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5 Super-Fun Ways to Handwave Child Sexual Assault

Screenshot from the Washington Post's November 9, 2017, article about child sexual assault accusations against Senate candidate Roy Moore
This is what Leigh Corfman looked like when she was 14 and Roy Moore allegedly made his move on her outside of her parents’ child custody hearing.

[Trigger warning for child sexual assault]

If you’ve been looking for tips on how to pretend child sexual assault is okay, don’t miss the current parade of excuses against accusations that a Republican Senate candidate molested a teenager when he was in his 30s.

In a story published by the Washington Post last week, Leigh Corfman said she was 14 years old when Roy Moore, then a 32-year-old district attorney, approached her and her mother as they waited outside the courthouse for a child custody hearing. Per her allegations*, Moore offered to keep an eye on Corfman while her mother, Nancy, went in for the hearing, and while Nancy was out of the way, Moore chatted Corfman up and asked for her phone number. Over the next couple of weeks, he would drive her out to his home, kiss her, take her clothes off, touch her genitals through her underwear, and try to make her touch his.

“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.” Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.

A Post reporter was in Alabama working on a story about Moore’s supporters when she first heard about Moore’s notorious pursuit of teenaged girls. Over the course of three weeks, writers Stephanie McCrummen, Beth Reinhard, and Alice Crites turned up three more women — none of whom knew each other or Corfman, and none of whom approached the Post themselves — who said that Moore pursued them when they were teenagers, although there was no sexual contact beyond kissing.

Wendy Miller says she was 14 and working as a Santa’s helper at the Gadsden Mall when Moore first approached her, and 16 when he asked her on dates, which her mother forbade. Debbie Wesson Gibson says she was 17 when Moore spoke to her high school civics class and asked her out on the first of several dates that did not progress beyond kissing. Gloria Thacker Deason says she was an 18-year-old cheerleader when Moore began taking her on dates that included bottles of Mateus Rosé wine. The legal drinking age in Alabama was 19.

During the lengthy investigation for this thoroughly-reported story, the reporters talked to 30 independently corroborating individuals, some of whom knew Roy Moore during the time he was ADA for Etowah County and some of whom had heard the specific stories of which he’s being accused at the time the actions allegedly took place. Corfman described her story consistently through six interviews, and divorce records confirm that her mother was at the courthouse during the time Corfman said Moore first approached her. The four women — who are speaking openly and by name — were initially reluctant to talk to the Post but ultimately did it because they felt it was important for people to know.

For his part, Moore denies outright that he molested Corfman and said that he might have pursued other teenagers but, like, probably didn’t. He told Sean Hannity, “If I did, I’m not going to dispute these things, but I don’t remember anything like that.” (After his return from the military, he “dated a lot of young ladies,” he said, but that dating a teenager was “out of [his] customary behavior.”)

That lukewarm denial wasn’t good enough for some conservatives, who immediately withdrew their endorsement, and some others came out with oh-so-definitive “if it’s wrong, he should definitely step down” responses. But others accepted that if he said he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it, and that our boy Judge Roy would never do anything like that, resulting in a textbook example of how to justify and rationalize your continued support of a man credibly accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl.

1. Smear the alleged victim.

On Fox News, Sean Hannity — The Father Of A Daughter And A Brother To Sisters — and legal analyst Mercedes Colwin implied that most sexual assault accusers are lying for money and are hurting “women, people that are victims of predators” (don’t forget to pretend you actually care about sexual assault victims, now!), who are “very few and far between.” Dinesh D’Souza implied that Corfman is lying because of the timing of the accusations.

Defenders have brought up brought up Corfman’s past divorces and bankruptcies in an attempt to discredit her, reported claims that she’s made other sexual assault accusations in the past apparently sourced from Moore’s Facebook page, and speculated that Corfman just fantasized about being molested by Moore due to her “questionable past.” Pizzagate conspiracist Jack Posobiec encouraged his Twitter followers to stalk her at her last known place of employment. Breitbart interviewed Corfman’s mother to try and catch her out in a lie because 14-year-old Corfman didn’t have a phone in her room.

In an interview with Huntsville radio station WVNN, State Rep. Ed Henry — A Father Of Two Daughters — said that “what these women are doing is such a shame.” “They discredit when women actually are abused and taken advantage of,” he said. “They’re not using their supposed experience to find justice. They’re just using it as a weapon, a political weapon.”

Corfman openly admits that she’s had three divorces and filed for bankruptcies three times, and that she once paid a fine for driving a boat without lights and was charged with a misdemeanor — later dismissed — for selling beer to a minor when she worked at a convenience story. She also had a history of self-destructive behavior as a teenager following her molestation at the hands of a 32-year-old man.

After talking to her friends, Corfman says, she began to feel that she had done something wrong and kept it a secret for years.

“I felt responsible,” she says. “I felt like I had done something bad. And it kind of set the course for me doing other things that were bad.”

She says that her teenage life became increasingly reckless with drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt when she was 16.

Corfman said in her interview that she wanted to come forward in the past but chose not to because, in part, she was afraid people would bring up her past issues to dismiss her accusations.

She says she thought of confronting Moore personally for years, and almost came forward publicly during his first campaign for state Supreme Court in 2000, but decided against it. Her two children were still in school then and she worried about how it would affect them. She also was concerned that her background — three divorces and a messy financial history — might undermine her credibility.

“There is no one here that doesn’t know that I’m not an angel,” Corfman says, referring to her home town of Gadsden.

This is why sexual assault victims don’t come forward. Corfman’s bankruptcies have nothing to do with whether it’s plausible or not that Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 14. A woman is not a liar because she’s been divorced or one time she drove a boat without lights. People question women’s credibility when they don’t come forward and then rip them to shreds when they do — and then self-righteously accuse them of betraying all sexual assault victims for choosing not to step in front of the firing squad. You people are monsters.

And on the subject of accusations not arising during Moore’s past campaigns: In the past, Moore has only run for statewide offices that haven’t garnered national media attention. These accusations only came to light because the Post, with time and resources that local media outlets generally don’t have, went down to Gadsden to learn about the candidate’s supporters and ultimately learned far more than they thought they would.

2. Say it happened a long time ago.

It’s not like he molested a lot of teenagers, Henry said. And if he did, it was the victims’ fault for not coming forward so they could be properly smeared by the media.

“The idea that accusations like this would stop his campaign is ludicrous. If this was a habit, like you’ve read with Bill Cosby and millions of dollars paid to settle cases and years of witnesses, that would be one thing,” Henry said. “You cannot tell me there hasn’t been an opportunity through the years to make these accusations with as many times as he’s (Moore) run (for office) and been in the news.

Henry said he believes legal action should be considered against Moore’s accusers, finding their story unbelievable.

“If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years. I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You can’t be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion,” Henry said.

To Moore’s defenders, past sexual assault dissolves over time to the point that 40 years later, it doesn’t even matter anymore, and a man who molests a teenager is no longer a molester anymore. Like, say a dude probably hasn’t molested a teenager in, like, years. As long as he isn’t molesting teenagers anymore, what does it matter if maybe he molested one in the past?

