Locked in Irons

            Have you ever said something stupid?  Ever blurt out some opinion or discombobulated fact that’s been rattling around in your assemblage of knowledge and immediately realized you were about as wrongheaded as you could possibly be?  And have you further attempted to shore up your already completely collapsed position with more bold statements from that same flawed train of thought until you find yourself stuck on a rail of outrageous pronouncements and fuzzy logic, and you can’t get off?  Have you continued to chatter uncontrollably like a parrot on Red Bull until you finally realize all  you really want is a cracker and to have the hood put over your cage?  I know I have.

            A few days ago, wannabe Republican Senator Todd Akin from Missouri said that during a “legitimate rape” a woman’s body “has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”  He was suggesting that during rape the biological process recognizes the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex and prevents pregnancy.  This statement from Akin, who is not a medical professional in even the most liberal definition of the term, has caused uproar, as it should, from all corners.  His grasp of science is disconcerting to say the least but it’s his opinion that there is a “legitimate” rape that begs the question, what exactly is illegitimate rape?  Some of the synonyms of legitimate are; normal, accepted, appropriate, correct, customary, and rightful.  Drop any of those words in front of rape, as Mr. Akin dropped legitimate and see how that looks.  Correct rape?  Accepted rape?  Do those sound right?

Mr. Akin’s idea that there are categories of rape is not new.  There are some that have suggested that non-consensual sex between a husband and wife is not rape, but that it’s the wife’s duty to engage in intercourse with her husband regardless of whether she wants to or not.   It’s not as a popular idea as it used to be, but it’s out there.  When asked what he meant by legitimate rape his answer was “forced rape.”  Again a question is begged; is there an acceptable rape as long as it's not forced?  Statutory rape is not "forced," does that make it acceptable?

Rape can be defined very easily.  Here we go; rape is when one party wants to have sex and the other doesn’t so the first party forces them to, either through violence or intimidation, or when a statute makes the sexual act illegal as in when at least one party is under-aged.

With both Democrats and Republicans criticizing Mr. Akin and with some Republicans calling for him to drop out the Senate race he is currently running, he is doing some back-peddling and offering apologies.  But unfortunately he is drawing his rhetoric from the same pool of ideas that got him where he is in the first place. His first apology wasn’t an apology; it was him saying he misspoke.  Apparently the wrong (ignorant and hurtful) words just popped into his mouth spontaneously.  Kind of like a woman’s body knowing she isn’t having consensual sex and shutting down the reproductive process I suppose.  Boy, pseudoscience is a bitch.  His second apology was pretty much a mirror of his first, but his third apology wasn’t an apology at all.  That third one was him fighting from the trench in which he’s put himself.  He said he “…misspoke one word in one sentence on one day…” and is vowing to continue his run for the Senate even though he has no support or money from his party.  But that trench is deep and he has a long and difficult climb out of it.

 There is a term that mariners use in very heavy seas.  It’s called Locked in Irons.  What it means is seas are so high that a ship gets caught in the trough formed by parallel waves and can’t climb out.  The most powerful ship’s cannot really climb uphill for too far.  We're talking really big waves.  These ships become slaves to current, wind, and waves, unable to steer in any direction other the ones that those forces take them.  You’ll probably never see a super tanker or aircraft carrier in this predicament but pretty much every other ship or boat can find themselves there if the weather is bad enough.  (In the book Halsey’s Typoon, it is described how nearly an entire WWII U.S. Navy fleet found themselves in this exact phenomenon.)

So Mr. Akin is locked in the irons of waves created by his blurted comments that likely represent his real feelings about rape, abortion, and where the decision making for women’s health should lie. Now Mike Huckabee, a fellow conservative Republican, and Chick-fil-A spokesman, has sailed his own ship right down there next to him with his recent comment about how some great people can be from raped mothers.  As if to say hey, rape ain’t so bad after all. These two can only look up at the crests of the waves and wait for the storm to end.  That's physics.  Real science is a bigger bitch.

Quote I couldn't fit in the blog:

     Comedian W. Kamau Bell said, "Chick-fil-A missed the perfect opportunity when they didn't simply change the name of their restaurant to Right-Wing."