Speaking to a group of people who would go see this deranged shitbag at the Westside Conservative Club on Wednesday, King claimed that humanity would have suffered if not for rape and incest throughout human history.
“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” King said in Urbandale, Iowa, the Des Moines Register reports.
“Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.”
Okay, after a few minutes of letting my confused brain - I had a weird day at work already - settle down, this was my first honest thought on his statements:
IS HE ACTUALLY APPLAUDING THE OBSCENE HISTORY OF RAPE AND PATRIARCHAL INCEST THAT SCARRED MUCH OF HUMAN HISTORY???
Because that's how it comes across. I admit I have a bias towards Republicans and especially a bias towards this particular piece of racist trash that's representing Iowa in Congress, but even if you take an impartial view of what King was trying to convey, it comes across as accepting a reality where rape is a given, that procreation takes priority over human dignity, as though rape is no different from consensual sex and family-raising.
Which highlights a severe problem with Steve King's - and in many respects the Republicans' - worldview about sex and procreation: That the only point for sex IS procreation. Not for relationship building, not for casual enjoyment (ooooh, they REALLY hate sex as that), not sex as a physical expression to an emotional need (not want) of connecting to another human being.
It doesn't occur to King that without rape, sex would still happen under the affirmation of consent between loving people. That sex could still lead to procreation because that's something consenting adults would and could do.
No. To King and to others who think like him, sex means getting women pregnant no matter what. This is why rape is not a problem for them, because the end result of rape they're hoping for is more babies.
This is why Republicans want to eliminate the rape exceptions to abortion rights first chance they get. This is why Republicans condemn a "promiscuous culture" of birth control which blocks pregnancies while allowing the sex to take place.
It is a purely patriarchal primitive view of gender roles that diminishes the rights and powers of women, and converts them all into mere "vessels" for a man's seeds.
This isn't the first time a Republican figure has been caught expressing disdain about women's rights, and it's certainly not the first time a Republican figure expressed such horrifying opinions about rape in our culture.
It's just this worldview that the Far Right Republicans have is getting more out in the open. They're just... tweeting this shit out anymore, because they're eager to make their worldview towards women (keep 'em in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant) the only view that matters.
Gods help us.
1 comment:
I guess King just figures that according to the Bible, everyone is the result of incest, so it can't be all that bad.
As for rape, I submit that the idea be field tested on him by a 250 pound biker and see if his opinion moves any.
-Doug in Oakland
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