This is disgusting. Very much so. However, skeptics [...]]]> Yesterday on Skepchick, Rebecca Watson brought up the horrible misogynistic crap directed at a female journalist who interviewed Paul Offit. It involved talk of rape, whoredom, and the general stuff that gets thrown at women. It also featured a gross depiction of pro-vaccination people eating dead babies.

This is disgusting. Very much so. However, skeptics need to clean their own house of the same type of behavior. In less than one hour and five searches, I was able to pull up equally disturbing imagery and comments directed at Jenny McCarthy. I have also heard skeptics refer to Jenny and Oprah as evil on more than one occasion, and refer to Oprah as fat and insinuate she is unfuckable. Jenny McCarthy and Oprah are ignorant and pushing a dangerous agenda that is harming people. None of that has anything to do with their perceived sexual availability, their showing off of their bodies, their attractiveness, or YOUR interest in fucking or not fucking them. However, to go so far as to call them evil when our side is attempting to prove WE are the rational ones is ridiculous.

As Ben Radford brought up in his recent CFI Piece “Hollywood Hyperbole

“I know that hyperbole is typical of breezy, lightweight entertainment
“news.” But I hold writers to a higher standard. I expect them to know
the difference between literally and figuratively. I expect them to
give me that facts without inserting phrases which are obviously
untrue, and which blow the writer’s credibility out the window.”

I expect nothing less than skeptics as well.

_____________________________________________________________________________

For all of you clamoring for evidence of misogyny AND hyperbole, as well as general tackiness:

From Bad Astronomy

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/11/13/some-jabs-are-deeper-than-others/

and the resulting lovely comments.

1. Jim Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

Preposterous! Unicorns only approach
virgins, after all.

4.   Dedjester
Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm

Ah yes, but they will slay (read
impale) the wicked/evil people.

I would say something about the
slutty also but this is not that type of blog

13.   I’d rather be
fishin’ Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

@#1 Preposterous! Unicorns only approach
virgins, after all.

Her brain is virgin!

http://www.murmur.com/lifestyle/jenny_mccarthy_wants_to_kill_your_children_or_why_you_shouldnt_get_medical_a.html

“Millions of people across the world are taking this woman’s advice over
their doctors and pediatricians.  And because of that, people are dying.
This woman got famous showing us all her boobs, had fake boobs in, fake
boobs out, complains about toxins while shooting her horse-face full of one of
the deadliest toxins known to man (Botulism marketed as Botox), ate her fake
vomit on MTV, and believes her son is a new-age ?Crystal Child?- the next step
in humanity evolving into higher beings.  And she might just kill your
child and the human race.”

From
FB Page Links on “Stop the Australian Vaccination Network”

Her entire “proof” boils down to how
she gave birth to a child. We know you’ve got a vagina, Jenny, you used to show
it to us for rent money. When we have to choose between medical science, which
eliminated smallpox, and you, this is the one time in we’re going to go with
the “not tits” option.”

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/thanks_again_jenny_mccarthy_and_andrew_wakefield.php

One last comment, should Jenny ever read this:

Jenny, you ignorant slut, when actual deaths occur will you still be able to
look yourself in the mirror?

Posted by: Dan | August
21, 2008 7:27 PM

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=139

·
# mmarshon 09 Jun 2008 at 5:41 pm

Just once, I’d like to see a
scientist “debating” McCarthy on a program like Larry King begin a rebuttal
with, “Jen, you ignorant slut.”

http://blog.imperfectparent.com/2008/10/01/jenny-mccarthy-is-an-idiot/

Photo used

“Even though the general consensus amongst medical scientists around the
world are that such claims remain unproven and possibly dangerous and nothing
more than gossip/rumor, some parents look up to the protruding boobs of Jenny
McCarthy and take in the information as if they were listening to somebody who
actually knew what they were talking about and had some kind of medical or
clinical expertise to back it up.”

Comments

· 40. Ben Dover said:
October 14, 2008 @ 9:28
am

Jenny McCarthy is one dumbest bimbos in hollywood or anywhere else for that
matter. She is a helicopter mother living with another freak, Jim Carrey, as it
that will help her situation.

· 50. HothCold said:
July 27, 2009 @ 10:32
pm

I’ve loved Jenny McCarthy since I was 17 yrs old. I’m actually somewhat
jealous of Jim Carrey, & I think she still looks gorgeous.

