What IS pornography? Only Conservatives know for sure...and they're not sure.
It's not the scantily clad Conservative women they're ogling, that's fer damned sure.
The Moronarchy is upon us. Welcome to the Dumbocalypse. The Dumbageddon Conspiracy has finally paid off. Freedumb and Dumbocracy have reached their logical conclusion. How did we get here? We can thank the Dunning-Kruger effect, the most powerful and disturbing force in the world today ... the force of human stupidity, the greatest destroyer and wrecker there has ever been. Come and explore the bizarre world of idiots, of the Confederacy of Dunces, of the Dunciad.
Joe Dixon, Dumbocalypse Now: The First Dunning-Kruger President
For a long time now, Conservatives have acted as if they’re above being obsessed about sex. No, Conservative men would never engage in self-gratification (what you and I know as- GASP!!!- masturbation). No, that’s something only godless, sinful Liberals do. Never mind that Bible Belt Christians consume more porn than anywhere else in America, but that’s another story for another time….
So, the idea that attractive, scantily-clad women (something Conservatives might not so long ago have defined as “pornography”) are suddenly (sort of) OK has Conservative panties in a wad.
Over the last few years, conservatives have become a little confused about what it is they actually believe, versus what they pretend to believe in for the sake of “owning the libs.”
They’ve been forced to pretend to take the side of “free speech” to protect racists and other bigots from the consequences of the things they say, even as they gleefully sported their pro-Pinochet “free helicopter rides” T-shirts (the “joke” is that you throw people out of helicopters if they are liberals who say and believe the wrong things). Trump forced them to pretend, for a time, that the whole “family values” thing was just so ‘90s and they’d been over it for years, what are you even talking about? Then, a few years later, they had to pretend they believed that things that were obviously not pornography were, in fact, pornography, in order to justify trying to keep kids from finding out that gay people exist.
As a result, they are now all very, very torn about an anti-woke beer company’s calendar featuring scantily-clad ladies of the Right.
Since Bud Light has become bira non grata among the Conservative “intelligentsia” (yeah, it does sound like an oxymoron) for palling up to transgender influencer Dylvan Mulvaney, Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer was invented as an acceptable alternative. Never mind, they’re probably both shitty beers that people who drink shitty beers probably couldn’t distinguish between in a blind shitty beer taste test.
This is all about ideological purity, which seems to be something Conservatives are all up in arms about.
Why? Well, transphobia, obviously — but also their belief that brands they use and like need to show them respect by not being nice to people they hate for no good reason. It’s all very grown up and definitely a thing that people who are very secure in themselves and their beliefs do all the time.
Sure, it is. They’re secure in themselves, know who they hate, and expect major brands to hate the same folks they do. Those who don’t can expect to face the full wrath of Conservatives who won’t tolerate being “disrespected.”
Or something like that. But too many of them are still so wrapped up in trying to “own the libs” that they have yet to sort out precisely what they believe.
So, ARE they anti-porn or not? And what, in their minds, IS pornography? Does a calendar featuring scantily-clad attractive Conservative women qualify as porn? What if the women were Liberals?
In keeping with their desire to police women’s bodies, earlier this month the brand released “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar” featuring cheesecake-y pictures of transphobe-of-the-sea Riley Gaines, white supremacist Ashley St. Clair — so nice they showed them twice — along with former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch and … well, after that it seems like they kinda ran out of people we’ve actually heard of.
I’ve only heard of Kim Klacik, Riley Gaines, and Dana Loesch. I don’t know where they dug up the rest of the roster, but I’m guessing they had to look far and wide to find women willing to be typecast and (quite possibly) do damage to their careers.
The calendar features women being sexy while not quite being sexual, so maybe “soft-core porn” if you’re uptight about showing that much skin? Other than that, it looked like every Italian tire company calendar I saw during my time in Croatia. It’s nothing that I’d have a problem giving to a 12-year-old boy, but it also something that would’ve had my overly hormonal 12-year-old self sporting a semi-permanent boner.
Of course, Jodie Foster in a beer commercial would’ve had the same effect on me at 12.
And you would think that this would be embraced, given how very upset they were that this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue failed to provide conservative men with the boners they so desperately sought — but no! Well, “no!” from right-wing women who for some reason thought that being sexually objectified was not part of the patriarchal plan.
Commentator Allie Beth Stuckey called the pictures “soft porn” — apparently not getting the memo about “we just call stuff that involves LGBTQ+ people or basic sex education ‘softcore porn’ because we hate LGBTQ+ people and weirdly think that if we don’t tell kids about any of that they will live their lives as virginal heterosexuals until marriage!” She said:
You can probably guess what I think about a calendar branded for “conservative dads” filled with pictures of women, many of them married and many of them very scantily clad. Hate it. I also find the discourse ridiculous, as if we’re all supposed to pretend we don’t understand the purpose of a calendar of posed, full-body pictures of women. You can call me a prude, puritanical, or jealous of these women’s beauty— whatever makes you feel better. I just don’t see the value in marketing what’s basically, in some photos, soft porn to married (or unmarried) men. Of course these women are gorgeous, and of course I’m all for celebrating true femininity in an age that can’t define “woman.” In my view, this doesn’t accomplish that at all.
So, what’s the purpose of a swimsuit issue, a swimsuit calendar, or a Playboy magazine? If anyone who’s ever been a teenage boy with a box of Kleenex by their bed is honest…well, I’ll let y’all figure it out.
All of it is one or two levels below Pornhub, so take it for what it’s worth. I don’t care about it one way or the other. What one does in one’s own company is one’s own business, and I’m not about to judge. I’ll leave that to the Conservative busybodies. Remember to alternate arms, or you’ll look like a tennis player.
What I do enjoy are the Conservatives who believe it’s their business to police women’s bodies and yet still find ways to take enjoyment out of things like the “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar.” Or even the Sports Illustrated annual swimsuit issue. Because, as any White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual male will tell you, women exist for the pleasure of men, don’tchaknow?
Conservatives want to be the ones defining what that pleasure looks (and feels) like, even if they have to be hypocrites…because hypocrisy is one of the few things they do consistently.
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