In my academic writing I am developing a thesis I call “the pretend war over pornography.” My position in part is that many right wingers love invoking the spector of poronography against liberals so much that they really don’t want to see it censored or controlled to any significant degree. Below is an example of Chapman law professor Hugh Hewitt making my case for me, via Crooks and Liars:
Hewitt, who lost most of his credibility in the previous segment, when he called George Bush the Republicans’ best asset in 2006, lost the rest of it during this one. “That’s an accurate representation. It does not go to name-calling. It goes to the facts of the Democratic left.” He claimed “a strain” has taken over the blogosphere on the left and ruined the Democratic Party. Colmes responded that the right is very guilty of accusing the left of being anti-religious, hateful and bigoted.
Hewitt, in another fit of “not name-calling,” went on to refer to the Daily Kos blog as “vulgar and profane.” When Colmes defended Kos as one that he likes and one that is the most popular, Hewitt said, “So has Larry Flynt got a lot of readership… They are the same line of rhetoric.”
By equating the proprietor of Daily Kos with Larry Flynt, Hewitt reminds everyone that Democrats are the party of porn and indecency, to deflect attention away from the political performance of the Republicans. Would social conservatives ever want to lose the ability to do this? I don’t think so. Porn makes a great media-friendly bludgeon.
And now a few related observations about the way “womanly” and “feminine” get invoked as pejoratives: Note that a certain award winning “liberal” blogger attacks Hewitt here on his remarks above by labeling him a member of the “He Man Women Haters Club.” Lest you think this some sort of feminist critique, though, note that he also refers to Hewitt as a “a simpering twat” and as “Busty McHewitt” and if you click on the “Busty McHewitt” link you see that Hewitt is mocked for having breasts with the phrase, “Wishes his tits were brains.” Later in the post an admittedly very mean and stupid commentator is described as “Don Imus’s manslave and former coffee fetcher” with “nineteen years of experience as Imus’s bitch.” Yet another is taken to task (via the “slap his dick” link) for his “leisurely life of bloggin’ whilst breast-feeding and doing JELL-O ® shots underneath his kid’s crib,” and at the orginal post for his “comfortable existence, eating figs, wearing fine silks, sitting around watching Oprah all day.” Many “liberals” apparently find stuff like this hilarious.
–Ann Bartow
Well, just because he’s a liberal doesn’t mean he isn’t a Manly Man. Manly Men prove their Manliness by such talk, don’t you know.
That, and obviously he is a paragon of masculine beauty in his own right, no dandruff flaking from the bald patch, no balls draggin’ on the floor; else he would not dare to make such comments. After all, he’s not a sexist. No.