Sexist pet peeve: the persistent myth that women are all privately obsessed with producing tiny widdle babies. Working to debunk that assumption is a recent National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy study [PDF] which surveyed thousands of young Americans, aged 18 to 29, about their thoughts and perceptions about pregnancy. Guess which group is more likely to be “pleased” at an unplanned pregnancy? It’s not the one with the silently weeping ovaries.

In order to gauge the “surprise fetus” reaction, NCPTUP researchers first isolated survey respondents who claimed it was “very important or somewhat important for them to avoid pregnancy right now.” Then, researchers asked them how they would feel about an unplanned pregnancy:

If you found out today that (you were/your partner was) pregnant, how would you feel: Very upset, a little upset, a little pleased, very pleased, wouldn’t care.

Results: Staggeringly gendered! Forty-three percent of young men responded that they would be “a little pleased” or “very pleased” by the news; only 20 percent of women answered the same. Men also proved more comfortable with an unplanned pregnancy at an earlier age: Thirty-four percent of men 18-19 said they would be pleased. By the time they reach age 20-24, 42 percent of men said they would be pleased. And over 50 percent of men aged 25-29 would be pleased by the news. Remember: this is only among men who deemed it “important” that a pregnancy not occur at this junction.

Meanwhile, the percentage of women who would be “pleased” by an unplanned pregnancy stays steady at a low 16 percent all the way from age 18 to 24. By the time women reach the 25-29 age range, the percentage of “pleased” women soars to 29 percent. Despite the jump, women in their late 20s still lag behind their male counterparts by 22 percentage points. I don’t know: Perhaps our joy is muted by the fact that unexpected pregnancies tend to put us ladies out a touch.

So, politely, what the fuck is going on? How many women out there are having sex under the assumption that their male partners are invested in teaming up to prevent pregnancy, only to discover that the guys are privately ecstatic about the idea? And could it happen to me? After all, my boyfriend falls into the Pleased By Surprise Fetus Danger Zone of age 25-29. Better safe than sorry:

me: Hey, would you agree that it’s very important or somewhat important for us to avoid pregnancy right now?

him: What?

me: Don’t worry, it’s a theoretical question.

him: Christ. Very.

me: OK.

him: ??

me: If you found out today that I was pregnant, how would you feel: Very upset, a little upset, a little pleased, very pleased, wouldn’t care?

him: Hmm. Wouldnt care. I guess.

me: Just so you know, over half of men in your age range would be pleased or very pleased, even though they say it is important for them to not cause a pregnancy right now.

him: Oh, I would never have picked those.

Whew. I never thought I would register my boyfriend “not caring” about me getting pregnant as a small victory, but I’ll take what I can get.

Listen up, teens: Guess what happens when you get teen pregnant, you’re not allowed to have a smushmortion, and you can’t figure out how to secretly swap your fetus into your mother’s aging but willing womb. Umm . . . you get rewarded with an eccentric celebrity handler and sexy undies shots in Vanity Fair? Oh ho no, honey, that’s what’s happens to the dude. What happens to you is you get to hold the dang thing throughout a couple of tortured appearances on a crazy middle-aged lady’s FOX News program, and then everyone makes fun of you for being a hypocrite because GOD, YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER EVEN HAD SEX. And then you have to raise it.

Did I mention your babby’s daddy got to do Tyra?

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown: Why Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I think that’s kind of fucked up, actually? BONUS: what to expect next in the SARAH PALYN SNOMOBLOWJOB TODD PALYN BAREBACK LEVI JOHNSON porn saga of the Palin family story, after the jump.

AMANDA: Hi!

SADY: WHY HELLO. are you ready to discuss THE TERRIBLE REVELATIONS OF LEVI JOHNSTON???? because there are a few, apparently.

AMANDA: Yeah. Apparently Sarah Palin attempted to engineer the EXACT SAME LEFT-WING BABY-SWITCHING CONSPIRACY that liberal bloggers speculated about after photos of pregnant Bristol surfaced during the campaign.

