It’s called “Calendargate,” and it’s raising the question of what — and whom — the right-wing war on “wokeness” is really for.

While most people were enjoying the holidays, extremely online conservatives were fighting about a pinup calendar.

Last month, Ultra Right Beer — a company founded as a conservative alternative to allegedly woke Bud Light — released a 2024 calendar titled “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar.” The calendar contains photos of “the most beautiful conservative women in America” in various sexy poses. Some, like anti-trans swimmer Riley Gaines and writer Ashley St. Clair, are wearing revealing outfits; others, like former House candidate Kim Klacik, are fully clothed. No one is naked.

But this mild sexiness was just a bit too much for some prominent social conservatives, who started decrying the calendar in late December as (among other things) “demonic.” The basic complaint is that the calendar is pandering to married men’s sinful lust, debasing conservative women, and making conservatives seem like hypocrites when they complain about leftist immorality.

  • frickineh@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’m really enjoying all the right wing women getting offended by this. Like, no shit these men don’t respect women, they never did. You’re not different or special just because you’re a giant pick-me, and conservative men only put you on a pedestal when they can use it to insult liberal women. Cry more about the situation you put yourself in.

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Yep.

      Andrea Dworkin:

      “Right-wing women have surveyed the world: they find it a dangerous place. … They see that traditional marriage means selling to one man, not hundreds: the better deal. … Right-wing women see that within the system in which they live they cannot make their bodies their own, but they can agree to privatized male ownership: keep it one-on-one, as it were. They know that they are valued for their sex— their sex organs and their reproductive capacity—and so they try to up their value: through cooperation, manipulation, conformity; through displays of affection or attempts at friendship; through submission and obedience; and especially through the use of euphemism—“femininity, ” “total woman, ” “good, ” “maternal instinct, ” “motherly love. ” Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners; they suffer, they love God, they follow the rules. They see that intelligence displayed in a woman is a flaw, that intelligence realized in a woman is a crime. They see the world they live in and they are not wrong. They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. … Male violence acts directly on the girl through her father or brother or uncle or any number of male professionals or strangers, as it did and does on her mother, and she too is forced to learn to conform in order to survive. A girl may, as she enters adulthood, repudiate the particular set of males with whom her mother is allied, run with a different pack as it were, but she will replicate her mother’s patterns in acquiescing to male authority within her own chosen set. Using both force and threat, men in all camps demand that women accept abuse in silence and shame, tie themselves to hearth and home with rope made of self-blame, unspoken rage, grief, and resentment.”

      See also: right-wing women who are obsessed about trans women being rapists, drag queens and bathrooms. Obviously trans women raping women is incredibly rare. But they’re a ‘safe’ and acceptable target for victimised and often traumatised women. Women who are too weak to criticise or attack the men who actually hurt them. Eg. JK Rowling is a victim of sexual and domestic abuse. The perpetrator was her husband. Instead of attacking straight men, she spends all day going on about trans women.

      You see this kind of psychology in most (quasi-)fascists. It’s sadomasochistic. Kiss the boot of those who opress you, hold those you hold to be below you in contempt and treat them accordingly. Of course, in reality right wing women have common cause with all the people they hate. Just like most right wing men have more in common with a poor black trans sex worker, than a billionaire.

      As you say, it’s hard to feel sorry for them. They’re sabotaging themselves, their gender and their class. They’re actively hurting those who could be their allies. It’s partly self-preservation, but it’s also vanity. They lie to themselves that they’re not (fellow) victims.

      TLDR: humans are weird.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yeah I would feel sorry for them, but as a trans woman I stood up for women as a whole. I’ve demanded equality my whole life. Conservative women respond by acting offended I consider myself their equal, ignoring that I consider them their husband’s equals

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          10 months ago

          There’s the “sad world theory” here: Some people don’t care how good or bad their life is, they only care whether others have it worse. There are enough of those people that they’re an actual social problem.

          So in this case, the theory is that they’d rather be slaves to their husbands as long as they can look down on trans people. That’s preferable to being equal to their husbands and also to trans people.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      conservative men only put you on a pedestal when they can use it to insult liberal women.

      Also when they want to keep “known predators of white women” (anyone who isn’t a white Christian) out/away. Though statistically they have no reason to fear the “competition”, they are already the biggest predators themselves…

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      10 months ago

      This is it. Every conservative imagines that they’re at the center of the in-group. In reality, they’re usually closer to the edge.