3. Lie.

In an interview with the Toronto Star‘s Daniel Dale, Marion County GOP Chair David Hall just flat-out said untrue stuff, none of which actually makes it okay anyway or even lessens the severity of the offense, but we’ve established that the truth basically never matters in anything anymore in our current political climate so he might as well.

“It was 40 years ago,” Alabama Marion County GOP chair David Hall tells me. “I really don’t see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. She’s not saying that anything happened other than they kissed.”

Well, no, she said he also touched her genitals and tried to make her touch his.

Me: “The story said she said he tried to get her to touch his genitals.” Hall: “Well, she said he may have TRIED to. But we’re talking something that somebody SAID happened, 40 years ago. It wouldn’t affect whether or not I’d vote for him.”

No, she said that he made her put her hand on his crotch, and that he touched her genitals.

More Hall: “The other women that they’re using to corrobrate: number one, one was 19, one was 17, one was 16. There’s nothing wrong with a 30-year-old single male asking a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, or a 16-year-old out on a date.”

The fourth accuser was 18, not 19, and Moore was 32, not 30. But it’s good he mentioned that Moore was single at the time — if he’d been married, that shit would have been out of line.

4. The “Grass on the Field” defense.

Breitbart News editor-at-large Joel Pollak pointed out that only one of Moore’s alleged targets was under Alabama’s age of consent — the other three were 16, 17, and 18. Because he wasn’t doing anything illegal — and one of them wasn’t even a minor, y’all, like, chill out, right? — obviously he wasn’t doing anything wrong, and this was just a “desperate political attack.” When a grown man is pursuing a girl who has to change out of her high school cheerleading uniform before they go on dates where he plies her with alcohol, that’s perfectly okay, because she’s legal.

When it’s their candidate under fire, Moore’s defenders seem happy to trace the narrow but existent line between illegal and abusive and absolutely not okay, because the spirit of the law is for suckers when you have the letter of it to fall back on and personal judgment and basic human decency are not a thing.

“If this story is true, and I think that any story about sexual misconduct, especially with someone who is underage, is very serious — why would the Washington Post wrap it with all kinds of perfectly legitimate relationships as well as all kinds of other political clutter?” Pollak asked.

Fun fact: A a 32-year-old man pursuing a 16-year-old girl is not a legitimate relationship, Jesus Christ.

5. The “For the Bible Tells Me So” defense.

Speaking of “Jesus Christ,” the possible winner in this one has to be Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler, who argued that whether or not Roy Moore actually molested a teenager, there’s nothing wrong with that. His statement to the Washington Examiner relies on the well-known fact that everything that happens in the Bible is okay.

“There is nothing to see here,” Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”

Which is only true if you think a 32-year-old man who fondled a 14-year-old and tried to make her give him an over-the-underwear hand job was going to just put his pants back on and take her home afterward even if she hadn’t objected first. And as long as he did that, it’s cool, because people did it in the Bible and everything that happens in the Bible is okay.

“He’s clean as a hound’s tooth,” Ziegler claimed, before relying on Scripture to defend Moore.

“Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”

“There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” Ziegler concluded. “Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

If only this kind of thing were unusual — both grown men molesting teenaged girls, and people going out of their way to excuse it.

*I have to.

I am not my reproductive organs.

A rat terrier wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe
People clothes notwithstanding, he is not a people, and I am not a mother, and I have no interest in being a mother.

Take my uterus. Please.

I mean, don’t actually take it, because that seems like it would be an unnecessary surgical procedure under the circumstances. But I have no intention of ever using it. I don’t want kids. I love my life as it is, without the drastic changes that would come with the introduction of kids. I don’t owe anyone kids on the basis that I’m educated and middle-class. I don’t owe my parents grandchildren simply because they’ve always dreamed of being grandparents. I take umbrage at the implication that I have no idea how unfulfilling my childfree life really is from people who have never even met me. For all that I pretend to talk for my dogs, I’m under no illusion that they’re actually people and that I’m their mother — I’m their owner, and it’s exactly what I want to be, because I don’t want to be a mother. I think the argument that I should create new humans so I’ll have someone to care for me in my old age is deeply creepy. I’m fully capable of not wanting kids without judging anyone else’s decision to have kids. I’ve made it 36 years without wanting kids, and The Boy has made it even longer than that, and we determined early in our relationship that it wouldn’t result in kids, and that’s a feature, not a bug. Having kids is, from what I can tell, the sole function of my uterus, and I just don’t need it.

(Not that this has come up, like, a hundred and twelve times.)

That doesn’t make me any less of a woman. My uterus, ovaries, and vagina aren’t what make me a woman. The first two are basically unneeded ride-alongs within my abdomen. (The last one is treasured indeed, heyoooo…) I don’t need or want to be defined by a biological process and a couple of organs that I don’t even need.

I was most happy when I got my hormone-releasing IUD, because it took care of some of the unneeded features of my uterus — namely (most of) the risk of pregnancy and the annoyance of getting my period — on a long-term basis. I wasn’t treating them as any kind of disorder — I was just avoiding side-effects of something I didn’t care about anyway. Some women romanticize their periods and find them empowering and celebrate every cramp and clot, and they get to do that, but I get to not.

My period, when I had it, wasn’t some sacred moon-time when I felt connected to my ancestresses throughout history and all of womankind around the world — it was the time when I got cramps and got greasy and acted pissy and the lining of the uterus that I don’t even need occasionally ended up in my panties. Menstrual blood is wet and slippery and sometimes chunky, and that it comes from my sacred womb makes it no less gross to encounter as anything else wet, slippery, and chunky. That time was not precious to me. I’m allowed to feel that way.

Spotting, as I do now from time to time, doesn’t give me all kinds of romantic thoughts about womanhood. If anything, it makes me think of the way my mother (who loves me sincerely, and whom I sincerely love) cried when I told her that I don’t want to have kids. It makes me think about how the Catholic church essentially mandates my willingness to have kids as a matter of doctrine. At best, it’s an annoyance. That’s the case most of the time. It’s just not important to me.

I know there are a lot of people who would love to have a healthy, fully functional uterus and ovaries, and I respect that. Some people are traumatized and struggle with identity issues after losing their uterus and/or ovaries to injury or illness. Some people experiencing fertility problems are deeply offended and even hurt by my feelings about my own body. But that doesn’t make those feelings any less real or any less valid. Nor are the feelings of women who have contentious relationships with their own reproductive organs — who live with debilitating disorders, who feel like they’re being attacked by their own bodies — any less valid.

Do not pressure me to have kids I don’t want. Do not shame me for not painting with my menstrual blood and dancing in the woods every time the communists are on the march. Do not marginalize me for my reproductive choices. Do not accuse me of harming women or betraying the sisterhood when I speak up about my choices. Do not attack other women’s womanhood in my name. I am done with it. Done with it. Done. Step off.

Every woman has the right to define womanhood for herself. If she wants to identify with her reproductive organs, that’s great. If she never feels more like a woman than during pregnancy, that’s good for her. If it happens when she has a brand-new hairdo with her eyelashes all in curls, I’m happy for her. I tend more toward the latter than either of the former, but I usually feel it when I’m at the gym or out backpacking or mountain biking — at which point I kind of feel like Wonder Woman, which is a good feeling. It’s not about womanly biology or spurious accusations of reinforcing gender stereotypes — it’s about whatever floats your ladyboat.

