the bride was sexually experienced, but I figured these were jokes and certainly not the point of the wedding. I thought the point of weddings was for everyone to get together to celebrate the couple, not as a showcase so everyone can gawk at the virgins and fantasize about the upcoming deflowering. I’ve, hard as this may be to believe, personally gone through many weddings without thinking about the couple’s private sex life even once.
So please forgive us, conservo-bloggers. Liberals are clearly missing whatever part of the brain it is that tells us that a bride’s hymen exists for our entertainment and a woman’s presence at a luncheon isn’t about politics at all but must be about that mysterious sex that you keep hearing so much about.
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look, they’re finally able to have sex and yet they are hanging out, dancing here with us! If this is not the case, how can the couple imagine they’re putting on a show that justifies everyone watching and celebrating them for hours?
People don’t like to throw parties for their friends and their egos in Wingnutteria? Or is Althouse just pissy when people who have fucked before expect her to pretend to like them?
Not only did the Clenis invent perverted sex (not just fellatio, but all forms of buggery, bestiality, and pedophilia), but before he was the most disgraceful president this country has ever been punished with, there were never any pregnant brides, no priests molesting children, no homosexuals, everyone was a God-fearing Christian, and there was no divorce.
Coincidence? I think not…
I guess it’s too much to hope that consevatives would dislike traditional weddings because they’re an insane waste of money…
Now I recall the best argument of all for avoiding big weddings: “We already went out and bought our own damn appliances !!”
My question is: If you don’t have a big wedding, when are you supposed to show everyone the bloody sheet?…
Past President of the United States or Inventor of the Blowjob…which would you put first on your CV?
I think it’s kind of a toss-up.
There was a study comparing wedding dates and dates of first child’s birth in a Puritan town. Something like 30 percent had their first child six to seven months after the wedding. But since that was a few centuries before Clinton, I’m sure they were all honeymoon babies born prematurely.
I was just reading the September 2006 of “Vanity Fair.” Among the letters to the editor was one from a wingnut responding to Drink Soaked Former Trotskyist Popinjay Christopher Hitchens’ ode to the blow job in one of the summer issues. The wingnut whined (do they do anything but whine?) because teenagers all over America think blowjobs are “no big deal” and blamed this fact (a fact she had no-doubt researched with care) on The Clenis. Because there were no teenage girls sucking off teenage boys before 1997, you know.
I was just reading the September 2006 of “Vanity Fair.” Among the letters to the editor was one from a wingnut responding to Drink Soaked Former Trotskyist Popinjay Christopher Hitchens’ ode to the blow job in one of the summer issues. The wingnut whined (do wingnuts do anything but whine?) because teenagers all over America think blowjobs are “no big deal” and blamed this fact (a fact she had no-doubt researched with care) on The Clenis. Because there were no teenage girls sucking off teenage boys before 1997, you know.
Tara, you must be wrong. The Puritans were even more godly than we are (except for GWB). You must have distorted the data or you’re working in league with Satan, or both…
:)
Oh, BTW, there were no veneral diseases before The Clenis and the Hildebeast either…
Get with it, Mike. We have YouTube now…
ms_xeno, you’re right! Maybe we could video the whole process.
That way the whole world can verify the sacred deflowering was performed correctly (male on top - no funny business…) and the bride (who is the only one who must be pure) produced evidence of her virginity.
Otherwise, how can we be certain that these people are qualified to produce soldiers for the Fatherland?…
Why in the real good old days they hadn’t even met yet!
I had a heated discussion with my boss about the 9/11 ABC propaganda. During this spat he mentioned how disgusted he was with “what Clinton did.” I asked for clarification, and he mentioned the sex issue.
Mind you, this boss of mine is a fundamentalist who was sleeping with a girlfriend while his wife was pregnant- TWICE!
I propose a new NIH study: Brain imaging of Republicans and fundamentalists to determine whether their corpus colossums (Corpi collosum?) have diminished functions.
Sandblaster, IOKIYAR…
I don’t know why, it just is…
Tara’s right, but not for the reason you think. You see, the Puritans were very Godly, and because of that, God blessed them with super-fast pregnancies. Yes, what heathens take nine months to do the Puritans could do in four.
I’m counting the number of weddings I’ve been to where we spent the reception fantasizing about the couple’s sex life.
Yeah, that would be none.
I….. what???? I have never, never thought that at any wedding I’ve attended. The closest I’ve come to even approaching that arena of thought was at one wedding of a very, very conservative friend who had never even kissed his fiancee (by mutual agreement) before the ceremony, and it was sweet to see how thrilled they were to do the kissing part (cloyingly sweet if I wasn’t so fond of them - they kissed, got a completely dazzled look on their faces, then kissed again). But I certainly didn’t think about the after-ceremony naughty bits, and it never entered my mind at any other wedding. Do people like Ann seriously think of everything in terms of sex?
Has anybody told her that people can have sex without living together (or even living together without having sex) ?
God, Ann Althouse is creepy. Really, really creepy. I am now all skeeved out, thinking about weirdo fundie weddings where all the guests are sitting there, leering at the newlyweds, and having salacious fantasies about the wedding night.
In fact, the really cool thing about a wedding back in the old days or for traditionalists these days is that the couple has not yet consummated the relationship. When that is the situation, there is an excitement and the reception takes on a wonderful glow: look, they’re finally able to have sex and yet they are hanging out, dancing here with us!
Wow. This is so wrong on so many levels, I wouldn’t know where to begin in describing the 1000 ways in which this statement bespeaks some major “issues” on the part of the speaker (although, it must be said, that a large part of the “traditional” imagery of a wedding, e.g. “the blushing bride”, is exactly along these pathological lines).
