Hey ladies look! This is really just a fun game!

Listen, you would hardly consider blaming modern-day Civil War reenactors for the massive casualties sustained at the Battle of Shiloh. So there’s no need to get upset with Republican officials for trying to recreate the state of women’s rights in 1860. They’re propelled by curiosity – what it must have been like to live in a world where women weren’t allowed to control their own bodies? They’re living historians committed to total immersion in the past. Last time I checked there’s no law against caring too much.

Yes, they actually blocked a bill called the Violence Against Women Act in the House last week, after which they presumably twirled their mustaches and tied a few female congressional aides to the nearest railroad tracks.

And it’s also true that Republicans in the House are trying to eliminate funding for programs that provide cancer screenings and birth control to low-income women. But you know what? It’s easier and less terrifying if you just think of modern-day Republicans as extremely committed Handmaid’s Tale LARPers. LARPers who are using the national political landscape as their tabletop and women as their player characters.

“I cast a freezing spell that eliminates subsidized access to reproductive care under Medicaid!”

“I counter with an abortion-ban charm!”

“I move that we declare Colorado a men-only state!”

“My ice hammer smashes every STD screening clinic in the American Northwest!”

“I don’t think your character would do that, dude.”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel like that’s really branching out from your range of abilities. What wood-elf has an ice hammer?”

“This wood-elf has an ice hammer, Kevin, because this wood elf was paying attention during the Battle of the Seven Fields and collected the gear of the fallen, which is totally protected under the Treaty of the Ford, which you would remember if you had actually participated that day instead of changing your costume like seven times. Kevin.”

“I’m just saying I -”

“My ice hammer smashes Kevin.”

“Dude, that’s shitty. That’s so shitty.”

“Do you defend?”

“You know I don’t have anything that can counter an ice ha -”

“Then I guess you should probably get off the field and join the Womb Monitors.”

“All I said was -”

“Those wombs aren’t going to monitor themselves, Kevin.”

See? It’s fun now. Nothing terrifying going on here.

The post Republicans Huge Into Sexual Role-Playing appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

What a week it’s been for sex. We got to hear Rush Limbaugh apologize to “sluts” and it turns out everyone in your yoga class is doing it.

Here’s a few more sex statistics and facts for you this week:

Cost of a year’s supply of hormonal birth control: $160-$600

Average cost of a condom: <$1

Two: number of states that have eliminated their family planning programs within the last year

130,000: low-income Texan women who stand to lose Medicare-funded contraception and examination coverage as a result of the latest round of state budget cuts

$231 million: projected financial burden to state and federal taxpayers as a result of the 20,500 estimated additional babies that will be born as a result

1/4: women of reproductive age who receive health and contraceptive assistance through a publicly supported family planning center

51 to 48: vote on the Blunt Amendment, which failed to clear the Senate last week and would have allowed employers to withhold contraceptive coverage from employees’ health plans

The post Sex by Numbers: An Aspirin a Day appeared first on EcoSalon.