    • Kusimulkku
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      10 months ago

      Can you have a calendar with hot women in it while respecting women?

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yes. In believe so in many different forms. I don’t think extremely toned shirtless guys on magazine covers are disrespectful. It is just puritanical thought process that pushes the rhetoric that it is bad. Is employing women disrespectful? Not at all. There can be completely clothed women, completely nude women, a mixture of everyday people… which surprise, women who are found attractive do exist in. If someone doesn’t like something, they can not purchase it for their home. Note that when you looked at the not so covered man sexily draped across a poster/calendar/movie/book cover you don’t look down on all men because of it. They aren’t being disrespected. If someone thinks it is to revealing they think, that guy shouldn’t have done that. They are shunning the individual, not the whole gender/sex. So why would it be different for women?

      • frickineh@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I think so. If you recognize that women aren’t just neatly categorized as either a Madonna or a whore and they can want to look hot while also still being a full human being worthy of respect, then sure.

        • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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          10 months ago

          I’d go so far as to say that being a whore and being a human being deserving of respect are not mutually exclusive. Being a whore doesn’t inherently have to be a bad thing.

          • frickineh@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I meant more the proverbial whore than a literal one. Of course you can be a literal whore and be worthy of respect.

    • FishFace@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Did you read the article? The point here is that there is a division in conservative circles, so talking about conservative men as a single group is missing the point.

      The same division, presumably, exists among conservative women (albeit bearing in mind that in the USA men are more conservative than women) so there will be an alliance between pearl-clutching Christian women who decry the debauchery, and women who are feminist but for whom feminism culminated with the third wave, for whom objectification exemplified in a mildly raunchy calendar is something to, at worst, roll ones eyes at.

      So by all means enjoy the division in conservative ranks, and hope that it splits their base and ruins their chances of victory, but at least understand what is going on properly. What you think of as “respecting women” is probably not what conservative women think of as respecting women; you’re judging and understanding their beliefs through your own lens, in a way that makes you misunderstand quite badly.

      • frickineh@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Do you have to practice being that condescending or is it a natural ability? First, there’s no such thing as a conservative man who actually respects women, so this “division” is really just a disagreement about how they want to be disrespectful - via mildly titillating pictures, or via religious control.

        Second, I spend huge amounts of time in ex-fundie communities, and both religious and secular conservatism are basically the topic of conversation. I know what conservative women consider to be “respect,” and was applying their standards to this subject. Even by their absolute bottom of the barrel expectations, men are letting them down in this case. The only men on “their side” still view women as property and are only really upset because they think women should only be showing their bits to the man who owns her.

        • FishFace@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I know what conservative women consider to be “respect,” and was applying their standards to this subject. Even by their absolute bottom of the barrel expectations, men are letting them down in this case.

          Do you think the conservative women who appeared in the calendar agree with you? I would guess they don’t. So it seems to me your understanding of the spectrum of opinion is clearly missing something.

          Maybe your views on this are out of whack because of spending “huge amounts of time” in a community with a view of conservatism skewed by their unique experiences? That’s not a knock against doing so or against those people, just that fundies have particularly extreme experiences of politics and religion which is bound to mean you hear a lot of outliers.

          so this “division” is really just a disagreement about how they want to be disrespectful - via mildly titillating pictures, or via religious control.

          I am not conservative but I don’t think looking at mildly titillating pictures of women is disrespectful, and I think that’s an opinion which is pretty common across the political spectrum in the West.

          • frickineh@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Well since my original comment was exclusively addressing the women who were offended by the calendar, I thought it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t talking about the women who participated, but please, feel free to write a few more paragraphs showing me that you either didn’t read or didn’t understand what I wrote.

  • MisterMcBolt@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    “Grab-em-by-the-pussy” Conservatives vs. Puritan Conservatives is pretty funny to watch. However, I presume that both sides will vote for Trump because they have no sense of hypocrisy or irony.

    • Blackbeard@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      There’s a reason “woke” became the rallying cry over the past few years. It’s the only common thread holding the political coalition together. Everything else in each camp is nearly antithetical to one another. They vote together because they have the same enemy, not because they have the same interests or values.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        10 months ago

        That’s every election cycle with them, they need a boogyman to get people to vote. For “us” it’s Trump, (try to imagine how many people wouldn’t give a shit about voting if it was “only” Biden vs Romney.) For “them” it’s whatever fox says to keep them glued to the t.v, so last time it was vaccine conspiracies and abortion, before that it was the big bad Hillary boogyman and abortion, and now it’s “Woke.”

