Rep. Todd Akin explains what he means by "legitimate" rape:
Akin explained — during a follow up interview with Dana Loesch — that he meant to argue that women sometimes lie about being raped:
AKIN: You know, Dr. Willke has just released a statement and part of his letter, I think he just stated it very clearly. He said, of course Akin never used the word legitimate to refer to the rapist, but to false claims like those made in Roe v. Wade and I think that simplifies it….. There isn’t any legitimate rapist…. [I was] making the point that there were people who use false claims, like those that basically created Roe v. Wade.
Mmm. And this means that we could use pregnancy as a check on whether the rape was legitimate or a false accusation? If a woman becomes pregnant from a rape then it couldn't have been rape!
I knew what Akin meant when he used the term "legitimate". Of course I knew! I also visit the vicious types of misogynist sites!
This case reminds me of the earlier wingnut arguments about what constitutes a "legitimate" rape victim. She's a virgin, young and attacked by someone rushing out of the bushes while she is coming home from church. Come to think of it, she should also be either dead or close to death to truly qualify. If she isn't dead but becomes pregnant! Perhaps she enjoyed it, after all?
It's all quite medieval, in several ways. The perfidy of women reminds me of the writings of some medieval Catholic priests and the assumption that women's bodies have secret weapons which keep them from conceiving while raped is also akin to various medieval beliefs.
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Added later: This song also explains when rape is legitimate....