I had a series of her posters, some of the Playboy magazines in which she
was featured, I bought a surfing compilation album just because she was
affilated with the CD, and sat through SCREAM 3 because she had a minor part in
that film. After her dreadful NBC sitcom JENNY was cancelled, her popularity
began to dwindle, and I moved on.

Years later, I learned she had written some books; one detailing her
pregnancy, & the other discussing how she copes with the challenges of
raising an autistic child.
After reading both, my first thought honestly was “That’s what you get for
posing nude”. My second thought was “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
Practically, every second word was either f***, c***s*****, or m*****f*****. My
third thought was “So this is your career now, huh? You’re exploiting your
sons’ condition and posing as an expert on autism”.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, (and I realize I completely missed
the point of your blog), but I don’t think it’s fair to call Jenny an idiot.
She’s a better mom than some of the others who appear in the tabloids or
certain hit TLC shows. I also think that she’s simply living by the mantra
“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade”.

If I admire Jenny for only one thing, it’d be her unmatched beauty.

· 11. a concerned parent said:
October 2, 2008 @ 2:29
am

I couldn’t agree more. Jenny McCarthy is an idiot. But she’s worse than
that, she’s exploiting her son the way she used to make money exploiting her
silicone implants, botox’d face and bleached hair.

http://skepticat.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/the-jenny-mccarthy-body-count/

Update 2/11/09.  See Crispian Jago’s blog for a nice
wee video he’s made: The Jenny McCarthy body count. If you can stand it for long
enough, you get to see McCarthy’s tits.

Vaccine expert at work

http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2009/11/derek-bartholomaus-excellent-web-site.html

Last pic in the video is of Jenny in one of her sexy
shots of her in her panties, heels, and a shirt.

http://www.kaytastrophe.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-6391.html

05-05-2009, 09:38 AM

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/04/26/the-australian-antivax-movement-takes-its-toll/

This makes me want to kill Jenny McCarthy.

–Apoplectic Spikey

iQuinn

05-05-2009, 10:40 AM

This makes me want to kill Jenny
McCarthy.
–Apoplectic Spikey
You’ll get no argument from me. I thought someone should’ve put their foot up
her ass a long time ago.

there_is_no_bob

05-05-2009, 12:53 PM

This makes me want to kill Jenny
McCarthy.
Make sure to hit Carrey and Oprah while you’re at it.
Oprah is giving the bitch a radio show.:mad:

______________________________________________________________________________

http://skepchick.org/blog/2009/05/amateur-scientists-jenny-mccarthy-song/#more-7311

phlebas // May 15, 2009 at 5:26 pm

@dustc:

I disagree. Her cleavage is *exactly* why Jenny McCarthy has the fame she’s
currently leveraging. In my opinion, it’s entirely appropriate to highlight
that often-forgotten fact.

She has done no research and had no training or really even had the right
life experiences to back up any of the dangerous claims she’s made and will
continue to make. Yet people fawn on every word. Why is that, exactly?

Jenny has Playboy-caliber boobs. Because of that, she has been allowed a
platform (ha!) to spout this nonsense, and was put in a position to meet her
largest financier/boyfriend.

The path from Jenny’s breasts to kids with measles is an easy one to see.
Almost as clear-cut as the cleavage in question. It’s a ridiculous path to
tread, yet that’s exactly what people are doing whether they know it or not.

I don’t know if that was Brian’s intent, but he did a wonderfully unstated
job highlighting it.

____________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/vaccines/

Another blow against anti-vaccine hysteria — or is it?

By Michael Fumento

Caption used: You
can see why Jenny McCarthy is treated as an expert on childhood vaccines and autism.

The vaccine preservative thimerosal has jumped the safety hurdle. Again. So
indicates the Sept. 27, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
But as I write in
my TCS Daily piece, “again” is the problem. One huge study
after another has cleared thimerosal as a cause of child developmental
disorders, but there is a powerful lobby that couldn’t care less.

There are over 150 anti-vaccine web sites. None will disappear as a result
of the new findings. After all, who cares what a multitude of huge
epidemiological studies from all over the world say when former Playboy
Playmate Jenny McCarthy, with her 38 C IQ, claims on Oprah and in the new book
she’s hawking that her son got autism from a vaccine?

