But oh how they huffed and puffed! Oh how they wagged their fingers at Dunham for daring to — um — use a funny metaphor? There is nothing the slightest bit filthy in what Dunham has said. She says “my first time” and she means it’s supposed to be about voting. If Ann Romney were saying the exact same thing no one would draw the conclusion that she was being vulgar. But because it’s Lena Dunham, outspoken, sexually expressive “bad girl” they figure — oh, it’s controversial. Watch the video. Does she ever say anything remotely vulgar? No!
She could have said: “your first time you want it to be with a guy who knows how to wait to come before you do!” But she didn’t. She could have said “you want the guy to be sensitive enough to put the condom on himself” but she didn’t. Conservatives, heal thyselves.
What they are really afraid of is powerful women. Hell, you don’t have to look very far to find people who feel that way even in our own party — even from our once beloved Aaron Sorkin! Powerful women are scary. Neocons like their ladies so batshit-crazy they become ineffectual (but look great in heels and long nails while doing so) like Sarah Palin and that horrid Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann. They can stay because no one takes them seriously anyway. They are happy to hand over our rights and tell their own kids to “practice abstinence” so that their daughters can then show up pregnant and on and on and on it goes. We’ve been down this road before, haven’t we?
And so they are SHOCKED shocked that any woman anywhere would make a mention of sex (although Dunham never mentions sex, not one time). Remember Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut just for bringing up the subject of having birth control covered by insurance plans? So you can imagine what he and his kind might think of Dunham drawing this metaphor. You know Limbaugh curls up with a bowl of corn swirls and watches Girls when it’s on.
Some have accused Lena Dunham of loose morals — for … drawing … a … metaphor. But I think it’s pretty great that she would do this in hopes of catching the attention of young women voters, many of whom are too busy doing god knows what all to pay attention to the issues. But they might pay attention to Lena Dunham, especially if a hint of sex comes up. Remember, it’s 2012 so women aren’t supposed to be even having sex, let alone talking about it.
But here you go – just some of the hypocrites passing judgment on her:
Obama puts out ad comparing voting for him to losing ur virginity. His problem is many treat 2008 as 1 night stand they’d prefer 2 forget.— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 25, 2012
CorruptMedia won;t be able to protect Obama from HAVE SEX WITH O backlash. Going to be too big. — John Nolte(@NolteNC) October 25, 2012
You know that censored CNN story whose headline was a question? @lenadunham seems to have answered in the affirmative.— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) October 25, 2012
“I’m @barackobama and I approve of ads that make women out to be brainless sex objects.”— Kevin Eder (@keder) October 25, 2012
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@DennisPrager Perspectives: At age 26,@LenaDunham makes tacky Obama videos. At 26, I was a platoon leader in a war.
===
I’m going to take the liberty of adding another reaction to Lena Dunham’s video — a reaction from a sane person, a smart person, a liberal person, Lawrence O’Donnell:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
[Propaganda spam. Trash. The link to your sleazy propaganda site removed. Crawl back in your hole. See you in 2016. ] – Ryan
mayu, what the Hell video were you watching? Yes, Dunham uses losing one’s virginity as a metaphor for voting, but in the video I watched, she mentions a wide range of issues. She mentions having health insurance—the Affordable Care Act prohibits insurance companies from charging women more than men for the same coverage—and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which prohibits paying women less than men for equal work. So you accuse Dunham of voting only with her “lady parts” because she doesn’t like being financially punished for being born with “lady parts”? She also says that she supports Obama because he ended the war in Iraq; plenty of people of all genders support that. That leaves birth control as the one issue mentioned in this video that directly involves “lady parts”, as you say. It takes a pretty big leap in logic to then accuse Dunham of portraying women who vote as thinking only with their genitals.
I think the ad is just stupid. Lena looks and sounds ridiculous. The birth control crap is just propaganda and isnt even true. They arent stopping or banning birth control. And personally the Lawrence guy in the other video is also full of crap, the Reagan comparison is irrelevant.
To me the liberals just make lies to scare people into voting for them, and then we have a country filled with dependent people who fell for their lies. America did that in 2008 when they voted for Obama. Good thing he is gonna lose.
ROMNEY 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!
People are stupid and out of control. Lena is provocative and unapologetic about her sexuality, body and womanhood. That’s not vulgar, it’s how life should be. So tired of the double-standard when it comes to men and women.
The spot I guess could be considered sexist b/c she states “guy” a few times and it could have been “someone” or “a person” I mean if she voted in the 2008 primary her first time very well could have been Hillary Clinton.
BTW, my first time was Bill Clinton so Lena makes me feel very old, though I do wonder why she didn’t vote in 2004 since she was old enough. I guess that would have ruined the commercial though.
mayu, you seem to extrapolate a great deal from a one minute ad. Maybe you think those things about people who value certain personal and civil freedoms, but your assumptions are incorrect. It’s not that those other issues don’t matter to female Obama supporters. Some of us just happen to believe that if we don’t have the basic rights of control over our bodies or reproductive rights or the right to marry, then there is no path to happiness or economic equality. Opportunity and happiness start with basic, fundamental rights. Romney and many of his supporters would strip some of these away or restrict them. Let’s take your hypothesis to its full conclusion. Say Romney is elected, repeals health care, lowers taxes, reduces unemployment. But his administration is successful at building a supreme court that overturns Roe v Wade. His administration makes it more difficult for women to find affordable birth control or even find a job with equal pay as their male counterparts. That’s not a proposition many women want. I don’t believe in Romney’s fairytale economic plan, but why must women (and gays for that matter) be the trade off for a better economy? Why should they have certain basic liberties or rights prohibited? It’s not that women like Lena don’t know about the issues you present, it’s that they realize where full and complete social and economic health begins.