There are few body parts with which I identify less than my uterus. I use my right pinky finger to stabilize my hand when I write, which activity is far more precious to me than anything related to reproduction. The implication that I am defined by that irrelevant organ is annoying to insulting. The implication, beyond that, that I’m defined by my potential to have babies — the potential to do something that I don’t even want to do, rather than something that’s actually is important to me — is extremely insulting.

Reproductive organs don’t define womanhood.

It’s one reason I tend to refer to the genital area as the “ladyregion” (despite some people’s annoyance at the twee expression): For one thing, I’m amused by the sheer Victorian prudishness of the term, but it’s also an acknowledgement that women have a variety of anatomical structures down there including, but not limited to, the vagina.

Not having a vagina, or having a neovagina, doesn’t keep a woman from being a woman. Having a vagina, or having a uterus, whether or not she wants to use it, doesn’t make a woman a woman. Having a uterus and not wanting to use it, or not treasuring it and worshipping it on a monthly basis, doesn’t make a woman less of a woman. Having a uterus that doesn’t function because of infertility or menopause doesn’t make a woman any more of a woman than one who doesn’t have one, or any less of a woman than one who has one that works.

It’s not about what organs a woman has down there or what she does with them. Womanhood is personal. Trying to exclude a woman from “womanhood” because her definition of woman differs from yours is reprehensible. Trying to hold a woman to the standards of your definition of womanhood even if hers differs is reprehensible. You don’t get to make that decision, certainly not on behalf of the full fellowship of womankind.

I am not my ladyregion. I might be my right pinky finger, but I’m not my ladyregion. Don’t put me in a box.

(See what I did there?)

Yes, Trump attacks white guys. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a bigot.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: (AFP OUT) U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's first address to Congress is expected to focus on national security, tax and regulatory reform, the economy, and healthcare. (Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo - Pool/Getty Images)
“He’s a dickhole to everyone” is not an appropriate defense of a president. <em>(Photo Jim Lo Scalzo – Pool/Getty Images)</em>

Anyone who ever predicted that we’d have a president who was celebrated for being an equal-opportunity asshole, stop lying, because there’s no way you predicted anything that specific.

But that’s what we’ve got. Our president, who’s a fighter! and who’s going to hit back! and the people knew what they were getting into when they voted for him! might be a complete and utter dickhole, but he’s not a bigoted dickhole because he’s a dickhole to everyone.

“He’s a dickhole to everyone” is a widely held defense of our president. This is the world we live in.

But it’s what we hear from commentators to defend Trump against accusations of bigotry — if they can provide examples of white guys he’s attacked, that means he’s not actually a bigot.

He doesn’t hate women! He’s only attacked

– Rep. Frederica Wilson, implying that she’s a liar on Twitter and at a Senate committee meeting
– Myeshia Johnson, the widow of a soldier who died in Niger, implying on Twitter that she’s a liar
– Jemele Hill, insisting that ESPN fire her for posting critical tweets about him
– Alicia Machado, former Miss Universe, calling her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”
– San Juan Mayor Carmen Yuliz Cruz, live and on Twitter, for criticizing his insufficient response to the disaster in Puerto Rico
– and all the other WOC his administration has slammed and/or disrespected

but he also called Bob Corker “liddle,” so he’s not racist or sexist.

And he doesn’t hate white women, either! He’s only attacked

– Carly Fiorina, calling her ugly
– Megyn Kelly, calling her a bimbo, a liar, a lightweight, and sick, plus the whole “blood coming out of her whatever”
– Mika Brzezinski, whom he called “wacky” and “dumb as a rock” and was also concerned where blood was coming out of her, like, ew
– Natasha Stoynoff, a writer who accused him of assaulting her, whom he insisted he’d never have touched because she’s ugly
– Jessica Leeds, who also accused Trump of groping her, and whom he also declared not hot enough for him to assault
– and so many others, particularly members of the press, because if there’s anything he hates more than being criticized, it’s being criticized by a woman

but he’s also gone after John McCain, so for real, he’s not sexist.

He doesn’t hate black men! He’s only attacked

– NFL players who kneel during the national anthem (who are overwhelming black) calling them sons of bitches and saying they should be fired
– CNN’s Don Lemon, calling him “the dumbest person in broadcasting”
– Steph Curry, jabbing at him on Twitter for not wanting to visit the White House
– Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck, whom Trump hit on Twitter for resigning from Trump’s Manufacturing Council
– Barack Obama, for… everything he is and has ever been and ever done

He also said that there were “some very fine people” marching with tiki torches in Charlottesville, but he also called Chris Cuomo a “chained lunatic,” so he’s not racist.

He’s never criticized Al Franken for questioning his mental health, or Stephen King for calling him “an idiot” and “a fake president,” or Keith Olbermann for writing a book that calls him “f*cking crazy” in the title, or Gregg Popovich for defending the NFL protesters and once saying that “you can’t believe anything that comes out of [Trump’s] mouth,” or the 11 other (white) CEOs who left the manufacturing council, or Eminem who essentially eviscerated him in a freestyle rap at the BET Hip Hop Awards. But he’s also feuding with Mitch McConnell, and that means he definitely is not a bigot.

It’s obvious that in the eyes of the Trump administration and all of his mouthpieces and enablers, if Trump doesn’t attack all WOC/white women/MOC and exclusively WOC/white women/MOC, he can’t be accused of targeting any of them. He may be an asshole, but how dare you call him a bigot! How dare you!

We heard one form of the argument a lot when he first signed his Muslim travel ban: It’s not actually a Muslim ban! Look at all the Muslim countries that aren’t included! Indeed, if you aren’t discriminating against every single member of a oppressed population, you aren’t discriminating against any of them. If you’re willing to give some of them a pass because, for instance, you have business interests in their country of origin, and banning travel from that country would affect your bottom line, that makes it officially not at all Islamophobic. It’s all or nothing.

And more recently, of course, we have the arguments that Trump didn’t show disrespect for Rep. Wilson, Myeshia Johnson and her family, Jemele Hill, and others because they’re black women — it’s just that they attacked him, and he’s going to hit back, because that’s totally acceptable for presidents to do. And that he also strikes out at white Congresspeople who don’t support his agenda means none of his other attacks are motivated by racism or sexism. He can’t be an all-around jerk and a bigot, right? It’s simply impossible.

It’s not impossible. It’s not only possible that he’s both an ignorant, tacky, reactionary infant and a bigot, it’s likely — once you cram all of that reprehensible crap into the blackened crater where his character should be, it can’t be all that tough to cram in just a little more. Let’s give the man some credit: He really raises the bar on being a horrible person.

Also: “He’s an equal-opportunity dickhole” is never a standard to which we should hold our president. “When he’s hit, he hits back” is not even remotely presidential. My mind boggles at the thought that anyone might say, with a straight face, that an unending stream of lies, slurs, and insults tweeted by our chief executive during his morning dump is appropriate behavior for a president, because he’s attacking straight, cis, white guys, too. Whether or not he’s an equal-opportunity dickhole, the president should not be a dickhole. How is this even a question?