But I think I’ll just point out one way in which this is wrong — there are some cultures where the reception occurs after the happy couple has consumated their relationship. For instance, in my religion, the reception (including a special prayer after the festive meal) is concerned to be part of the ceremony. Between the wedding proper and the reception/festive meal, the newly married couple is left alone for some time. Nowadays it’s simply to have a bite to eat (it is traditional in my faith to fast on your wedding day until the wedding proper is done), but in the olden days, this time actually was the time the marriage was consumated (and in some places, a bloody sheet was even produced as demonstration of such). And I don’t think people of my faith enjoyed wedding receptions any less because the bride and groom weren’t delaying consumating their marriage simply to hang out with the rest of us: indeed, my people are famous for having very fun weddings! Maybe because the bride and groom actually want to be at the reception rather than wishing they were doing the deed rather than having to talk with the likes of Althouse who had to be invited ‘cause she’s the groom’s father’s former roomate’s wife?
Okaaayyy. I don’t know about Ann, but I have never yet been to a wedding because I was looking forward to the floor show put on by the frustrated couple. Frankly I’m not that interested in somebody else’s sex life.
A wedding is the celebration of the start of the legal/religious part of a couples relationship, not a playground for nascent voyeurs.
If two people have slept together before the wedding they are obviously just dirty sluts who doesn’t deserve a nice wedding.
The wrongness of that is just… staggering. Maybe all thes epoeple need is to get on with Teh Sex so the rest of the world doesn’t have to put up with their envy
Frankly I’m not that interested in somebody else’s sex life.
And that’s one of the primary differences between liberals (adults) and conservatives (sniggering, inept fools who never successfully navigated their way out of adolescence, apparently), I’m afraid. Since almost everyone I’ve known well has been at least somewhat sexually experienced when they married, that was usually the point at which I really never wanted to hear another thing about their sex lives if I could help it… it’s too weird once the partner’s a permanent fixture.
Has anybody told her that people can have sex without living together
But see, people just didn’t do that back in the old days when Althouse didn’t have to feel like she wasn’t the only one not getting any.
“In fact, the really cool thing about a wedding back in the old days or for traditionalists these days is that the couple has not yet consummated the relationship. When that is the situation, there is an excitement and the reception takes on a wonderful glow: look, they’re finally able to have sex and yet they are hanging out, dancing here with us!”
To accept this, one would have to believe that Ann has attended enough weddings to have the ability to discern the “excitement” and “glow” of a virgin couple’s wedding, and compare them to the mood at a non-virgin couple’s wedding. She would have to have a large enough sample size to know that the common factor was that the couple had not had sex, rather than they were particularly happy or spiritual or more in love than another couple, or cultural or ethnicity factors, or demographic data about the party’s attendees.
What would be a reasonable number of weddings to compare to come to an accurate conclusion - maybe 2 dozen?
So, unless Ann Althouse worked as a wedding planner before going to law school, I’d have to say she was full of shit.
she wasn’t the only one not getting any.
That should be “she was the only one not getting any,” of course. Goddamn multiple negatives.
And just because I have nothing better to do…..
If one concludes that virgin weddings have more “excitement” and “glow” than non-virgin ones, can we safely assume then that the ceremonies uniting the virgin children of monarchs, arranged for reasons of national alliances, diplomacy, and empire-building, are the most exciting and glowing of all marriages?
But of course. not only do you have an arrangement between two people who have never met, you also have Royal Blood ™ which makes that stained sheet all glowy and special.
So please forgive us, conservo-bloggers. Liberals are clearly missing whatever part of the brain it is that tells us that a bride’s hymen exists for our entertainment and a woman’s presence at a luncheon isn’t about politics at all but must be about that mysterious sex that you keep hearing so much about.
Of course, if they were *really* conservative, they’d support the droit du seigneur.
Or would that interfere with the Clinton-bashing?
Anyone else suspect that Althouse wants to bring back hymen checks, performed by– you guessed it– the bride’s father? (And again by the groom before the honeymoon officially starts.)
I’m counting the number of weddings I’ve been to where we spent the reception fantasizing about the couple’s sex life.
Ya think, Dorothy. I come by rural conservative life honestly, so I’m asking your permission to use this line verbatim whenever necessary.
It is perfect. With so many of our young ‘uns sharing quarters prior to the walk down the aisle, this kind of nonsense crops up more often than it should. Your quote is hilarious AND admonishing. Everyone will laugh and then everyone will shut the fuck up… and the party will go on.
So wait, who invented cunnilingus? Or does that not actually exist?
Jesus, but Ann Althouse has my lower eyelid twitching. Does she want to make other women feel the shame of Teh Sex, or is she just a complete moron? I haven’t read enough of her writing to know, and research, at this time is out of the question.
Cunnilingus is the flowering vine (and state flower) of Vaginastan, and the preferred nutritional source of unicorns.
The etymology of cunnilingus.
Also, the coolest quote EVAR:
Cunnilingus was a very familiar manifestation in classical times; … it tends to be especially prevalent at all periods of high civilization. [Havelock Ellis, 1905]
Holy burning dungpile.