The O’Donnell video isn’t showing up for me, so maybe he mentions this, but didn’t Reagan make a similar joke about voting GOP? Are the Repubs going to lambast him as well?
I completely and resolutely adore Lena Dunham!
I’M A VIRGIN
I LIKE OBAMA
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
U MAD REPUBLICANZ?
“I’m a woman and I think with my Vagina. I want to vote for someone whose beautiful Tee Hee. I mean, who cares about anything else about health care, I NEED birth control. Especially if it’s on someone else’s dime. Tee hee. I can barely walk and chew gum… Yeah that’s about what’s important to me. My boobs and my vag. I mean, the economy, yeah like that effects anyone. Taxes? Like, so what? The only taxes I pay are the ones that come attached to that cute pink sweater on sale at Macy’s. And Who is Ben Ghazi anyway? I’ve never heard of him so Whatevs. Vote for Obama! Yay” <– this is literally how ridiculous this commercial sounded.
It makes women sound like shallow idiots who don't care about issues like national security, the economy, jobs, how businesses plan on leaving people without coverage because dropping their insurance and paying the fine is going to be cheaper than paying for Obamacare approved coverage… many still care how 22 states are over 8% unemployment, 3 over 10%… and this doesn't take into consideration those who gave up looking for work and no longer collect benefits… some of us also care about the fact that the deficit has gone up instead of down, and those collecting food stamps have doubled since Obama has taken office. Some of us care that Obama is turning this nation into a nation of dependance instead of independence. That's what ticks me off about this video. It makes us women look too stupid to care about any issues beyond our lady parts.
if you found this video funny as a woman… that's sad… cause you're just proving her point when it comes to being shallow, uneducated ditzes who vote with the lady parts instead of the lady smarts.
I just blogged on this at my site.
http://sickofitradlz.blogspot.com/2012/10/well-men-have-spoken.html
I find it interesting that all these men are weighing in.
I find the commercial sexist and homophobic.
Or did it not occur to anyone that every woman doesn’t want her ‘first time’ to be with a man?
As a lesbian, you can be sure I will never have sex with a man. Lena Dunham offers the same sexist and restricted view of women that Sex In The City trafficked in.
And if you doubt it, your first clue is all the men rushing to insist this homophobic and sexist nonsense makes a great commercial.
She’s the best. I’m in love.
I know the point of Sasha’s piece was to shame and ridicule the uptight dumbass right-wingers over another one of their faux outrage flare-ups.
But just to remind us what a sane American man sounds like, I’ve added another video reaction to the end of the post above. Let’s hear what a smart man, a sensitive man, a liberal man has to say about it. A man with a grasp of history, precedent and proper proportion. A man with a sense of humor and a genuine sense of decency. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.
Scroll up the end of Sasha’s article, if you missed the clip I added to update this post.
They have no idea what humor is. These conservatives are the ones that laugh at that Jimmy the Air conditioner repairman or what ever the fuck that guy’s name is.
At this point it’s just comical. One really can’t take any of these guys seriously. It’s truly like they watched a different video. To think that there is anything vulgar or tasteless about this video is as mind-boggling as it is laughable. I’d be laughing at the entire republican side if they didn’t have any power in government and politics. Sigghhh 11 more days until I can finally stop biting my nails. Please do the right thing, America.
Sigh. Matt, you have NO idea. It is particularly acute right now because of the election, but the US is an incredibly schizophrenic country.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I think your country is marvellous, but SO many of you need to lighten up. Really.
Love Lena. Love Girls. Love the ad. Rock on and keep doing your thing, Lena. Those who don’t get it or who are offended are so beyond the pale of having a sense of humor, I can’t even. I think the reaction by some just goes to show how truly diverse this country is culturally and sociologically. Thank god for Lena, a smart, articulate, witty, fresh voice in entertainment and art.
This is a great ad – cute and original – I don’t see the problem.
The photos of those piranha who sent those tweets look so innocent and distinguished; one would never realize they have so little to offer the rest of the world.
From an outsider’s perspective on this campaign, and in particular the response to the Myfirsttime ad – it comes across that you have one candidate, Tits Romney being followed and supported by a trail of fire and brimstone. Even if I knew nothing about the ‘other’ candidate, this would send me running in the other direction.
I know nothing about Romney (apart from his decent hair cut) but I now know plenty about his supporters. I’m predicting Obama for Best Picture and Romney for Best Makeup.
We have a female leader in our Country and a male as head of the opposition. With some tweaking this ad could be hysterical if applied to our own upcoming elections. I’m writing the script now.
She was born in May of 86. She was 18 in 2004. I guess no one wants John Kerry to be their first time.
LOVE the video! I think it’s great! Right wingers can stew and bitch about this all they want. Most of them just need a good fuck anyway.
I don’t understand. Most of those tweets don’t even seem to relate to the video. I know neocons have a habit of hearing what they want to hear, but this isn’t even a question of misinterpretation.
“I’m @barackobama and I approve of ads that make women out to be brainless sex objects.”
Romans 1 teaches that when God turns a people loose the first sins they embrace are the sexual lusts of the flesh.
WHAAAAAAAA?