Soap operas educating people on contraception use, Democrats and Republicans do it roughly the same, and abortion rights make otherwise sane, educated people drift off into unreality. Plus, Clinton on LBGT youth and Bob Knight of Concerned Women for America on condoms, all on this week’s Reality Cast.

Links in this episode:
Next big gay moment?
Clinton on LGBT youth
Luntz talking sex on Hannity & Colmes
More survey results
Sex and the Republican party
Population Media Center
Tell Me More on abortion
Abortion rights are popular
Bob Knight wants you to avoid condoms
Beggars and Choosers

Transcript:

This week on Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Bill Ryerson of the Population Media Center, talking about the sex lives of Democrats and Republicans, and answering the claims of an anti-choice ethicist.

Hans Johnson has a really good article at In These Times about how the nation is ready to move forward on gay rights. I agree, and saw some more evidence of this fact at Feministe, with an interview with Hillary Clinton about helping queer youth, who suffer from depression and suicide at higher rates than straight kids.

*insert hillary LGBT*

That a major presidential candidate is happy to talk freely about measures like high schools for gay kids really shows that we've come a long way on this issue. It's a good time to capitalize and push for more.

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I almost feel guilty doing this segment, because the subject reaches new levels of creepy. Frank Luntz, a political consultant who taught Fox News how to target their desired reactionary audience, did a survey for Playboy magazine on the sex lives of Americans, and broke down the results by political party. We're supposed to be surprised that Republicans and Democrats have pretty similar sex lives, but I'm not. Sex, while an endlessly fascinating subject, is not endlessly variable.

But there were some interesting differences. Luntz came onto Hannity and Colmes to talk about the article. Now this is where I have to warn you about the creepy, because Sean Hannity, Frank Luntz and Alan Colmes talking about sex is a little disturbing.

*insert luntz playboy 1*

I remember saying this when the survey was first released, but it bears repeating. The differences between Republicans and Democrats are almost surely caused by one big demographic difference between them. Republicans are more likely to be married than Democrats. Married people have more sex than single people. Having sex is easier if you have someone on hand to have sex with. Turns out some things are really that simple. Now if Democrats are more sexually adventurous, that might be due to the marriage thing, too. I can't say, though I doubt that the legendary rut married people fall into is probably something of a myth. Married people have more sex. Surely they have more motivation to mix it up a little.

Luntz ups the creepy, but Colmes has some more interesting information.

*insert luntz playboy 2*

That one shocked me, because I thought that it was universally acknowledged that intelligence is a turn-on. Or at least you're supposed to say that even if it you don't believe it. I must live in a rarified world. I'm just really surprised that a lot of survey takers, regardless of political affiliation, said, "Intelligence? Eh. Doesn't really do it for me." That's like being indifferent to a sense of humor.

*insert luntz playboy 3*

Okay, that one really surprised me. It's the first link between personal behavior and political affiliation that's hard to explain. It's not like the married Republicans vs. unmarried Democrats thing. When you start having sex is such a personal choice, I'm honestly shocked that political affiliation could be any predictor of it.

Colmes put up some of the survey results on his website. What I found interesting was that Obama and Thompson supporters were the most likely to have sex every single day and that the Clinton and Giuliani supporters were the least likely. I suspect that's age-related more than anything. Luntz also found that 25% of Republicans and 35% of Democrats have had more than 10 sex partners. Emily Douglas had an article last week up here at Rewire about the tension in the Republican party between the sex-phobes and those who aren't. I think that 25% number really tells us a lot about how real this tension probably is.

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*insert interview with Bill Ryerson*

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To mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the NPR show Tell Me More had a dual interview with pro-choice Dr. Robert Williams of Howard University and anti-choice David Solomon of the Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. I realize they have to be all fair and balanced, but it was really frustrating hearing so much ignorant nonsense coming out of Solomon.

*insert tell me more 1*

I'm not sure if he's being dishonest on purpose or if he really doesn't know, but either way, I think it's unethical to revise history in a way that misleads people. And he teaches ethics! Alarming. The notion that the court stepping in to protect women's rights is undemocratic demonstrates a shallow understanding of history and of democracy. You could easily make the very same argument he's making against Brown v. the Board of Education, because it's fundamentally the same kind of decision that protects individual rights from state oppression. You could even back that argument up more than you could with Roe v. Wade, because Brown was a genuine case of the court protecting individual rights against the will of the Southern white majority.

But contrary to the claims of anti-choicers, abortion rights are really popular and have been for a long time. More than 60% of Americans in 2004 wanted George Bush to appoint pro-choice judges to the bench, and 56% were cool with the pro-choice philosophy of on demand, no apology. Only 14% of Americans favor the outright ban demanded by anti-choice organizations. But even before Roe v. Wade, there's reason to think that the public by and large was tolerant and even approving of abortion. As historian Rickie Solinger notes in her book Beggars and Choosers, the attempts to crack down on abortion resulted in a lot of raids, but not that many convictions. Juries simply refused to convict abortion providers much of the time.

Solomon then insults the dignity of black women when he's asked why black women have more abortions on average than white women.

*insert tell me more 2*

Wow, way to not answer the question! And I love how he characterizes black women as creatures of instinct, instead of fully rational human beings.

But what's really interesting is the way he frames abortion rights as being a regime and an assault on women. Yet another anti-choicer who believes that abortion has to be banned to protect women, who are clearly too stupid to know what they're doing. The host cuts him off, and it's a good thing, because the women get abortions because they're stupid path he was walking down nearly got him into more racist hot water. Because if abortion is caused by female stupidity, and black women get abortions more than white women, he's painted himself in a corner where he's basically saying black women are especially stupid. In reality, the greater levels of poverty in the black community are the major, and probably sole, cause of the higher abortion levels.

But because my goal in this podcast is to try to leave each segment on a positive note, I'm going to play Dr. Williams' excellent defense of abortion as a right. All too often, and I'm as guilty as anyone on this, we talk about abortion in terms of it being a choice. But this is deeper than the issue of choice. This is about rights, equality, and self-determination.

*insert Williams conclusion*

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Links in this episode:

Transcript:

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. Here's Bob Knight, the male head of the group Concerned Women for America, explaining why the government should mandate warning labels on condoms that are worded to discourage using them at all.

*insert bob knight condom*

The condoms already have the warning label saying they're not 100% effective. Later in the video you get the impression that Knight would only be happy with a label that expressed common lies out there about how condoms don't work at all. Interesting that these are the people who think of themselves as so moral, even as they try to discourage people from reducing the risk that they'll get HIV.