Just a recent entry from her thoughtful commentariat:
fishbane - “Holy burning dungpile. Just a recent entry from her thoughtful commentariat:
‘Sure - that worked SO well in the past. Lets go back to a President too busy sodomizing interns to stop Al Queda as they plotted 9-11′”
Thanks TP9/11. Fucking Disney…
‘Course, after the PDB “Bin Laden Determined To Strike”, GWB was fully occupied making turds and showing them to Condi for her approval: “Why George, look what you made! We’re all so proud!!!”…
Ahunt, quote at will.
at one wedding of a very, very conservative friend who had never even kissed his fiancee (by mutual agreement) before the ceremony, and it was sweet to see how thrilled they were to do the kissing part (cloyingly sweet if I wasn’t so fond of them - they kissed, got a completely dazzled look on their faces, then kissed again).
Carlie,
Based on my wedding photos and ancient memory, this happened at my wedding. My husband and I kissed lightly, then he picked me up and swung me around while we kissed again (which was no mean feat, since I stand hald a head taller than he does). Of course, we’d been common law married for nearly two years when we finally had a ceremony, so the reaction wasn’t “oh wow, we finally got to kiss!” It was a celebration thing, like if we’d won the lottery or something.
Ugh, most people I’m good enough friends with to attend their weddings (even the very physically fine) I don’t ever want to imagine doing the deed EVER. That’s just weird somehow.
Hah…. I actually recently attended a wedding where both people were virgins (one was ny sister, I’m not a creepy wingnut who fantasizes about people’s sex lives, I just knew from conversations we had prior). Not once during the reception did I anticipate their wedding night or think about how cool it was to have them hanging out with us instead of having sex like they could have been. She did look totally happy and in love, but so did every other bride at every wedding I’ve been too, even the ones having evil premarital sex. Anyone who is thinking about it just creeps me out. Of course, it could be better… my uncle gave a speech at my cousin’s wedding about how proud of the couple he was for remaining virgins until they were married that was met with snickers around the room. It was at that moment I decided I was glad every one knew I was an evil slut when I got married, no risk of embarrassing speeches.
Considering the tenseness around the planning of so many big weddings (and the tendency of the females to bring on the worst of the Bridezilla and Mother-vs.-Daughter jokes), maybe that glowing look at a wedding is relief that it’s all over?
I do remember the look on the face of one of my friends as she came down the aisle. Yes, she glowed. (And I have a picture to prove it.) There is such a thing as being radiant with joy.
But I don’t think it has anything to do with Looking Forwards To Teh Sex (as much as conservatives might think so.)
(Also, what does Ann consider a “big wedding”, anyway? Most of the really outlandish ones I’ve heard about seem to fall into the “rich family throwing a big bash to show they can do it.” and has nothing to do with the sexual innocence of the bride and groom or how long they’ve lived together.)
Actually, one of the sweetest weddings I ever went to was that of a couple who had been living together for 6 years and decided they might as well tie the knot officially because they’d be common-law married in a few months anyway. Just a nice little party in the backyard, married by a Jewish rabbi friend of theirs.
These snippets from la belle Althouse are all I can take; I can’t begin to imagine what her blog is like. Christ, my brain feels like an ice cream cone that’s been dropped on a hot sidewalk.
Is “Ann Althouse” just the blog name (sock puppet?) for “Dr.” Laura Slashinger? Or is she just channeling “Do as I say, not as I do” Laura?…
What I find exteremly ironic about the Clinton emotional meltdown is that so many people seem utterly and totally surprised that powerful people have affairs.
If one looks at human society through out history sexual affairs can be found in abundance. That America just up and suddenly realized that people have affairs, when Clinton became involved with Lewinsky, is the biggest joke of all humanity.
Prior to Clinton, America tittered and giggled, turned a blind eye with a knowing smile and wink, gave a jovial eblow to the ribs towards affairs and sexual liasons.
Yet since Clinton we are bombarded with the victiorian era of the false fainting and gasping that is worthy of the most violent of puke fests.
Maybe the goal the right wing is trying to achieve is to put a leash on every cock and twat in the nation. Not a very realistic goal mind you, since the wingnuts view virginal men as gay. Being gay is well to them, heinous and an abomination. Ironically the wingnut brigade are equally repulsed (one would hope, anyways) by men fucking dogs or goats. They can not directly go after the cocks they so desperately want to control rather they focus on the boobs or feminity of women.
Althouse, is in a tizzy with trying to regulate sex, cocks and twats to maintain her fairy tale vision of weddings and the wedding night. As my mother would say, she’s read way to many romance novels and forgot about the human race.
[i]If one concludes that virgin weddings have more “excitement� and “glow� than non-virgin ones, can we safely assume then that the ceremonies uniting the virgin children of monarchs, arranged for reasons of national alliances, diplomacy, and empire-building, are the most exciting and glowing of all marriages? [/i]
Actually, those marriages wouldn’t actually have a bloody sheet. According to what I’ve read, the very young marriages oyu hear about, wtih 12 and 13 year odls, were generally not consummated, and the husbands were watched carefully to make sure they didn’t seduce their brides.
Older men who married for legal alliance generally kept mistresses anyway, I would assume.
As for your previous comment–remember, ti’s not that the COUPLE is mroe xcited or glowing. It’s that ALTHOUSE gets excited watching them squirm.
As Miss Manners points out, in the old days, the couple didn’t hang around dancing and pretending to make happy chatter with bitter old things like Ann Althouse; they were so eager to get wit’ the consummating that they left the reception ASAP.
Isn’t she a law professor? Man, I had some conservative profs back in the day, but none of them were, like, bugfuck.
Can we stop calling them ‘right’ wingers? They’re not right, they’re conservative. Sometimes they are horribly, horribly wrong and people die. And hope dies.