“I might be an asshole, but don’t you dare call me a racist!” And it is ever so.

Recommended Reading

Midwin Charge, “From April Ryan to Rep. Frederica Wilson: How The Trump Administration Continues to Disrespect and Dismiss Black Women”

Jamelle Bouie, “Grief and Grievance: What a botched condolence call reveals about President Trump”

Michelle Ruiz, Attempting to Discredit Rep. Frederica Wilson as ‘Wacky’ Is Trump’s New ‘Nasty Woman'”

Birth control pills are for healthcare. And other stuff.

Waist-down photo of a woman on the subway with her legs crossed at the knees and ankles
The only birth control method approved by Hobby Lobby.

Passage of the Affordable Care Act provided a major benefit to women of reproductive age: Employers with religious or moral objections to birth control weren’t allowed to exclude those benefits from health plans just because they thought birth control was wrong. When Trump rolled back that mandate — effective immediately — he removed that protection, meaning that women whose prescriptions had been covered could now have to pay out of pocket for medication crucial to their lives. And it can be crucial — hormonal birth control is essential to treatment of conditions like endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, fibroids, and debilitating periods.

It’s also good for other stuff.

Like fucking.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 58 percent of women who use birth control pills do so for medical reasons. And leaving those conditions untreated can have devastating consequences for women — not only are endometriosis, PCOS, and fibroids intensely painful, they can lead to a loss of fertility for women who really do want to have children someday. The cramps and nausea that accompany PMDD can make women miss days of work or school every month. Hormonal birth control allows them to live normal, productive lives and protects their future.

It also allows women to safely fuck, which is a thing women get to do.

It’s not a matter of women wanting “free birth control,” as it is so dismissively characterized. Women are still paying their share for employer-sponsored health plans. The ACA mandate does remove a co-pay for those birth control methods — not just pills but also injections, implants, patches, and IUDs — but otherwise, coverage is basically the same as any other medication. The regulation just says that employers can’t exclude that coverage on religious grounds, any more than they could prescription allergy medicine or epilepsy medicine. And for women who are in and out of the hospital for treatment of their endometriosis, or trapped in bed because of severe symptoms during their periods, that birth control is just as crucial.

And if women want to fuck — like, really get it in there and go at it — without making a baby, birth control is the way to go.

Yes, one of those arguments might be, purely on the surface, a little more compelling than the other. But women deserve to enjoy a great quality of life from a personal/medical and an interpersonal/recreational standpoint, and affordable access to birth control — via mandated insurance coverage — is an essential component of that.

From a purely utilitarian perspective (because God forbid a woman’s life should be viewed from any other perspective than utility), women’s healthcare generally has better optics than family planning. It’s not fair, but it’s an observable phenomenon. A woman with health problems that can only be addressed with hormonal birth control has an undeniable, physician-diagnosed problem that is hard even for ultraconservatives to dismiss.

Fucking, on the other hand, is easy for them to dismiss — their right to judge women for their personal choices by the standards of religion-based morality is an easy claim, and their right to dictate a woman’s choices on the basis of that religion, while asinine, is something they’re happy to cling to against all logic. “Fucking is for procreation, so if you’re not open to the idea of making a baby, just don’t fuck.” Not financially capable of raising a child? Don’t fuck. Pregnancy could be life-threatening? Don’t fuck. I mean, even if it’s with your husband — he’ll be totally cool with having a completely celibate marriage all the way up through menopause, despite the existence of safe and reliable medical methods to prevent pregnancy. Just don’t want to have a baby? Burn in hell, slut; it’s nothing more than you deserve for denying your God-given job as a woman. And definitely don’t fuck.

Since passage of the ACA, giving women reliable and affordable access to birth control like pills and IUDs, women’s health has improved dramatically. The U.S. is currently experiencing the lowest rate of unintended pregnancy in 30 years, the lowest-ever rate of teen pregnancy, and the lowest abortion rate since Roe v. Wade. Worldwide, access to reliable family-planning methods is associated with lower infant and maternal mortality, lower mother-to-baby HIV transmission, and lower abortion rates. The positive effects of readily available birth control, not just for health purposes but also for family planning, are undeniable. And in theory, people who claim to be pro-life should also be supportive of easy, affordable access to something that has been proven to reduce the number of abortions performed in the U.S. But when that abortion reduction comes without a reduction in women fucking, for some reason it isn’t good enough.

To try and hide that contradiction — against abortion, but also against things that reduce abortion — opponents have to reduce the issue to a farcical image of out-of-control slutbags who just want to fuck without negative consequences. Of course, the truth is, women do want to, and should be able, to fuck without negative consequences. The choice to engage or not engage in sexual intimacy shouldn’t be dictated by fear. That’s why access to family planning is so important. But a legislator who defaults to “keep your knees together, slut” is obviously unwilling to see reason.

And that’s why the debate over insurance coverage for birth control pills tends to focus on the health benefits rather than the family-planning benefits: because opponents don’t care about women getting to fuck. Women shouldn’t be fucking. If unintended — or even potentially life-threatening — pregnancy is the result of women fucking, that’s a feature, not a bug.

I’m not going to criticize the focus on women’s health needs during this debate, because it’s a valid argument within a critical debate that affects women’s lives. Even people who don’t agree with the ultraconservative position that women shouldn’t be fucking are more easily swayed by, and thus more likely to throw their support behind, images of women with severe health problems that can be solved by hormonal birth control. I’m a propagandist by trade — if I were concepting an ad campaign in support of the contraceptive mandate, that’s the primary messaging strategy I would take.

But as a feminist with a blog, I also have to argue in favor of women’s right to fuck. I have to argue against the idea that there’s something wrong with women fucking, that women fucking should automatically come with consequences, or that women are somehow less deserving of accessible healthcare on account of their fucking. I have to point out that lots of women fuck, that there’s nothing morally or ethically wrong with women who fuck, and that for women to fuck with the protection of birth control is more responsible and less “risky” than fucking unprotected. I have to point out that across the world, fucking is a way of life, and the ability to protect oneself whilst fucking improves, and even saves, lives.

Yay for women having access to the treatments they need to live full lives despite serious medical conditions. Yay for women having access to the medication that allows them to manage their fertility and have — or not have — children on their own terms.

Yay for medical care.

Yay for gettin’ down.

Yay for birth control. Yay for legislation that guarantees that employers can’t limit women’s affordable access to birth control because slut. Boo for removal of that protection, leaving women vulnerable without the demonstrable benefits that said access provides.

Yay for health, family planning, and better lives for women in practically every way. (And seriously, yay for fucking.)

Trump has rolled back the ACA protection of birth control coverage, slut

Trump holding two babies, one crying, and making a scrunched-up crying face at an appearance in Colorado Springs
Print, frame, and place above bed — if that’s not birth control enough for you, I don’t know what will be. (Photo Stacie Scott/AP)

The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2012, included one provision in particular that was crucial to women’s health: It prevented employers from excluding birth control from employer-sponsored insurance plans just because they had a religious or moral objection to it. Now the Trump administration has decided to roll back that mandate, effective immediately, because every single thing Obama did must be undone and it’s perfectly reasonable for God-fearing employers to dictate what women can do with their bodies.

