this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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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.

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[–] frickineh@lemmy.world 189 points 10 months ago (13 children)

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 53 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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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[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 27 points 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..

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 12 points 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.

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[–] MisterMcBolt@lemmy.world 114 points 10 months ago (7 children)

“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 39 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 88 points 10 months ago (17 children)

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 21 points 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.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 58 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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 49 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] danl@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] doingthestuff@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"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.

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[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] charonn0@startrek.website 44 points 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.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago

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

On one level, this is all very stupid.

[–] blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 41 points 10 months ago (3 children)
[–] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 71 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They couldn't even get 12 women to pose.

[–] books@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago

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

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[–] neptune@dmv.social 38 points 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 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The No True Scotsmaning cycle of othering and auto-cannibalization continues unabated, I see.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] BenLeMan@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] generic@iusearchlinux.fyi 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

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!

[–] prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

This is easily resolved. Just start referring to the scandal involving the Watergate hotel as "Watergategate". Then the contradiction is resolved with only one change.

[–] silverbax@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Yes, I am with you! I have always hated it, it's such an American thing to do, not understand our own fucking language.

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What shocking information to come out! Not even two weeks into 2024, and we've already started Gategate

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[–] BeefPiano@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

“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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[–] Daxtron2@startrek.website 18 points 10 months ago

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

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 14 points 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.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Good...good

Let the dumbasserry flow thru your whole party

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[–] snekerpimp@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

“It’s the devil Bobby!”

[–] Seraph@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"She showed me her boobies and I liked them too!"

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

letThemFight.gif

Side note: what a bizarre thing for them to be squabbling over. All the pressing problems in the world, and this is what they are prioritizing. Even funnier that the reason they after picking isn't "should women be treated like objects?", but "should men be responsible for controlling their sexual urges?"

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 8 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Calendargate raises the question of what the war on “wokeness” is for: freeing conservatives to have raunchy fun without fear of left-wing censorship, or imposing a new vision of right-wing virtue in place of the reining liberal cultural ethos?

From evangelical film studios to right-wing literary imprints to borderline scammy survival kits, there’s a long and storied history of products being marketed specifically to conservatives as counterweight to what they see as the unacceptably liberal mainstream.

So while both Barstool and social conservatives groups might be comfortable voting for Trump and his fellow Republicans to fight against “wokeness,” they have wildly different views of what an ideal society might look like — including the kinds of cultural products they want to consume.

In a 2023 column, the New York Times’s Jane Coaston traced it back to a debate between William F. Buckley, the patron saint of movement conservatism, and Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine.

In 1966, Hefner appeared on Buckley’s television show Firing Line to defend a political doctrine he defined as “anti-puritanism” — the idea that “man’s morality, like his religion, is a personal affair best left to his own conscience.”

“The narrow ideological frame that the right operates in permits only a long, unending line of ‘conservative alternatives to [X],’ reproducing the values and animating assumptions of the dominant culture with a thin coat of right-wing policy priorities painted on top,” he argues.


The original article contains 1,764 words, the summary contains 237 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Let them fight with each other.

[–] ExaptationStation@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

But while part of the post-Trump right-wing coalition, [Barstool Conservatives] are very different from traditional social conservatives. They don’t see a society with widespread porn access and legalized weed as a problem; they see it as progress. Christian sexual morality holds less than zero appeal to them; they might even support same-sex marriage or (like Portnoy himself) legalized abortion.

So… liberals. They’re liberals.

[–] bazus1@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

They're libertarians who want to still want to enjoy the trappings of the patriarchy, and will vote to slow progress just to feel okay with telling gay jokes and objectifying women just a while longer. The trouble is, they will be on the menu as their postliberal "allies" begin targeting their alcohol consumption, their gambling, their pornography, and their sinful language.

And there will be no sense of irony when they throw in with those rebelling against Gilliad.

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