I know it’s hard, but call them reich wingers, neocons, theocons, conservatives, wingnuts instead of a term which implies they are correct. It’s basic framing.
In this case, you could call Althouse and her ilk ‘conservative busybodies’ - people who think it’s o.k. to pass judgement on other people’s private business. Anything but ‘right’!
Thanks!
To pervert one of my mother’s favorite expressions…
I’m not sure I could “buy the cow” until I had at least tried “the milk”.
The glowing-est bride I ever saw at a wedding was five months pregnant. Does her glow count?
I’ve attended a couple of born-again weddings in my time, and I never once got into a tizzy thinking about the impending consummation. Particularly since both bride and groom usually looked completely exhausted by the end of the reception. They’d have to be quaffing Red Bull and Viagra cocktails to make good use of the honeymoon suite.
Well, Amanda, according to Althouse (in the comments on yet another post on this matter — I thought she just wanted to let it go?), she says that Valenti and her friends, including you, presumably, have damaged your chances of working for Hillary Clinton.
Quoth Althouse:
“‘I’m betting Jessica will turn up working for Hillary’s net-campaign, or Bill’s Presidential Library.’ [note: this was another commenter’s comment]Well, after all this big blog dustup, it’s less likely, which is possibly the real reason she’s so pissed. I’m sure Hillary has some say in these things. But even without this attention, how can someone with a sexed up blog like that work on Hillary’s campaign? That wouldn’t make any sense… Plus, from her life experiences, she must despise these young women who try to climb by using their sexuality. Whether Jessica deliberately presented herself sexually at the lunch may be open to question, but it is just flatly on the record that her blog uses sexuality for promotional purposes.”
So, Valenti’s chances of working for Hillary are shot. Seriously, and Althouse’s delusions of grandeur notwithstanding (I doubt Hillary has heard of Althouse, or would care about her views if she did), you and your fellow feminist bloggers really need to come loaded for bear with her quotes, etc., next time you go to a blogger’s conference with her or if you see she is at some feminist conference. Her “reasonable moderate” schtick can be convincing to a lot of people, and this stuff needs to be put back in her face so as to ensure that she isn’t welcome in polite liberal feminist society, a society which it’s obvious she still wants to be accepted in. If she wants to play with the knuckle-dragger crowd, fine, do what you can to ensure that crowd is the only one that will give her a podium.
…sexed up? To me, a sexed up blog is one with lots of pictures of you shaking the tassles on your breasts around….
Don’t forget, there are some people who really do think Bill Clinton single-handedly invented the blow job
Somewhat counterintuitively, they mostly seem to be his detractors.
I swear, I wish I had enemies like Bill Clinton has enemies. I can just imagine them. “That c-minus is such a monster! Did you know that without him we wouldn’t have the iPod, Johnny Cash, Bombay Sapphire Gin, penicillin, chocolate, the Italian Renaissance and puppies? Only Satan’s intervention can possibly explain why the American people haven’t pulled him out into the street and strung him up from a lamppost by now!”
Maybe the goal the right wing is trying to achieve is to put a leash on every cock and twat in the nation.
I’ve been to parties like that.
Well, okay, I’ve heard of parties like that. Probably a lot of “conseravtives” behind the leather gimp-masks, too.
It’s really simple. Here’s the process: ask yourself, “did you know that Clinton was having an affair with an intern when you began your affair?”
If the answer is YES, then say: “If the President of the United States is setting such a bad example for the American people, what hope do any of us have? The President is a role model and his actions have consequences. We should all be very grateful that a good Christian has been elected to the White House to restore morality to the institution.”
If the answer is NO, then you are psychic. Explain that you could predict the future and knew that Clinton was having an affair, even if the liberal media was still covering it up. Then go back to the previous paragraph.
How would Althouse react to the well-known fact that couples in red states who marry at younger ages (thus the bride at least is more likely to be virginal) undergo divorce at a higher rate?
Possibly the Christian socially conservative couple who haven’t had sex before their wedding night might discover that they are erotically incompatible.
Ann’s sexual imagination is creepy: she’s thinking about Jessica’s breasts, about the groom “deflowering” the bride, etc.
Now, I want to understand something about this whole thing.
Did Althouse know Jessica and her blog before all this? It appears to me that Althouse didn’t know who Jessica was until Jessica came over to her blog and spoke up that “the intern” they were all chuckling over was actually her.
So Althouse is suddenly an expert on Jessica, her blog, her motives, the thought processes behind her choice to go to the luncheon, her future plans for her career, her feelings about sexuality?
Damn, she’s a quick study! (or she’s full of shit, you decide).
She also seems to be awfully omniscient about Hilary Clinton, which seems to be a Right Wing conceit as well.
The funny thing about these people is that they seem to be trapped in a time warp. Married couples who have an adultery crisis and manage to stay together generally don’t keep the unfaithful incident front-and-center in their day to day existence.
These people really need to move on about Clinton. He got a few blow jobs over 10 years ago. Even by the time the impeachment hearings took place the “affair” was over and Monica was nothing but a pain in the ass.
Newt Gingrich divorced his wife and married the staffer he was fucking. I think I’d be a little more offended by that, than by some poor schlump who had a 2-3 month furtive series of blow jobs and then spent 6 months dealing with the nuisance phone calls.
I’ve heard a variation on that “a wedding is for getting stuff you need to set up your household” theme before, primarily from my mother, so that indicates to me it’s probably a middle-class-from-working-class-stock WASP thing. Althouse seems as though she could be of the right age and background to have that. (My parents, for example, have all these weird quasi-customs that you only see in middle-class white Midwesternish people who have been raised to become white-collar professionals by their working-class parents; the customs themselves are a sort of hyperformalised, inexact imitation of what rich people used to do.) I bet Althouse won’t wear white shoes after Labour Day, either.