Also, per the newly published rule, we have to think about the children:

Imposing a coverage Mandate … could, among some populations, affect risky sexual behavior in a negative way. For example, it may not be a narrowly tailored way to advance the Government interests identified here to mandate contraceptive access to teenagers and young adults who are not already sexually active and at significant risk of unintended pregnancy.

Yup, teenagers who aren’t already having sex are going to be, like, “Woohoo! I had no intention of having sex any time soon, but now that it’s raining Ortho Tri-Cyclen, find me someone to fuck!” Of course, a survey tracking teen behavior since the 1990s shows that risky sexual behavior has gone down since 2012, but don’t let’s expect the facts to get in the way of Trump’s pandering to the religious right.

Let’s get one thing clear: This isn’t an issue of “free birth control,” as much as opponents like to characterize it as just a bunch of slutbags who are scooping up handfuls of baby-killing pills from a bin in front of the CVS so they can get down indiscriminately. The mandate under the ACA simply said that employers had to treat that particular kind of medication like they treated any other medication that they didn’t find icky and sinful (albeit without a co-pay). Women are still paying their share of their insurance premiums to be included within the pool. If your insurance policy doesn’t make Viagra or Prilosec “free,” it isn’t suddenly required to make birth control “free” — it just can’t make women pay out-of-pocket for that one kind of medication and not for the others.

(Of course, this was tested, and subsequently undermined, during the Hobby Lobby case in 2014, where the Supreme Court determined that Hobby Lobby could bow out because they’re a “closely held corporation” and if they believe, despite all medical evidence, that IUDs kill babies, that’s good enough for Paul and Silas. Which is why this rollback is so harmful — imagine if your employer decided that Lipitor makes angels fall from the sky and you should just stick to salad and hope for the best, heathen, and maybe that provision will start to seem a little more reasonable.)

The provision under the ACA meant that more than 55 million women have access to birth control without a copay — many of them for purposes other than family planning. Conditions like endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, fibroids, and PMDD can be incredibly painful for women, threaten their fertility, result in heavy medical costs, and cause missed work and school because of time spent at home or in the hospital. (That said, family planning is a perfectly valid reason for using birth control. Under the ACA, unintended pregnancy is currently at a 30-year low, and the abortion rate is at its lowest since the passage of Roe v. Wade.) Hundreds of thousands of women could lose coverage under the new rule.

Of course, HHS officials say that “99.9 percent of women” will be unaffected, which number they base on the 165 million women in the U.S., including the toddlers who, I grant you, will not be affected by this new rule.

So congratulations to all of the women who rushed to get IUDs immediately after the 2016 election — if anyone called you paranoid, track them down and ask them who’s laughing now. As for the rest of you, this wouldn’t be a bad time to run out and get one — you never know when your employer will decide “sincerely” that Mirena opens up the Sixth Seal to cause apocalyptic earthquakes and thus you’re on your own

The 10 WTFiest moments from Trump’s visit to Puerto Rico

Donald Trump throwing a roll of paper towels to a crowd waiting for disaster supplies in Puerto Rico
“Hey, buddy go long! Yeah, you with the sunburn from waiting two hours in line for water!” (Photo credit Evan Vucci/AP)

Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Trump made the trek across great big water for a four-hour meet-and-greet and photo op with civic leaders and storm victims. The man is an embarrassment on a good day, but this trip was gruesome even by Trumpian standards. Here are ten moments that could boggle the mind of even the most jaded Trump observer.

What even the fuck

When he reminded the survivors about how much of a hassle it was to help them.

“I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico. And that’s fine. We’ve saved a lot of lives.”

“You sure screwed things up on the financial side of things, I’ll tell you. Nice going, getting devastated by a hurricane. Great job. I mean, we’re cool with it, because we’re awesome and doing a great job, but I’m just saying.” For the accountants scoring at home, these people’s budget is zero dollars, because the island itself is out of money — not just broke, but literally bereft of cash. Quit whining about your economic burden to people who can’t afford food.

And I want to make a point here: In 2011, Jefferson County, Alabama, filed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, with $3.14 billion in debt due to bankruptcy and corruption. (When the state of Alabama goes, we go big. Rammer Jammer.) Now, I’ll admit that it’s a mere percentage of Puerto Rico’s $7.3 billion debt, but it still raised concerns about the potential impact to the U.S. municipal bond market. Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that if Birmingham were to be devastated by a national disaster during that period of insolvency, Trump wouldn’t be pissing and moaning about the cost of recovery on account of Birmingham can’t pay their fair share.

Most of all, even if that is something you have to be dealing with behind the scenes, you don’t bring it up publicly and try to make a devastated community feel guilty after an entire ICU of people died for lack of power. There is nothing whatsoever that those people can do about Puerto Rico’s debt. Don’t be an asshole.

When he just walked the hell away from the mayor of San Juan.

The fun starts at 1:23 in the video. They greet each other and shake hands, she notes politely (and accurately) that this isn’t about politics but about saving lives, and he just turns and walks right off. She didn’t insult him, she didn’t complain about anything — it could even be speculated that she was trying to defuse the situation by saying that it wasn’t anything personal — but off he fucked. My guess is that he only agreed to meet with her because he thought she was going to apologize for being an ungrateful bitch and pay him the homage he deserves, and when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to do that, he didn’t want to be there.

When he passed out paper towels like he was passing out t-shirts at a basketball game.

As he addressed a crowd of hurricane survivors gathered in wait for food and batteries and flashlights and such, Trump started chucking rolls of paper towels into the crowd like they were red hats and he was at a rally. (Note: We have no confirmation that he didn’t actually think he was at a rally and wasn’t confused that the paper towels didn’t say MAGA.) As if the need to stand in line for basic supplies to feed their family wasn’t demoralizing enough, now he had disaster victims reaching up to snag supplies like bridesmaids going after the bouquet. And you know he was seriously disappointed when his team vetoed the t-shirt cannon.

(What’s great about this angle is that you can see the guy toward the top right who keeps catching paper towels and chucking them to other people, because fuck some paper towels.)

When he said that this disaster wasn’t a big deal because not enough peopled died.

“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous — hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this. What is your death count as of this moment? Seventeen? Sixteen people certified, 16 people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together. Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud. Everybody around this table and everybody watching can really be very proud of what’s taken place in Puerto Rico.”

Yes, Katrina was a catastrophe, but Maria was NBD because only 34 people have died, at current count, which will probably increase as aid workers reach remote areas of the island that have had essentially no contact, which Trump almost certainly doesn’t know exist. What are you even whining about, Puerto Rico? Why are we even bothering to help you? Come back when your death toll cracks the triple digits.

When he complimented Puerto Rico on its weather.

“It’s a great trip. Your weather is second to none, but every once in a while you get hit. And you really got hit.”

