Dan Joseph at our MRCTV website reports that Mother Jones dropped a little bomb on the Bernie Sanders campaign: an essay that Sanders wrote in February 1972 about the “typical” rape fantasies of men and women. In an article entitled "Man -- And Woman," published in an alternative newspaper called the Vermont Freeman, Sanders spun his theories:
"A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy," wrote Sanders. "A woman on her knees. A woman tied up. A woman abused."
Sanders didn't specify as to how he had gained such a deep understanding of the male psyche.
In terms of his understanding of female sexual fantasies, Sanders provided similar insight.
"A woman enjoys intercourse with her man -- as she fantasizes about being raped by 3 men simultaneously."
Sanders was hoping a sexual revolution would change things: “Women for their preservation, are trying to pull themselves together. And it’s necessary for all of humanity that they do so. Slavishness on one hand breeds pigness on the other hand. Pigness on one hand breeds slavishness on the other. Men and women – both are losers.”
Sanders had just run (and lost badly) in a January 1972 special election for the U.S. Senate to Republican Robert Stafford with the "Liberty Union Party." In the fall of 1972, he ran for governor. Joseph made the point that if “Ted Cruz or Rick Santorum wrote something along these lines -- even 40 years ago -- the media wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks.”
The proof of that assumption is the Todd Akin hullaballoo of 2012. When the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri lamely suggested the female body could block pregnancy in a “legitimate rape,” the ABC, CBS, and NBC morning and evening news shows launched 45 segemnts (lasting 96 minutes) over three and a half days.
Then-NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams piled on : "Firestorm. A congressman's words about rape rocket across the country . . . women's issues are front and center again." Andrea Mitchell added: "Republicans fear their hopes for the White House and control of the Senate could turn on what happened at a St. Louis TV station. . . . In a race where the President had a 15-point advantage with women voters in the last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Republicans were reeling."
On MSNBC, Chris Matthews began, "Let me start tonight with this right-wing assault on women, this caveman view of the sexes that has now shown its ugly head. . . . Finally, we meet the missing link, the evidence that the party of Lincoln cannot get in bed with the most freakish elements of the right."
But "freakish" Bernie Sanders? Don't count on the networks going there...unless Hillary Clinton's advantage really evaporates. Even then, no elite journalist would let Bernie's unique sexual theories cloud the "progressive" image of the Democratic Party on women.