The sex thing? Well, we already know Althouse doesn’t just have issues, she has entire bound volumes.
No teenage girls sucking off teenage boys before 1997? “I call him lollypop, lollypop, oh lolly lolly . . . .”
I meant to say:
Married couples who have an adultery crisis and manage to stay together generally don’t keep the unfaithful incident front-and-center in their day to day existence TEN YEARS LATER.
Newt Gingrich divorced his wife and married the staffer he was fucking.
Even better, he did the same thing twice. Yes, he left his second wife for yet another staffer. I think he’s still with wife #3, but he’s probably getting ready for #4.
I really hope that when the second wife said, “How could this happen?” to her friends, they all slapped her really hard.
Can we stop calling them ‘right’ wingers? They’re not right, they’re conservative. Sometimes they are horribly, horribly wrong and people die. And hope dies.
I know it’s hard, but call them reich wingers, neocons, theocons, conservatives, wingnuts instead of a term which implies they are correct. It’s basic framing.
I was going to suggest calling them “wrong” wingers, but “reich wing” fits better.
Maybe the reason that AA loves weddings so much is because she’s heard marriage kills teh sex life dead. So there’s two more folks who won’t be having the fun she’s never had herself.
Well, Clinton may not have invented the blowjob (or the internet); but surely we should give Monica credit for the thong? I’m sure a simple graph of thong sales in America would be revelatory…
OT: We’ll note that a certain loony anti-sex blogger can’t quite sustain the lie that she bans people for any real reason, so whe’s resorted to “I’ll ban who I want - but only because they’re mean”.
This exercise in self-delusion is bought to you by the gal saying “chasity is better than sex.”
Yes. Send your regrets, Ann, they’ll have more fun without you.
So, I live in Australia.
What’s a blow job?
So, I live in Australia. What’s a blow job?
You’ll have to pardon Kim and, indeed, all Australians.
The entire country is noted for having only produced one genuine love song as an expression of its cultural values. This is that song.
Actually, Australia has many love songs but the greatest of all is by This Is Serious Mum and it’s called Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me
God, Ann Althouse is creepy. Really, really creepy. I am now all skeeved out, thinking about weirdo fundie weddings where all the guests are sitting there, leering at the newlyweds, and having salacious fantasies about the wedding night.
That about sums up what I was thinking as I read the post. “Goddamn, that woman is creepy.”
Hmm… I haven’t attended that many weddings (about a half dozen, maybe), but I don’t recall *ever* sitting at the reception wondering what the happy couple were getting up to later that night. Mainly, I have to admit, because they were either relatives, or friends, and the thought of trying to picture them doing the deed tends to squick me. Partly because I have this rather relentless practical streak which says things like “they’d be knackered - they’ll probably be sleeping”.
This is a strange point for me to bring up, but I find the phrase “single-handedly invented the blow job” to be logically incorrect. “Single mouthedly” or “invented the hand job”. And shouldn’t it be Monica who did the inventing?
Surely you joke? Christian social conservatives are never erotically incompatible! She’s supposed to lie back and think of England while he does his thing. If she can’t, why, there must be something wrong with her and she needs to try harder! Christians don’t get divorces on their own, evil feminists lure women away from their duties as good submissives and force the poor women to practice witchcraft and become lesbians!
Ok, that’s about as much wingnut I can muster without some coffee in me.
Poor AA doesn’t realize, sometimes couples who “live in sin” don’t really live in that much sin. Doesn’t matter if there’s a marriage certificate involved or not, after a few months of picking up his underwear and reminding him to take out the garbage, the fires kinda go out.
If Clinton invented the blow job, why hasn’t he been nominated for some sort of Nobel Prize by now? Science, Peace, Medicine, whatever, just give that man an award! He can share it with whoever invented cunnilingus……..
ok, why does Althouse sound like my crazy cat lady aunt? The one that didn’t married because sex was icky and hated all women younger than her? The one who went to weddings only to find out if the bride has been a virgin and if she wasn’t, she busibodied herself with spreading rumours??
Is she my aunt Viorica? Does anyone have a pic of her?? ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Ann Althouse sure is fascinated by strangers’ sex lives. I don’t think the problem is that conservatives don’t have sex, I think the problem is they don’t have emotions. Think of marriage or relationships with the emotions taken out — reduced to sex and economic tradeoffs. That model goes a long way towards explaining reactionary* attitudes.
That said, I don’t think anyone’s being duped if they go to a wedding and discover the bride isn’t a virgin. I don’t think anyone really feels duped — Althouse was trying to make a rhetorical point of some kind and ended up saying that; while I’m not holding my breath waiting for her to retract it, and I’m not saying she doesn’t realize that’s what she said, I can’t believe it’s what she started out intending to say.
Althouse’s comment also reminds me of ongoing reactionary reactions to Lawrence; her “why would anyone who has the opportunity to have sex do anything else?” parallels “why would anyone who can have gay sex have any other kind?” or “why would a man who’s legally allowed to marry a man marry a woman?”
On a different note, I don’t think I have ever thought about Jessica Valenti’s breasts.
sara:
Possibly the Christian socially conservative couple who haven’t had sex before their wedding night might discover that they are erotically incompatible.
Yeah, but that’s such an embarrassingly base reason to end a relationship, especially one that’s been sanctified, that I suspect even people who don’t fear ostracism from the community for even considering the d-word would be reluctant to admit that’s the reason.