        (As a side note, I get so unbelievably disgusted when I see discussions on “Steam” with new games where it’s always some form of “woke game? Bad! Bad woke game! Don’t buy, woke!” Like for fucks sake, if you don’t want to set a pronoun then don’t! If you don’t want a male character with female hair styles then don’t you don’t have to do these things, they’re options!)

        Who knows what it will be next time, maybe they’ll come back around to holding snowballs in Congress to “debunk” climate change… Then again if Trump wins I’m not really sure if there will be a “next time.” I think Republicans know long term they’re going to lose so they need to consolidate power permanently this time.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      They willingly ignore those things and embrace that discordant feeling, calling that sensation of unease “loyalty”.

      • nomous@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Honed through a lifetime of indoctrination and belief in the unknowable, calling that sensation of unease “faith.”

    • Kusimulkku
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      10 months ago

      I’m not sure if you mean in primaries or election, but wouldn’t their situation in elections be the same as the other sides: you vote for the less bad (from your pov) of the two. Surely it’d be Trump rather than Biden for them, even if they’re on the wrong side of that right-wing divide

      • MisterMcBolt@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I have a hard time understanding any justification a Christian puritan would have for voting for Trump. The man embodies the excess of every sin that they obsess over, but I guess he’s the only politician who’s so open to lying to them about the things they most want.

          • MisterMcBolt@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I don’t think I’ve met anyone of any political leaning who would like Biden to be president. People, myself included, still see him as practically perfect compared to Trump.

            I’m not defending the Democrats (I’m independent and have no party loyalty). I’m just noting the outrageous state of American politics where puritanical conservatives are so terrified of change that they’d rather vote for a person who openly hates them and their way of life because he lies to them that he’ll maintain the status-quo.

            Trump is trash. Biden is trash. Almost all people with any proximity to the presidency are party-loyal trash or wannabe dictators (I.e. Desantis). That said, I’d still rather vote for trash who isn’t openly quoting Hitler and insisting he’s completely above the law.

            • Kusimulkku
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              10 months ago

              I just meant in the sense of better out of the two. I know basically nobody thinks of him as a great candidate, but from what I understand of the American system, the only thing that matters is whether the other guy is worse.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    LOL, let them fight. Also, the right wing’s weird obsession with trans women is just soooo revealing. I think they have some real inner demons they are wrestling with. I truly think some of them are deathly afraid they’ll be “fooled” by a trans woman and one of their buddies will find out and tease them mercilessly and their inner proclivities will be revealed…

    I think people that are on the more hetero end of the sexuality scale don’t really think about this kind of thing at all (other than - “hey, that’s not really my jam, but live and let live”). But it seems to consume a certain kind of man, I’ve noticed.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The left should absolutely fan the flames with questions about who is actually in charge: the people making decisions or the people shutting down those decisions?

      Is a calendar that celebrates women a bad thing if it embraces feminity?

      Does a man have the right to his own decisions or does he have an obligation to lead and, by extension, be a moral leader?

      How can a man enjoy being moral and enjoy women?

      This is how the left breaks the right: the small minded man vs the moral minded man.

    • FishFace@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      There is a great desire to see this kind of turnabout - for a long time people have said, without evidence, that the most anti-gay people are closeted, self-hating gay people themselves.

      The real reason for this is because that juxtaposition, when it does occasionally happen, sticks in the mind precisely because it’s so weird. But good luck backing it up, especially to the degree people portray it, as you have done. (which is fairly black and white, “more hetero people don’t really think about this kind of thing”)

        • FishFace@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I think you’ve missed my assertion, which is that this is an example of confirmation bias. Listing examples of that confirm what I’m claiming is confirmation bias isn’t saying much. What about the thousands of people coming out as gay who haven’t got a history of anti-LGBT shit? Well they aren’t as interesting so you don’t remember them when you read such an article.

          Your link is broken, but consider this: human beings are perfectly capable of hating one another for any difference, real or perceived. We don’t doubt that racism is down to hatred of the other, rather than the self, we don’t doubt that sexism is the same. Why is homophobia any different? Only because there is the potential for someone to be secretly gay.

          • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            You’re right, I didn’t catch your mention of confirmation bias, I only saw where you said there’s no evidence that the most “anti-gay” people were closeted.