Gosh, it’s good to hear you’re having a swell time, Mr. Prez. And it’s nice that the weather held up for you. Fun fact: 3.4 million people on the island recently got their lives blown away by weather. You know, one of those every-once-in-a-whiles when you get hit. But it’s good that people are getting to enjoy the abundant sunshine as they wait in line for potable water or disembark from their 747 or whatever they’re up to today.

When he told a guy to have a good time.

SURVIVOR. So we have a good house, thank God.
TRUMP. In the meantime, here you are, right?
S. Exactly, exactly.
T. We’re going to help you out.
S. Thank you.
T. Have a good time.

Hey, the guy just said his house didn’t collapse during the hurricane! I mean, he still doesn’t have electricity or running water or anything, but there’s still no reason not to have a good time in that house.

When he couldn’t figure out why they needed flashlights.

As he’s handing out flashlights to disaster victims: “Flashlights — you don’t need ’em anymore!”

Because 90 percent of the island is still without power, you halfwit. He loves to congratulate himself about how great and comprehensive the disaster response has been, and I guess he sincerely believes that it’s more or less finished and everyone in Puerto Rico is living in the lap of relative luxury. Either that, or he thinks the entire island will be lit at night with the glow of his shining presence and flashlights will be unnecessary.

When he was mystified by water purification tablets.

TRUMP. Wait, you put it in dirty water?
WOMAN. And then you can drink it after 10 to 12 hours.
T. Would you do it? Would you drink it?
W. Sure.
T. Really?
W. Really.
T. Is this your company or something?

No, she’s going to go without water until FEMA brings her a Dasani because stream water is super gross. Yes, you sheltered, self-involved nincompoop, she’ll drink it. When your only source of water is a stream — particularly a stream that’s also used for bathing and cleaning — purified water is all you have to drink. They can’t turn their nose up at purified stream water, because then they will have no water, and then they will die, because people die without water. I can understand that a man who only drinks Coke delivered by a butler at the push of a button dedicated exclusively to summoning a butler with a Coke might be confused by this fact, but that person should not be allowed to interact with people who are thanking God that they have water purification tablets at all.

The only solution — the only solution — to Trump’s dipshittery when dealing with any member of the public with a net worth of below $10 million is to create an LMD controlled remotely by a staffer who knows what a Chipotle looks like from the inside. Every visit he makes, whether it’s to a rally or to a disaster site, turns into a self-celebration of his awesomeness. He’s completely incapable of centering anyone but himself, so what’s the point of sending him there at all? The White House would be just as well served sending an android — although they’d definitely be found out the moment that robot wasn’t an asshole to people in crisis.

Bonus “Commander in… Whatever” WTFery

When he didn’t know the difference between the Coast Guard and the Air Force.

TRUMP: And can we also mention some people that I really got to know and respect even more in Texas, and that’s the Coast Guard?

What a job the Coast Guard has done throughout this whole — throughout this whole ordeal. They would go right into the middle of that — I mean, I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to be doing it, but I want to thank everybody. I want to thank the Coast Guard. They are special, special, very brave people.

And a lot of people got to see the real Coast Guard during this incredible trouble, and especially I think here and in Texas was incredible what they did. So thank you all very much. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Really appreciate it.

Would you like to say something on behalf of your men and women?

AIR FORCE REP. Sir, I’m representing the Air Force.

T. No, I knew that.

“No, yeah, I totally knew that. I was just, like, I didn’t say what branch you were from, but I knew it was the Air Force. Which, if you think about it, guards the coast between the sky and outer space, so it wouldn’t be that wrong anyway. But I knew that.”

When he said that the Air Force (which is not the Coast Guard) has invisible planes.

TRUMP. Amazing job. Amazing job. So amazing that we’re ordering hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of new airplanes for the Air Force, especially the F-35. Do you like the F-35?

AIR FORCE REP: [Inaudible] game-changing technology, awesome airplane.

THE PRESIDENT: I said, how does it do it in fights? And how do they do in fights with the F-35? They said, we do very well. You can’t see it. Literally you can’t see it. So it’s hard to fight a plane that you can’t see, right?

This could really go one of two ways: One, he could be one of those people who uses “literally” to mean “figuratively,” which should be punishable by a seven-year indenture to Kim Kardashian. Alternately, he might actually think that the Air Force has developed Wonder Woman technology such that the F-35 literally cannot be seen. Which… I… I don’t… Plus, the F-35 sucks. Either way, unless a squadron of F-35s are going to be swooping in stealthily to drop off aid and aid workers, a visit to see the victims of a storm-ravaged island is not the place to sing the praises of a completely unrelated plane that isn’t invisible and can’t be flown in the rain. Particularly after telling the people of Puerto Rico — several times — that it’s just too expensive to help them rebuild.

Our president is an idiot, is my point. A thoughtless, callous, ignorant, sheltered, narcissistic idiot. Anyone would be better than him. Literally anyone. Kim Kardashian for President. Sometimes she can’t even, but our current president never can. Kim K 2020: Sometimes She Can Even. Alternate candidates? Anybody but this fuckwit.

Why I talk about mental illness

Close-up of a woman's smiling face, shot with way too much flash
This is the face of mental illness.

I haven’t been shy about discussing my mental health on this blog. There’s a lot of privilege behind that — I know that I’m probably not going to suffer ill effects to my life or livelihood if people know about it. That isn’t the case for everyone with mental illnesses, and I would never insist that anyone come forward to talk about theirs if they aren’t comfortable doing so. That’s one reason I talk about it: Because I can, and it needs to be talked about.

I also talk about it because of (terrifyingly) more and more frequent tragedies — like the mass shooting in Las Vegas — after which people propagate stereotypes, stigmas, and harmful messages about people with mental illnesses. They help nothing and hurt many, and that needs to be talked about, too. And I can.

I have bipolar II. It’s a subtype of bipolar disorder, characterized by the same depressive lows and what’s known as hypomania — less-extreme, less self-destructive highs. I’m very, very lucky — I have great insurance and a great doctor, and my illness is well controlled with medication that I can afford. (I also have ADD, also controlled with medication I can afford.)

Others aren’t so lucky, lacking insurance, lacking access to care, having illnesses that are harder to manage, suffering from unbearable side effects to medication, being unable to afford medication at all. When we talk about mental health issues, they are the ones in need of help. They need affordable insurance and financial support that will help them access treatment. They need healthcare providers in underserved areas — which, due to a worsening provider shortage, is most areas right now. They need public awareness so that they and others can recognize the symptoms of mental illnesses and not just dismiss them as personality faults or personal failings. And they need a society without the stigma surrounding mental illness that makes others fear them and them fear themselves.

What we don’t need is to come forward for help and be put on some Federal Crazy Registry so we can be blocked from whatever they’re afraid of us having at the moment — and that’s not even talking about guns, the issue du jour. ADA regulations notwithstanding, people who are open about mental illness suffer discrimination in hiring and the workplace, in housing, education, and even public office — and this is even for people whose illness has long since been controlled. The suggestion that registries and restrictions would benefit people with mental illness only indicates that your focus goes only as far as your own fear.