Samantha Vimes:
shouldn’t it be Monica who did the inventing?
Don’t be silly, everyone knows women don’t have agency, certainly not sexual agency.
*A friend is trying to revive this word, to associate it with the wingnuts in place of “pro-family” and “pro-life.”
I don’t know what Ann Althouse’s sex life is like, but it can’t be good.
Wow, Ann Althouse is gross. I am seriously repulsed by her and her obsession with other people’s sex lives and body parts.
And for the record, as I actually bothered to read more of her blog than I really should have, when the St Pete Times and other media outlets began castigating Katherine Harris for wearing makeup, light-blue dresses and lots of jewelry, it pissed me off pretty bad. I mean, there is SO MUCH wrong with the woman - her politics are pathetic, she relies heavily on Christianity as a campaign tool (which, to me, is the sign of a pol without a vision) - that to pick on her clothing and makeup (which I actually consider to be very nice, for what its worth) is just petty sexism of the sort aimed at Hillary Clinton.
There. I condemned the media for going after a Republican woman’s appearance. Now shut the fuck up.
Oh, and it gets better. I don’t remember if it was wife #1 or #2, but he served one of them with divorce papers at the hospital where she was undergoing cancer treatment.
Helluva guy!
[…] What really depressed me this weekend was all that shit goin’ down on both sides, about Jessica’s pornographic pic slash everyone’s threatened by a pretty girl and we must talk about it ad nauseum. Jessica’s normally calm, diplomatic blogging demeanor frayed slightly as she tried to maintain dignity (addendum on dignity at the end of this post) while defending herself, but I’d like to believe that she was just trying to give good feminist face in the face of idiocy. Now she’s made a charitable t-shirt out of the debacle, although I think the shirt should be low-cut and tighter. You know, ‘cus it’s ok to have boobs and all that. What irritates me is the kind of silly journalism that came about - like I said, on both sides. (although Jill’s post on feministe was super sweet, broke it down by comforting technicalities, and full of vigor - good defense!) The tone was such that Pandagon post’s angry cat photos in lieu of reasonably pretty women, albeit possibly psycho women - says they’re in a “jealous snit” - and then you have drawn out ‘ohhh kay’ commentary and hyperbolic statements: As if the crime of having breasts and associating with the likes of a former president weren’t enough, Althouse then accuses Jessica of being a Karl Rove plant. […]
Here’s what gets me. Althouse has staked her credibility on being an adult, working professional and academic gravitas.
These things don’t preclude making snide or naughty jokes, but one does expect them to have quality. Such childish low blows against another blogger followed by esclatation and bullying comments just seems like the opposite of her alleged mission.
It’s the kind of crap one associates with LiveJournal (though a large portion of LJ has long gotten past such drama, save the chronically emotionally stunted).
Even though I read blogs for the debate and exchange of ideas and high quality sniping, stuff like reflects bloggings weakness - petty insider crap which uses much space spreading hard feelings over nothing. Althouse made a personal attack on someone in the service of cliched jab from last century and it’s now caused pages of bad vibes.
I hate this. It runs a close second to inscrutable posts which require following multiple links to understand what the hell the topic is about.
As for this quote: When that is the situation, there is an excitement and the reception takes on a wonderful glow: look, they’re finally able to have sex and yet they are hanging out, dancing here with us! WTF. Is she 12? Although I do give her points for nakedly displaying the peverse controlling nature of her ideas of matrimony.
A friend is trying to revive this word, to associate it with the wingnuts in place of “pro-family� and “pro-life.� - Hershele Ostropoler
I agree with your friend. Today’s so-called conservatives are hardly conservative in any meaningful sense of the word. They don’t want merely to stop the clock nor to conserve anything but the rawest of social hierarchies. They are reactionaries who want to turn back the clock to some mythical golden age.
“oh, and it gets better. I don’t remember if it was wife #1 or #2, but he served one of them with divorce papers at the hospital where she was undergoing cancer treatment.
Helluva guy!”
Yes, Newt Gingrich treated his wife like shit and dumped her while going through cancer treatment.
And Rudy Guliani treated his wife like shit and basically dumped her on national television.
And Bill Clinton treated his wife (not to mention the other women in his life) like shit than begged for forgiveness and stayed with her.
I’m sorry but the constant beatification of Clinton just bugs me. It was way more than a blowjob and yes while alot of it was used politically, the list of women he screwed around with, allegedly harassed and possibly even raped got too long to simply write off as dirty politics. Was he a good president? Yes. Did he treat women like shit in his personal life? Oh yeah.
For the sake of clarity here I want to emphasize this is not an attempt in any way to defend Althouse. She went after Jessica way before she even brought up Clinton’s past and used it as an excuse for the original attack.
I’m sorry but the constant beatification of Clinton just bugs me. It was way more than a blowjob and yes while alot of it was used politically, the list of women he screwed around with, allegedly harassed and possibly even raped got too long to simply write off as dirty politics. Was he a good president? Yes. Did he treat women like shit in his personal life? Oh yeah.
Look, I understand saying that Clinton sexually harassed people, he’s been charged as such, but like I’ve said before, accusing him of rape goes too far. Was he ever charged of rape? Who did he rape for that matter? But I’m guessing you can’t answer these questions, as the basis for this claim is as shaky as the National Review’s “story” of Clinton killing someone (it was a suicide).
The creepiest thing the Clenis did for the patriarchy wingnuts was to provide an excuse for them to rate a womans fuckability out loud and on the front page instead of wispering about it in corners.