            I provided an article that lists several vociferously anti-gay people that indeed had homosexual tendencies to explain why people might think that way (which is indeed evidence of at least the possibility of a correlative, if not causative, link), plus a study that systematically suggests that those observations actually may have an element of causation. Of course that link promptly broke. Thanks APAnet. I tried to link directly but realized it’s paywalled if you or your institution doesn’t have a subscription. Edit: I forgot about sci-hub! Here’s a link.

            Here’s a real functioning link to a decent article explaining the study, including a video of one investigator lconfirming the assertion in the first few seconds. My favorite, though, is the lead author’s quote:

            “Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves.” -Netta Weinstein

            The study didn’t quantify an effect size for the degree of homophobia relating to homosexuality, i.e., are the biggest homophobes those with the greatest closeted homosexual tendencies? That would be interesting.

            So while it’s absolutely ridiculous to state that all homophobes are hidden homosexuals, it’s not unreasonable to assert that being a closeted homosexual is one driver of homophobicity, therefore any homophobe may actually be homosexual to some degree with a greater likelihood than the probability of any particular person in the population being homosexual.

            • FishFace@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Thanks for the SciHub link, but it doesn’t say what you’re saying it does. It says that a particular kind of upbringing predicts a discrepancy between self-reported sexuality and a measure of “implicit sexuality.” They further found a relationship between self-reported straightness and homophobia when “implicit sexuality” was measured as “more gay”.

              Leaving aside the fact that (in my quick read-through, at least) although there was a lot of effort given to validating that this measure measured something, there was little effort given to validating that it measured sexuality, this correlation does not allow one to conclude that “those who profess anti-gay views are likely to be gay themselves” which is the distillation of what was expressed above. Let us start from someone who professes those views. The research means that, if you know this detail of their upbringing and if you know that they explicitly identify as straight (not the same thing as public identification) then you can predict (with clear statistical significance, but still quite low correlation) that that person scores highly on this measure of “implicit homosexuality”.

              If you check the summary table you can actually just read off the correlation coefficient between homophobic views and the measure of implicit homosexuality and see that it’s not statistically significant.

              And I do think that the measure of implicit sexuality, though clearly interesting and measuring something is equally clearly not a measure of “are you gay regardless of what you say about yourself.” It’s reasonable to believe we can use it to estimate homosexuality, but it’s like measuring distance with a ruler where all the markings have been scraped off. So even if a study like this did have a correlation with its measure, you then would have to mute the strength of that correlation by the strength of correlation between the measure and the underlying reality we’re interested in.

              • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                First off, I want to take a moment to recognize why I love Lemmy compared to places like Reddit or Facebook, where your alternate media equivalent would likely have told me to get fucked and made some choice comments about my mother. Instead, we’re having what is, at least speaking for myself, an intellectually stimulating conversation. It got me to really read a study outside of my discipline. Love it!

                Respectfully, I think you may have misunderstood the paper. What you stated is true, but it’s not the only things the investigators sought to examine. Their intent to look at reaction formation secondary to parental effectsis mentioned right in the abstract. Regardless, with enough quality data, observations secondary to the primary intent of the paper can be made, upon the results of which I’m basing my assertion.

                So the point I’m making, that there may be validity behind the assertion that straight identifying homophobes may have repressed homosexual desire, is addressed right in the first study. They used a MANOVA both with and without controls for gender and parent conservative beliefs, so of course there’s a vomit stream of results. Looking at table 1, there’s a statistically significant correlation (p < .01) between participant homophobia and low explicit orientation, i.e., identifying as straight. Shocking, I know but hey, at least their gay participants don’t hate themselves!

                But check out the results in study 1, which sought to assess the effects of parental autonomy support, participants’ implicit and explicit sexual orientation, and self-reported homophobia on the discrepancy between automatic and explicit measures of sexual orientation. In the “participant’s self-reported homophobia” paragraph, simple main effects split by self-reported sexual orientation suggested (I’m a scientist, I’ll rarely say “proved”) that individuals who identified low in explicit sexual orientation, i.e., straight, but had higher implicit gay orientation, i.e., maybe more a friend of Dorothy than they profess, related to higher homophobia, β= .56, t(32)= 3.79, p>.001. In the words of one of my old students, that’s totes significant. n=89, which is a little low but not awful.

