this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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The conservative obsession with purity and control is being achieved by increasingly punitive means

The US supreme court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas cited the Comstock Act, named after the 19th-century anti-vice campaigner Anthony Comstock, in last week’s case about access to the abortion pill mifepristone. If you don’t know who Anthony Comstock was or what his law did, that might not have alarmed you. But it should have.

The Comstock Law has come up a lot lately, and it’s part of the Republican war on sex, and to put it that way might sound overly dramatic. But there is such a war, and parts of it – against sex education, against access to birth control, against the healthcare provider Planned Parenthood and of course against abortion – have long been out in the open along with a war against the rights of women and on the rights and very existence of queer and trans people.

Comstock was reputed to be driven by religious shame over masturbation to become his era’s most extreme anti-sex crusader. He rose to prominence in the early 1870s, when he convinced Congress to make it a crime to advertise, sell or mail contraceptives or give out contraceptive information, even orally, or to mail anything “immoral” – a term whose vagueness allowed widespread prosecution, including of a feminist newspaper reporting on sexual abuse whose prominent publishers, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, he got sent to prison. Like modern-day rightwingers he was a book-burner, and he boasted that he had driven 15 people to suicide.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The Comstock Law has come up a lot lately, and it’s part of the Republican war on sex, and to put it that way might sound overly dramatic.

Comstock was reputed to be driven by religious shame over masturbation to become his era’s most extreme anti-sex crusader.

He rose to prominence in the early 1870s, when he convinced Congress to make it a crime to advertise, sell or mail contraceptives or give out contraceptive information, even orally, or to mail anything “immoral” – a term whose vagueness allowed widespread prosecution, including of a feminist newspaper reporting on sexual abuse whose prominent publishers, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, he got sent to prison.

While the backlash to Roe’s June 2022 overturning has been spectacular, with Democratic election victories and blue-state legislation strengthening reproductive rights, that doesn’t spare women in red states from the horrific consequences of the decision.

The far right the Heritage Foundation belongs to is, nevertheless, driving toward this goal by striving to take away birth control and abortion to make sex punitively risky for anyone who might get pregnant.

The right has also made noise about ending no-fault divorce and marriage equality, and introduced hundreds of anti-trans bills this year and last.


The original article contains 840 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] m3t00 2 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

All that WASP culture has really turned the conservatives to shit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

but oral contraception is my favorite type!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

The best way to prevent misuse of the Comstock Act is to hit them where it hurts. Find out what items their funders sell or trade in the most; then find logical ways to link it to sex or abortion.

Pretty soon you'll gum up all trade and they will cry for mercy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

If I can't get pussy then no one can

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago

Meh, the only thing that SCOTUS is going to do with mifepristone is tell the lower courts to knock it the fuck off. It's going to remain federally legal and widely available.

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