The major problem with this hysteria? It scares parents away from
vaccination programs, even mandatory ones. And only mandatory programs can
confer “herd immunity,” meaning that immunization rates in the wider
population are high enough (for example, 85 percent for diphtheria) to protect
those not immunized.

Those who encourage parents to avoid vaccinating their kids are telling them
to become free riders, relying on those parents who do vaccinate. But if enough
people try to free ride, then herd immunity is lost and what follows is the
return of childhood diseases we hardly think about anymore. Diseases like
pertussis have made comebacks in countries as diverse as Australia, Japan, and
Sweden after anti-vaccinationist scares.

Better known as “whooping cough,” pertussis is a highly contagious
bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing. Pertussis cases
went from fewer than 8,000 in the U.S. in 2001 to over 25,000 in 2005.

Reaching parents who have already been practically brain-washed is hard, but
for the sake of our children we must do so.

October 24, 2007 02:25 PM  ·  Permalink

============
This post, Sluts are Stupid!!!, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on December 1, 2009.

So anyway, I told my therapist today something that has been stirring in my mind lately. I have [...]]]> So I turn 36 today, and even had a therapy session today where my therapist paid me!! Not because I am so fucking amusing (although, let's actually go with that) but because I had an insurance credit. Score!!

So anyway, I told my therapist today something that has been stirring in my mind lately. I have been heavy for most of my life. I truly have great body image for a 240 pound woman, and it does not affect my life in hardly any way except for a few medical issues. I like fat people, and think I am pretty fucking awesome. However . . .

I definitely eat to supress emotions, and to help me deal with conflict. But lately, I have not felt as much of the need, and I think I know why.

I am not ugly because I am fat. I have never felt ugly, no matter what my weight. However, I really think that I am fat (or overeat) because part of me feels ugly on the inside.

I am loud. I curse like a sailor. I have extremely poor sexual boundaries that allow me to discuss things like kinky sex, wife swapping, taking it up the ass, and teen sex with little to no shame with complete strangers. I spend way too much time on the internet. I am a really lazy wife, mother, and employee. Sometimes I want to run away from life sometimes and become a starving lesbian artist in the utopia of San Francisco.

I am judgemental of those who are different than me. I am judgemental of those who drink or use drugs. I am judgemental of those who believe in God. I am judgemental of those who are judgemental. I am judgemental of women who use their sexuality to get attention, and then even more judgemental at myself when I do the same thing.

But guess what? The secret is that all of that is me, and it is ok! Perhaps it is the med changes, or perhaps it is growing older, but all of this is becoming ok with me. I credit my sister with inspiring this idea. She gave me the idea that it is ok to be all of those things, and still love myself. I don't have to wait until I am nicer, thinner, more patient, less judgemental, more active, or less sexual before I begin loving myself. I can do it all now, just as I am.

I also credit my huge crush on Penn Jillete with helping me to love myself. He is certainly different, obnoxious, and a completely different person ideologically than I am. However, it occurs to me that many people perceive me as obnoxious too, and that it is ok. As my sister once said about Bill Clinton, "I used to think I wanted to fuck you, and now I realize I just wanted to be you!" 

So on the day that marks my 36th year on this planet, I am just trying to be happy being who I am. And it is working pretty well, because I have had the best freakin' birthday ever, and nothing is different.

Unless it is the iPhone. It is entirely possible that all of my happiness is can be directly attributed to my iPhone. If so, I am joing the church of Apple, praise be to Job.

============
This post, The "Real" Secret, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on April 2, 2009.

I decided to go hang gliding from Kill Devil Hills. When I called the company that does it, the salesman said "How much do you weigh?" [...]]]> I once took a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina by myself. It was amazing and empowering, and all that stuff that happens when women travel alone.

I decided to go hang gliding from Kill Devil Hills. When I called the company that does it, the salesman said "How much do you weigh?" When I told him (224 at the time) he sighed and said "We're gonna need a lot of wind!"

============
This post, Most Embarassing Moments – Part 4, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on January 9, 2009.

So basically I said "Hey, you're fat [...]]]> Once when I was at a national domestic violence conference, I went up to an amazing Native American speaker (there is at least one at every conference – white women love Native American speakers) and asked her what it was "like" in her community as a "woman of size."

So basically I said "Hey, you're fat and Indian, how's that working out for 'ya?"

Good times.

============
This post, Most Embarassing Moments – Part 1, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on January 9, 2009.