I’m sorry but the constant beatification of Clinton just bugs me. - S.H.
What beatification?
It seems to me that we lefty moonbats hardly beatify Clinton: we commend him when he gives a good speech, defend him when he’s being libeled and complain about him when he triangulates, etc. IOW, we treat Clinton like we would any other politician.
Liberals don’t have a cult of the Big Dog in the same way that reactionaries have a cult of St. Ronnie. But I guess some people assume that Clinton’s our Reagan and write accordingly. The beatification hardly exists outside of the imaginings of reactionaries, who somehow ascribe odd powers to Clinton and an odd worship of him on our part. What maybe seems to be beatification here is skewering the right’s view of our supposed beatification, nu?
WTF?!?
She’s simply insane. I do not know anyone, right or left, whose criteria for attending a “big wedding” is the virginity of the bride (because, let’s face it, for people who care, it’s her virginity, not his, that they are worried about). Further, of the “big weddings” I’ve attended, which include many people who would consider themselves to the right, politically and religiously, if I actually ponder the issue, I bet that the percentage of wholly virgin weddings is teeny-tiny.
It seems to me that we lefty moonbats hardly beatify Clinton: we commend him when he gives a good speech, defend him when he’s being libeled and complain about him when he triangulates, etc. IOW, we treat Clinton like we would any other politician.
Liberals don’t have a cult of the Big Dog in the same way that reactionaries have a cult of St. Ronnie.
I am a liberal and a feminist. And I watched as feminists en masse put their head down and ignored case after case and made jokes about blow jobs. If he were treated as any other politician he would’ve been held to account for his behavior by the left and/or by feminists, as would any other politician. But it never happened. The punchline to all this of course, is that Bill Clinton never was a real liberal nor a true friend to feminists because in the end his bullshit did more to set back sexual harassment cases than any right wing law could have ever done.
I am a liberal and a feminist. And I watched as feminists en masse put their head down and ignored case after case and made jokes about blow jobs. If he were treated as any other politician he would’ve been held to account for his behavior by the left and/or by feminists, as would any other politician. But it never happened. The punchline to all this of course, is that Bill Clinton never was a real liberal nor a true friend to feminists because in the end his bullshit did more to set back sexual harassment cases than any right wing law could have ever done.
I’m not going to defend Clinton on this regard. However, the fact remains that you still need to own up to your rape comment. So start expaining.
“Look, I understand saying that Clinton sexually harassed people, he’s been charged as such, but like I’ve said before, accusing him of rape goes too far. Was he ever charged of rape? Who did he rape for that matter? But I’m guessing you can’t answer these questions, as the basis for this claim is as shaky as the National Review’s “storyâ€? of Clinton killing someone (it was a suicide).”
However, the fact remains that you still need to own “up to your rape comment. So start expaining.”
I’d be more than happy to. First off read the post again I said *possibly*. As in he was accused, the same as we used the phrases “may have”, “possibly” and “allegedly” with the Duke rape case for instance, before charges were brought. For the record, the woman’s name was Juanita Broaddrick. Depends on who you ask whether her story was credible, I personally just can’t tell; she could have had an axe to grind and he may have a track record of not taking no for an answer. Journalists who have investigated it are equally divided, but Michael Isikoff, who doesn’t strike me as a huge rightwinger says the claim is credible.
Anyway, my point was and continues to be there was at least a total of three claims of sexual misconduct that go beyond the cheating on your wife, blowjob in the oval territory. I didn’t accuse him of rape (or murder for that matter).
Funny though I’ve been accused of at the very least winger tendencies twice now over my criticism of ol’ Willy but nah, he’s not beatified…
I refuse to put adultery into the same category as sexist mistreatment of women. To do so does two very unfair things: 1) It degrades the reality of oppression by putting it in the same category as what is better described as interpersonal problems and 2) It casts feminists as Victorian busybodies who are running around trying to protect women from the harsh realities of life. Adultery is patriarchal when a man is abusing his patriarchal power over his wife to get away with it while not allowing her the same freedom. But the reality of adultery is that it goes both ways, both sexes do it. No one thinks Bill Clinton is Husband of the Year. But it’s not a feminist issue like domestic violence, rape, or sexual harassment is.
To say Bill Clinton did shit to feminism seems out of line to me. His personal sexual foibles, while they suck, are not even in the same league as what the Bush administration is doing to women’s rights.
Funny though I’ve been accused of at the very least winger tendencies twice now over my criticism of ol’ Willy but nah, he’s not beatified…
It’s just the rape thing that gets me because it’s become cliche among the reich-wingers.
“Was he a good president? Yes. Did he treat women like shit in his personal life? Oh yeah.”
See, it’s funny. For me, it’s the other way around: no and maybe. Adultery is something I can’t judge because I don’t know what Hillary thought of it. I don’t know if they have an open marriage (as has been sometimes claimed) or not. So maybe he treated women like shit. I don’t know.
On the other hand, he was a hideously bad president. Better than Bush, sure, but not much better than Reagan. A little worse than Carter. What he did to welfare will never be forgivable.
Adultery isn’t the issue, it’s his exploitative relationships with Lewinsky and others. A relationship can be both consensual and exploitative, and Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky fits that bill. There was an ENORMOUS imbalance of power between them. As Ilyka Damen pointed out in a recent blog post, Clinton didn’t have an affair with a middle aged attorney. He had an affair with a barely-adult intern. He had the upper hand by a LOT and he should have known better–I don’t care if she did initiate it. It’s not okay to take advantage of someone, even if that someone is allowing themselves to be taken advantage of. It wasn’t rape–don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t even a criminal offense, let alone impeachable. But it’s sleazy nonetheless.