                Same in study two, which looked at parents attitudes of homosexuality on participant sexual orientation and homophobia. Back in the results, with more MANOVA chowder, again under “participant’s self-reported homophobia”, simple main effects suggested that higher implicit orientation, i.e., more potential repressed “flame on”, related to increased self-reported homophobia when explicit sexual orientation was low, i.e., “straight” as an arrow, β=.43, t(104)=4.79, p<.001. again, the goats of statistical significance give it a totes. n=181, I like this more.

                And same in study three, same results section, same correlation. Simple main effects were split by high and low explicit sexual orientation and show that when participants identified as straight, higher implicit orientation positively correlated to self-reported homophobia, β=.43, t(62)=-1.38, p<.001. n=189, yay.

                Section four? Same multivariate correlation between explicit and implicit orientation and self-reported homophobia, β=.67, t(132)=10.54, p<.001, n=181.

                I think the issue you’re running into when you’re looking at the summary tables for each study is that it’s only illustrates a bivariate analysis while a MANOVA analyses multiple variables, making a two-dimensional representation of results kind of sprawling. You’ll either have a metric fuck ton of tables or, more commonly, the results are just in the text, which is what we’re seeing here. For example, the correlation just between implicit orientation and homophobia includes EVERYONE, straight, gay, and everything in-between. Anyone who isn’t repressed should have explicit and implicit scores that are pretty similar, so that’s going to muddy the waters, getting you no statistically significant correlation because that high implicit scores means different things for different groups but they’re all being considered together there.

                Now, the study has some weaknesses. The sample size for each study isn’t real low, but it’s not very high either. Another issue is the relative homogeneity of each group. These guys were largely snagging college students from one or two colleges, which is a great way to grab a bunch of people at once, but is not always representative of the population. Lastly, psychology is squishy, so there’s always the question of if the methods of assessment result in accurate data, in other words, whether the tests were bullshit or not. To this study’s credit, it uses a variety of previously tested assessment methods. But it does absolutely suggest, with statistical significance, that participants who identified as straight but may have been a little gayer than they thought have a correlation with a higher occurrence of homophobia.

                Whew. This is a lot, sorry!

    • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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      By definition, a man being attracted to a femininity is the least homo thing possible. A man dating a woman is a hetero relationship, irregardless if she is cis or trans. Ironically, this post is telling on yourself for your own bias against trans people.

      If you are gonna speak about trans issues, then you need to understand the issues they face. Because frankly, this sort of argument does more harm than good.

      • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Having dated as a pre-op trans woman, there absolutely are a bunch of guys who clearly want cock (as in they beg me to top them/let them go down on me/cover them in rivers of sticky jizz), but still want to think of themselves as straight and feel guilty about wanting said cock. I think this is the population OP was talking about, they are often referred to as “chasers”.

        My guess is that there are more conservatives in this situation because of the social repression associated with that belief. I also know from experience that unwanted feelings of attraction are often sublimated into anger and disgust … b-b-b-BAKA!

        The guys who call themselves pan or bi and are like “I like tits, I like cock, let’s do this” behave completely differently and far less weird.

        And there are also haters because Fox News told them to be (my father is one of them).

        • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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          Perhaps! I am a trans woman not interested in bottom surgery, and that has led to a lot of men saying “where there is two pensises it’s gay”, regardless of the fact that I outwardly pass as a cis woman and have no interest in “using” my penis. Chasers were a real problem for me as well while I was dating, before my current (ace) relationship.

          I think we could probally agree that there is a lot more conservative bigots out there then closeted chasers, but that’s kinds inherently unknowable, it’s not like these guys are gonna self report on survey.

          So to my mind, it seems more likely to read this as a well intending yet confused ally instead of the much smaller subset of “publicly republican/closeted chasers”.

          (and Im sorry for your father, my own family thinks I am dead because they are too concerned with making America great than respecting me)

            • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Awww, thank you for the kind words. ♥ 💕

              To be honest, dating as a trans vegan left me with a funny story. The first two people I saw more than once, (who were also trans and vegan), turned out to be each other’s ex’s! I didn’t put it together until a few dates in but I suddenly became worried Did I already find the edge of the dating pool?!? Is it really just the three of us?!?” I wouldn’t date a meat eater since I’m vegan for ethical reasons, cis and non-queer people were definitely a option, but it was surprising to me how many vegans were openly transphobic or made fetishizing type comments before even saying hello. 🙃

              Thankfully it turned out to be 4 of us in my location. My partner and I have been together for two years and we still joke about finding #5 someday. 😂

        • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          more hetero end of the sexuality scale

          It is not homosexual for a heterosexual cis man to be attracted to a trans woman. I’ll forgive and edit if the original poster misspoke or I misread, but if they are saying it’s gay for a man to be with a trans women (or it reveals their proclivity) then they are wrong and have the same biased takes as the conservites they are mocking.