I always hesitate to say that this isn’t the time to talk about mental illness because it’s become such a cliche — not the time to talk about gun control, not the time to talk about climate change. But this really isn’t the time to talk about mental illness. It’s an actively bad time to talk about mental illness. Talking about mental illness in this context is actively harmful to the people most affected by it.

Talking about aberrant violence and mental illness in the same breath perpetuates those stigmas about people with mental illnesses. It discourages people from coming forward and getting help. It rarely includes input from mental health professionals or people who have mental illnesses. (Although honestly, who would want to be the person who has to go on CNN to argue that no, not all people like me are mass murders?) And realistically, it’s usually just used as a distraction from other, more pertinent issues and then discarded when it’s no longer needed.

When is a good time to talk about mental health and mental health care? When we’re talking about regular healthcare. When we’re talking about healthcare reform. When we’re talking about cuts to public health funding. When we’re talking about helping homeless veterans (another group that’s frequently dragged out to make political points and then ignored once the point is made). The people who are talking so passionately about mental health care now tend to be curiously reticent about the issue when they’re talking about repealing the ACA, which would make mental health care inaccessible for many people in dire need. But then, not now, is the time to talk about mental health.

The time to talk about mental health is when people aren’t scared and confused, and when they can look at people with mental illnesses as people deserving and in need of support — not as a ticking time bomb and a threat to public safety. Misguided discussions in times like this need corrections and reality checks to minimize the damage they cause. In times not like this, the issue needs to be raised to keep people from forgetting about it once their fear and confusion have passed. And all the time, people who are capable of and comfortable with doing so need to counter the stigmas about mental illness through open, unashamed visibility.

And that’s why I talk about mental illness.

The Las Vegas shooting was a tragedy. That doesn’t mean mental illness is at fault.

A wide shot of Vegas casinos as seen from the street, with people milling around
A picture of Las Vegas without thousands of people experiencing what may well be their life’s greatest misery. (Photo credit Bill Hughes/Las Vegas News Bureau)

In Las Vegas Sunday night, a gunman on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel used many, many automatic weapons to rain fire on 22,000 fans gathered at a country music festival in an attack that left 58 people dead (to date) and more than 500 injured. It was, by all accounts, a scene of unmitigated horror and carnage, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families. What makes it arguably even more painful is that we currently have no idea — literally no idea — as to why he did it. The gunman killed himself before police could reach him, and unlike other such mass killings, he didn’t leave any kind of manifesto or make any statements that would give a clue to his motive. And the ongoing investigation hasn’t turned up any evidence (that they’ve disclosed, at least) indicating why.

That hasn’t stopped people from speculating, of course. People have speculated about domestic terrorism (with the accompanying discussions of how that is defined and why it would be or not be applied to this specific gunman). ISIS has taken credit for it, of course, because they take credit for essentially every act of this kind, although there’s currently no evidence of any connection to them. And, of course, there’s speculation about mental illness — both of the more formal “we have to do something about this! Mental healthcare!” variety and the throwaway “deranged” “snapped” “maniac” “crazy, insane nut” rhetoric from news media, public officials, law enforcement officials, and people on the ground but rarely, interestingly enough, from public health professionals.

Thus my (sadly) more and more frequent plea to stop blaming mass murders on mental health just because you’re scared and confused.

Usually, it arises during discussions of gun control — that this is actually an issue of mental health. (Curiously, this seems to be the only time that public officials and commentators really care about mental health, and the subject is generally once again abandoned over time. It never comes up during, for instance, the health insurance debate, or cuts to public health funding.)

The statistic is brought up over and over (frequently to be dismissed by people insisting that this situation is different): People with mental illnesses are vastly more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it. The automatic conflation of violent, aberrant behavior with mental illness based entirely on social standards, without any medical diagnosis, contributes to the stigma against people with mental illnesses. It makes them more likely to feel shame and self-hatred about something they can’t control. It makes people in crisis less likely to come forward and seek help they desperately need. And when they do come forward and open up about what they’re experiencing, it frequently makes society treat them differently, as if they’re a ticking time bomb and not a person who needs both healthcare and understanding as much as any other person with any other illness.

People with mental illnesses don’t need the knee-jerk assessments of mental healthcare that are based on the idea that they’re mass murderers. They certainly don’t need changes to healthcare (on the rare occasion that they ever occur) that focus solely on the minority of people who are prone to violence — and thus a danger to the general public — and ignore the vast majority of people who are suffering and need support but are only a threat to themselves. When people with mental illnesses are used as a political pawn and a scapegoat, they never get help, and nothing ever changes.

Uncertainty is scary. The unknown is scary. That’s one reason that we’re so quick to speculate in situations like this — we’re searching for some explanation, no matter how unsupported by currently available evidence, to give us a grounding point in a time of chaos. Maybe this man was a white supremacist. Maybe he was radicalized by ISIS. Or maybe he was mentally ill. But that feeling of comfort comes entirely from a story we’ve dreamed up in our head. Again, uncertainty is scary, but when the alternative could do real damage to an innocent community, the only safe path is to accept the uncertainty and be willing to live with it until the facts are known.

Also scary is the thought that a person capable of such atrocity could be a lot like “normal people” — that there isn’t any kind of physiological difference that would make him like him and them like them. That he’s engaging in such aberrant, violent behavior means he must be mentally ill, as evidenced by the fact that he’s engaging in such aberrant, violent behavior (“no true sane person”?) and that it could be attributed only to “insane” “derangement.” We have nothing in common. He’s something provably different. (I’m not going to get into any discussion of the existence of evil, and thus of evil people, which is far beyond the scope of current circumstances.) Again, it’s comforting, but assuming without evidence that the inherent difference is mental illness does a great disservice to people who actually have it.

We know essentially nothing about the man who killed more than 50 people and wounded hundreds of others in Las Vegas. More evidence is turning up all the time as the authorities continue their investigation, going to his house, talking to his loved ones, going through his browser history. None of it, as yet, has given any clue to his motive. He was rich. He had lots and lots of guns. He gambled a lot. He wasn’t terribly religious. He sent cookies to his mother. Plenty of what, a little bit of how, and no why. The investigation may uncover evidence of diagnosed mental illness of the type that can be directly and causally connected to this kind of violence. An autopsy could reveal telling physiological signs. Or it could uncover none of those things. It certainly hasn’t yet.

Leave mental health out it of unless/until evidence exists that it should be brought in. Stop using mental health as an excuse to ignore and not address other factors. Stop using people with mental illnesses as pawns until you’re done making your point, and then discarding them. Stop falling back on ableist language to describe things you don’t understand. Stop seeking emotional comfort for yourself to the detriment of people with mental illnesses. We have enough to handle in our everyday life without having to shoulder the stigma of violence and the weight of a mass murder.

Because We Need It: Sorry, can’t pun at the moment

It almost feels too self-indulgent to enjoy even tiny lighthearted pleasures while people are dying and people are being attacked for protesting people dying. Almost. (Or maybe not even almost. Maybe just too.) It could be argued that We Need It even more. And We Need It to double up on awesome women.

In celebration of Beyonce’s 36th birthday, a bunch of her friends got together to replicate her iconic braided, behatted, bejeweled look and pose from her iconic Formation video. Among them? Former First Lady Michelle Obama.