Agreed, but it’s deeply sexist to insinuate that women’s voting patterns should be based on a man’s personal life above his policies. Plus, if we were to have a male purity contest, there’s few to no straight men that haven’t exploited their privilege in sexual relationships, especially in ways that fall far short of coercion.
“I refuse to put adultery into the same category as sexist mistreatment of women. To do so does two very unfair things: 1) It degrades the reality of oppression by putting it in the same category as what is better described as interpersonal problems and 2) It casts feminists as Victorian busybodies who are running around trying to protect women from the harsh realities of life. Adultery is patriarchal when a man is abusing his patriarchal power over his wife to get away with it while not allowing her the same freedom. But the reality of adultery is that it goes both ways, both sexes do it. No one thinks Bill Clinton is Husband of the Year. But it’s not a feminist issue like domestic violence, rape, or sexual harassment is.”
I knew my post would stir up the shit. I knew it was a sticky issue so I was gonna hold my tongue but now my post keeps getting twisted. I did seperate the two myself, maybe not clearly enough in the post for some. But I always have, that’s why I voted for him the first time despite the Gennifer Flowers debacle. The point is once Paula Jones et al came out that’s where I jumped ship. That WAS more than adultery and that WAS an issue feminists ignored and it DID set back sexual harassment litigation. Actually the Lewinsky debacle did that too, just take a look at the intern jokes that started the whole mess with Jessica. When fucking an intern becomes a national punchline to a tacky joke that has consequences.
Just because Hilary Clinton didn’t leave her husband when his adulterous mistreatment of her — you won’t catch me using minimizing terms like “incident” — came to light doesn’t mean they had an open marriage, or an arrangement, or she’s an opportunist (she is, but that’s not evidence of it). Sometimes love leadds to forgiveness. Sometimes liberals have values, and if liberals can have values, Hilary Clinton might too, and she may believe that a marriage is a commitment and divorce an absolute last resort.
I don’t really think so, SH. I think that right wingers believe most sexual harassment suits are a lie, and that became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And surely I’m not the only one who recalls that the “OMG adultery!111!!!” ‘wingers turned a blind eye to extramarital fornicators Dan Burton, Newt Gingrich and Helen Chenoweth, and to Strom “I’ve groped more women than Bill Clinton’s said hello to” Thurmond.
I kept hoping that there really was a god and he/she would send lighting bolts down to punish the hipocrites, but I was denied. If that isn’t proof of the non-existance of god, I don’t know what would be…
Silly Djur. It’s only poor women who need to be published for the wrong kind of fucking. Not the rich White guys who kick them and their kids around to score points with the very Bible-thumpers they claim to despise once election time rolls around.
Gack. Sorry. PUNISHED, not “Published.” Must sleep.
Though now that I think about it, if Rush, Newt, and the rest had made enough noise, Billy Boy probably would have called for some kind of public shame monument for recalcitrent slutty welfare queens. Hell, he probably would have read their names aloud every night on FOX if he thought it would score him some points with the neanderthals amongst the general public.
When life gives you melons……
Breasts. Breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts. Breasts. Breasts, breasts, breasts. Breasts! Breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts! Breasts, breasts, breasts. Breasts, breasts! Breasts. There. Now, if Ann Outhouse wants to…
Re: Clinton and Paula Jones.
Clinton did not sexually harass Paula Jones. He might - if she is telling the truth - have flashed her. That’s rude and nasty, and if she, or a friend or family member decked then-governor Clinton, and said “You don’t go near her again, asshole!” I’d have no respect for the man *at all* if that person spent even a day in jail for assault.
(I’m not suggesting that it’s okay to deck someone for flashing their weenie. I’m saying that, if he was a respectable man, he’d have used his power as governor to prevent jail time, because he’d have known he stepped over the line. Whether he deserved to get hit over it is a question I won’t answer; whether a respectable man would admit he *provoked* it is certain: he would.)
Remember that the case was so baseless that it could not be taken on a contingency basis. It was, open and shut, not a case of harassment. There was no offer of a quid pro quo, there was no evidence that she was subjected to a hostile work environment.
There is a question over whether he was an asshole to her, on a personal level… but being an asshole is not actionable.
If I am to assume Jones is not a liar, I would suggest that Clinton made a very clumsy, drunken come-on to her, one that sickened her, and she wanted revenge, and I admit I’m sympathetic to that. However, I don’t see the incident, even if it happened as she says, as a character defining moment.
This is especially true if, as has been suggested, that Bill Clinton was sexually abused. (For reasons of my own, I find that suggestion to be a credible possibility.) Victims of sexual assault often have difficulties with boundary issues.
That he might have been a womanizer doesn’t bother me a bit, though it’s not politically correct to say so. What he did with other women was between him, Hillary, and the other women. Show me he violated the boundaries of consent in a serious manner, and then I’ll be concerned about him as a person; past that, and, as I said, it’s between him and his partner(s).
The stuff between him and Monica, people have made that out to be quid pro quo and power imbalance, and all that. I don’t know, and it’s not provable. Yes, he tried to make sure she got a good position that she was happy with in the aftermath… but that wsa probably so she’d feel loyalty to him, and not write a best selling “tell all” book later. And yes, there’s a power imbalance, but when you get right down to it, there’s a huge power imbalance between the President and every US citizen. What he did was stupid and risky, but he had no reason to think it would blow up as badly as it did.