          • HandBreadedTools@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I don’t think that’s the take they’re claiming. I interpreted what they wrote as referring to straight men not understanding why they are attracted to trans women. I think the “hetero end of the sexuality scale” portion was just to clarify the situation doesn’t really apply to bi or gay people as much, though I personally think a fair amount of cis gay men are very transphobic.

            Nothing you said is false at all, I just don’t think the original commenter was trying to have that take. If that was the take, then I 100% agree with you.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        Nah, nothing more masculine than gay sex.

        Having a woman in the mix makes it too feminine.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    the calendar is pandering to married men’s sinful lust

    I’ve been looking porn since I was a teenager. Which would be 30 years now. I’ve been married for 23 years. Figure it out, Christians. You don’t have to fuck everything you look at, even if what you’re looking at is naked.

    • Raziid@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Many Christians believe that lust is just as sinful as actually doing the deed. It’s based on one saying of Jesus where he says if you look upon another woman with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart.

      This interpretation is foundational to a lot of Christian sexual thought and explains why they have failed to have a healthy relationship with sex.

      • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I mean, at that rate the only viable solution is to nudify everything to the point it becomes completely desensitized. Then they won’t feel lust every time some girl shows her ankles.

        But game theory isn’t religion’s strong point.

        • Raziid@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I think one of the main issues with the interpretation is the meaning of lust.

          Is it attraction? Is it masturbation with a woman in mind? Is it flirting?

          In the time these things were written, women were widely viewed as property and desire was not a huge part of marriage. Who knows what specific sort of cultural thing he might have been referring to?

          Personally I think lust is the debasement of a person for your own enjoyment. People consensually engaging in sexual exhibition and other feelings of attraction or sexual fantasy are probably not what Jesus had in mind and aren’t really harmful to healthy adults.

          • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Not widely.

            Ancient Egyptians, who were around when the Bible was written/collected, absolutely had the concept of women being more than objects and while not having equal rights, as I recall they were at least allowed to own things/land and go out on their own.

            Ditto the Gauls and Celts. Hell, one of the reasons for Boudicca’s revolt is the massive loss of rights for women going from Celtic culture/law to Roman culture/law.

            • Raziid@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Widely in the Semitic and Roman culture and religious context who made up Jesus’ audience*

      • danl@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        This is what I find most hilarious about it. The whole point of that teaching is to remove the lust - if you actually love your wife, you won’t lust after others. But simpletons’ answer is to not look at stuff. It’s bizarre.

        • Wolf_359@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          But even that is ridiculous. You can love your wife and find other people highly attractive. You can even fantasize about them. You can even have little crushes.

          We’re human beings and evolution is a powerful thing. Sex is in our DNA - it’s probably the strongest urge we have after our basic survival needs are met.

          The difference is that most healthy adults know that you can be turned on by someone and not take it any further than that. You are free to make your own choices. You and your significant other decide what kind of relationship you want and agree to respect whatever boundaries you do or don’t set.

          I see gorgeous women with great personalities all the time. They’re very attractive but I love my wife so I stay faithful to her. It’s not difficult.

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      10 months ago

      I like to ask this question. If men’s lust is uncontrollable, why aren’t there more assaults in go-go bars? The answer is always the same; there’s a big bouncer at any club to defend the girls. Controlling lust is easy if you know there will be consequences.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I don’t even think a bouncer is necessary for a lot of men. I’m not into strip clubs myself, but if I was, I’d still be able to keep it in my pants because there’s the whole consent thing. I realize a lot of Republicans don’t give a shit about consent, but most of the rest of us do and I’m guessing that the majority of men who visit strip clubs would never think of sexually assaulting a stripper.

        I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t have a bouncer, because there are some men who can’t control themselves, I’m just saying plenty of men are perfectly able to see strippers and not attack them.

        • honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          I realize a lot of Republicans don’t give a shit about consent, but most of the rest of us do

          I’m pretty sure the core goal of right wingers in their respective domains is preventing us from gaining the ability to consent to more stuff - or in their more extreme, for taking away our ability to consent to things - so yeah you’re right about that. Democracy is a system of consent, and our progress towards that was being challenged during the Enlightenment. Today, for example, many right wing economists are against democratically elected managers/bosses, unions, democratic government owned enterprises, government welfare safety nets for the vulnerable, housing cooperatives as a solution to the housing crisis, the list goes on. The pattern being that all of those increase the average person’s ability to consent to more stuff by leveling power asymmetries.

        • Dagwood222
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          10 months ago

          “Go into the cage, it’s for your own protection.” Forcing women to dress and act a certain way isn’t about protecting the women, it’s about controlling them. Look at how the Taliban are treating women and young girls. The preachers will swear up and down it’s to protect the women.

    • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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      “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” - Jesus

      And oh yeah I discovered porn at age 8 or 9. He knows he’s setting an impossible standard which was his point, but the people arguing about a sexy calendar don’t understand.

      • calabast
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        10 months ago

        “Don’t be horny. Here’s a horny brain. Lol.” -God, probably

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      You don’t have to fuck everything you look at, even if what you’re looking at is naked.

      I mean, they’re a bunch of ascetics, so they’re wound up tighter than shibari ropes.

    • Iamdanno@lemmynsfw.com
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      10 months ago

      Those pictures aren’t even going to move the needle in a world with internet porn on your smartphone.

  • Melllvar@startrek.website
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    10 months ago

    The basic complaint is that the calendar is pandering to married men’s sinful lust, debasing conservative women, and making conservatives seem like hypocrites when they complain about leftist immorality.

    Oh, sweetie… it’s not the calendar.

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    10 months ago

    Good article, because it really could have just been this line:

    On one level, this is all very stupid.

      • books@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Right, I went looking for the images to see about the hubub, and they had one woman twice.

        In fairness, when I googled the term calendargate, the only thing that popped up with this article, so I don’t know if this is actually somethign that people are talking about or just five people on twitter are in a huff about, and as we all know, twitter ain’t fucking a source.

        • PraiseTheSoup
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          10 months ago

          Actually there are two women doubled up, for a total of 10 unique women in a 12 month calendar.

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      10 months ago

      Was about as tame as the post made me think. What a ridiculous fight

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    10 months ago

    This was always the bargain of the patriarchy for the men in power, right? Barstool conservativism in private (ie “locker room talk”, strip clubs, paid for mistresses) but then a religious culture that enforced their public power (ie family, chastity for at least women, bans on people gossiping about their private Bartool Empire).

    They are at odds, but not really. What’s the point in religiously subjugating women if you can’t ogle them and cheat on your wife? This hypocrisy IS patriarchy. At least as I understand it.

  • Skanky@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    This is about the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day. Every time I think maga can’t get any more stupid they keep proving me wrong.

    • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      There’s an entire wing within the MAGA movement that has spent the last 50 years fighting to send women back to the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, who can no longer fill their days extoling the horrors of medical abortion…so they’ve moved on to next issue…which apparently is women’s ability to dress themselves. Once they’ve perfected whatever the Christian version of a hijab will be (I’m imagining something similar to what Mennonite women and girls wear), they can start kicking them out of workplaces and higher education. I remember back when Obama got elected, and they all started talking about how Sharia was coming to America… I always assumed it was just anti-muslim ranting. Guess it was a policy proposal.

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      You might be a bigot but there is always someone more bigot than you. It reminds me of this anti-secularist protest walk in Turkey. Some participants were playing music during the protest and some other guys came and started arguing with them saying it was not very Muslim like to play that kind of music so loudly out in the open. It is just so delicious when this happens.

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      It’s good to see that this problem can affect the right as much as the left for a change. Let them pick each other apart.

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    10 months ago

    Am I the only one who hates “-gate” used to call something a “scandal?”

    Watergate was the name of the hotel, it wasn’t a scandal involving water!

  • BeefPiano@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    “This is the problem with conservatives who think they can act just like the secular world,” writes Jenna Ellis, one of Donald Trump’s attorneys during the 2020 election fight. “If conservatives aren’t morally grounded Christians, what are we even ‘conserving’?”

    Such a good slam by the writer that probably went over Ellis’s head.

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    I know it won’t happen but could you imagine if this was the event that fractured the republican party instead of all the previous BS

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    10 months ago

    …and making conservatives seem like hypocrites when they complain about leftist immorality.

    Everyone knows they are hypocrite. They fool no one but themselves. And even that is done poorly.