A black-and-white photo of Michelle Obama dressed in Beyonce's iconic black hat from the "Formation" video
Also can’t come up with clever captions. (Photo credit Michelle Obama/Beyonce)

It’s an impossible blending of two outstanding women I want to be when I grow up, and basically everything is awful except for this.

Help for Puerto Rico

Aerial shot of people in Humacao, Puerto Rico, next to the words "S.O.S. Necesitamos Agua/Comida" written on the street
Help eventually came for Humacao. Hundreds of Humacaos are still hungry. (Photo credit Angelina Ruiz-Lambides)

Puerto Rico is in dire shape in the wake of Hurricane Maria. You probably know this if you’ve been keeping up with the news, but if you don’t keep up with the news, you might not know it, because basically no word is able to get out of Puerto Rico other ways. Nearly all methods of communication were disabled by the storm, leaving government figures, news organizations, and aid groups with generator-powered satellite hookups as the only ones able to get news to the mainland.

Reports that do make it out of Puerto Rico are, of course, dismal. People in Puerto Rico are desperate. They’ve been without electricity and clean water for over a week and aren’t expected to have them again for months in some areas. Homes and hospitals have been destroyed. People have died. Imagine a pedestrian clipped by a passing car, spun into traffic, and then flattened by a delivery truck, and then make that pedestrian into an island of 3.4 million people, and that’s the situation in Puerto Rico. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad.

The bad news

It’s bad. Seemingly obvious, yes, but seriously, really bad. Half of Puerto Ricans are without running water. Jut 36 of San Juan’s 69 hospitals are habitable. People have died in hospitals for lack of fuel for generators. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz described retirement homes as “human cages for people that are sick and unable to fend for themselves.” Another mayor reported that his people had no food or medicine and were drinking out of the same creek they used to bathe and wash clothes. Experts say the death toll could reach into the hundreds. It’s a nightmare. It’s an actual thing that a person might have a nightmare about.

Infrastructure. The need for material support can’t be ignored, but aid workers on the ground are encountering an additional roadblock: actual roadblocks. The streets are hard to navigate with heavy vehicles. Some ports are unnavigable, with container ships unable to get in or out. Workers are hard to come by to make deliveries and work at the often-damaged ports. This doesn’t mean that we should stop giving, or that the government and aid organizations should put a pause on delivery — just that residents of Puerto Rico are experiencing even further delays in receiving the help they need, because things aren’t bad enough for them already.

Puerto Ricans’ fellow citizens. Many other Americans, even the most well-meaning ones, are approaching Puerto Rico as an issue of foreign aid, rather than domestic aid. That’s because they don’t recognize that Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. (Justice Sonia Sotomayor is not the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, because those aren’t a thing.) Complaining about money dedicated to assisting and rebuilding Puerto Rico is like complaining about money to rebuild Florida, since it, too, has been the target of plenty of hurricanes. If you wouldn’t object to rebuilding Texas because it’s such a disaster magnet, you don’t get to complain about Puerto Rico.

Government response. Over a week after Maria left Puerto Rico devastated, Trump has had little to say about its plight. Over the weekend, he devoted far more tweets and attention to the NFL protesters, without any reference to Puerto Rico — until he was essentially shamed into it, at which point he dropped a triple-tweeter to trash the territory for its infrastructure and financial issues and emphasize that they’ll still be on the hook for debts to his buddies on Wall Street.

Until just yesterday, he refused Congressional requests to suspend the Jones Act limiting inter-port shipping in the U.S. to ships sailing under the U.S. flag, which the government did do after Harvey and Irma. His excuse for his half-assed response was that aid to Puerto Rico is more challenging than aid to Texas or Florida because “this is an island surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water,” like, holy shit, such a revelation. (You have to wonder if that’s a fact that he just recently learned, and whether he learned it before or after he learned that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.)

He’s spent his last several media encounters (and, of course, tweets) patting himself on the back for his disaster response, doing the thing where he swears [insert important person here] called him personally to tell him how awesome he is. (Cruz’s version was, “Again, Mr. Trump, we appreciate everything you are doing and we know it can be done faster. Help us save lives.”) And Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke said on Friday, “I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane.”

The government has been putting more energy into swearing that their disaster response effort has been flawless and comprehensive than actually listening to people on the ground and providing aid how, where, and when they need it. Puerto Rico is not entirely but largely screwed for substantive assistance from the government, is my point, so it’s good that others are stepping in.

Actual good news

The U.S. Navy. The Navy is sending a hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to provide medical support. It’s currently preparing to leave port in Virginia, and the trip is expected to take five days, so it won’t be on site immediately. But it’s loading up on supplies and medical staff to be able to provide care where hospitals have been decimated.

Royal Caribbean. Also coming through with the nautical support is Royal Caribbean, which has sent its cruise ship Adventure of the Seas to Puerto Rico to deliver much-needed supplies and carry refugees back to the mainland. It is making stops to drop off supplies and pick up as many as 3,300 passengers across three islands. Apparently, this is a thing they do — Adventure of the Seas and Majesty of the Seas evacuated a total of 1,700 people after Hurricane Irma.

Bees. When have bees ever been a good thing? I’ll tell you when: All the time, because pollination is crucial to our ecosystem and honey is delicious. Maria has left Puerto Rico essentially denuded of flowers, so people have taken to setting out trays of sugar water to give the bees something to snack on until they’re able to once again forage for themselves. It’s unfortunate that it’s necessary, but it’s cool that people are coming through for something like this that you might not think to think about. (Of course, pessimist that I am, I can’t help but think about swarms of house-bees who refuse to hunt for nectar once the flowers are again available because they’re so used to being fed by hand, like barn cats who won’t hunt once they’ve gotten a taste of Fancy Feast. Do your jobs, lazy bees.)

How you can be good news

Donate. That’s about it. Again, even though logistics are currently a huge challenge on the island, they’re still in dire need of supplies. Plenty of organizations are accepting cash donations.

Unidos por Puerto Rico, established by the First Lady of Puerto Rico
ConPRmetidos
GoFundMe
AmeriCares
The One America Appeal, established by former U.S. presidents
International Medical Corps
Hispanic Federation
21 US Virgin Islands Relief Fund
Dominca Hurricane Maria Relief Fund
Caribbean Tourism Organization’s Hurricane Relief Fund

You can check Double the Donation to see if your employer is willing to match your donation. Local efforts are underway in New York, Miami, Philadelphia, and possibly a city near you. And once the island is stable enough to accommodate more people, volunteers can sign up with organizations like VOAD and All Hands Volunteers.

Talk about it. With government officials so sadly negligent and unresponsive, it’s more important than ever that people keep Puerto Rico — and other devastated territories like the U.S. Virgin Islands — in the news. Disaster fatigue is a thing, and it’s important that people not become so inured to news of Puerto Rico that they stop seeing it as a priority.

And not just talking about Trump, either, although he’s an unending font of negligence, bad decisions, and stupid statements. He’s a footnote in the general awfulness and extreme need of this horrific disaster. When sharing and signal-boosting, be sure to emphasize the bad situation, the need for help, and how people can help.