Until recently, John Scalzi has perhaps been most widely known as the man who taped bacon to his cat and put the pictures on his blog ("Whatever", which will soon celebrate it's 15th anniversary). Sure, his post comparing life to a video game (with Straight, White Male as the "easy" setting) generated quite a bit of internet comment last sprint. And last month CNN wrote about and linked to his seven-year-old piece on what it means to be poor. But today, he joined the giants, and earned the right to be mentioned alongside Swift, and Orwell, and Voltaire.
Today, he wrote "A Fan Letter to Certain Conservative Politicians" and it is the most brutal (and brilliant) piece of political satire I can recall reading in my life.
Excerpts below, but first a caution. In John's own words "this post is going to be oh-so-very-triggery for victims of rape and sexual assault. I am not kidding."
No time is wasted pretending this will be anything other than a brutal take-down of the recent ignorant, hateful blather from the right-wing.
Hi! I’m a rapist. I’m one of those men who likes to force myself on women without their consent or desire and then batter them sexually. The details of how I do this are not particularly important at the moment — although I love when you try to make distinctions about “forcible rape” or “legitimate rape” because that gives me all sorts of wiggle room — but I will tell you one of the details about why I do it: I like to control women and, also and indepedently, I like to remind them how little control they have. There’s just something about making the point to a woman that her consent and her control of her own body is not relevant against the need for a man to possess that body and control it that just plain gets me off. A guy’s got needs, you know? And my need is for control. Sweet, sweet control.
So I want to take time out of my schedule to thank you for supporting my right to control a woman’s life, not just when I’m raping her, but for all the rest of her life as well.
Does that seem a little harsh? Surely our political opponents don't really believe a
rapist should have more rights or control than the woman he raped. Yet isn't that the end result of their actions? 31 states even allow a rapist to sue for visitation rights or custody of the child if carried to term.
Look how much control you want to give me over that woman! I really can’t thank you enough for it. It warms my heart to know no matter how much I rape, or how many women I impregnate through my non-consensual sexual battery, you have my back, when it comes to reminding every woman I humiliate who is actually the boss of her. It’s me! It’s always been me! You’ll make sure it’ll always be me. You’ll see to that.
I know people here on Daily Kos don't need to be told what's so wrong with what Republicans have been saying. I still think you should read this, it's that powerful. And if it gives you extra ammunition to help someone else what is so wrong about it, so much the better.