SADY: ha ha, yes. but the version of Sarah Palin in this article is capable of all trickery.

AMANDA: but not of cooking.

SADY: yes. it’s the intimate revelations of terribleness that are really special. she apparently often walked in on Levi and Tripp (?) and tried to trade him for Trig (??) saying, “I don’t want the retarded baby — I want the other one.” did you get a chance to read the full article?

AMANDA: No! That’s fucking insane! I just watched a video of Levi Johnston posing in men’s formalwear. I think I missed the good stuff.

SADY: well: one gets the sense that mr. johnston may be, let us say, playing up the anti-palinry a bit. it is a really, really anti-palin article. also, there’s some thing in there with meghan mccain throwing a fit because no-one will do her hair, which her rep calls a “naive mischaracterization.” NO-ONE COMES OFF WELL, i am telling you. only LEVI JOHNSTON, sole bastion of integrity among the corrupt palin clan. which: i kind of doubt it. but speaking of poses, you may soon have the opportunity to see levi himself in his underthings!

AMANDA: Yes, but at the same time, I think that Levi Johnston may be the only person who really gets it. First of all, Levi Johnston is hot. Like Sarah Palin

SADY: Ah, true. They have so much in common! Like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, really. But with more snowmobiling involved.

AMANDA: yeah, but Levi Johnston is willing to settle for that. By which I mean hot photo-shoots and tabloid-y tell alls, and a personal handler named Tank. And from my perspective, that’s a pretty good life!

SADY: Right? There was Trip and Trig and Tank… lots of T-names. I’m surprised he can keep them all straight. I can’t, really.

AMANDA: yeah. but the point is, he’s not trying to ruin the lives of a whole country of humans! i know: low standard

SADY: it’s true, it’s true! Sarah Palin does set an imposing standard for any young douchebucket. like, i guess i’m fine with the whole self-serving tabloid expose thingy as long as he’s not trying to make Jurassic Park illegal for promoting evolution. or something.

AMANDA: yeah. Also, if he keeps along this path, my election season prediction of him becoming a porn performer may come true!

SADY: ah, so now we see what this is about. your GAMBLING ADDICTION. i plan to tell all to vanity fair.

AMANDA: yeah. I wonder how easy it is, though, just to make up an absurd lie about sarah palin’s home life? Because at this point, i think people will really believe anything, they hate her so much. still, I wonder: could any mind have invented the “I don’t want the retarded baby” story?

SADY: it’s true! that is kind of unmatchable, all things considered. i automatically distrust anyone who tells these kinds of “and then I stood around and was awesome and watched everyone else in the world suck” stories. but, on the other hand, the idea that sarah palin, at home, “would literally say things that did not make any sense.” that is sensical.

AMANDA: I don’t know. I can’t hate him. he doesn’t seem like a liar to me, and any overblown statements i just have to attribute to him enduring media scrutiny for having the grandson of a famous crazy lady while in high school. i didn’t have to endure any of that shit in high school, and i was still kinda bratty

SADY: yeah, exactly. he does, all things told, come across as a regular dumb dude that you’d maybe make out with in high school. who is maybe still a little bitter that sarah palin made him cut off his mullet (the mullet plays a crucial role!) and threatened to spray-tan him.

AMANDA: dude, NO

SADY: i don’t MIND levi johnston so much as i mind the media creation of “Levi Johnston: Totally Admirable Guy! Who is Cute! And Also Sexy!” like, one thing i have learned from the levi johnston thing, as a whole, is that if you accidentally get someone pregnant in high school you can end up a sex symbol. and if you accidentally GET pregnant in high school, you end up a tragedy.

AMANDA: bummer. you’re totally right. imagine a bristol palin interview treatment that was super fun and sexy like this one!

SADY: I KNOWWWWWWWW.

AMANDA: i think the closest bristol could get to that would be doing an US Weekly How I Got My Body Back.

SADY: and yet? i think if one could give bristol a year or two and get her away from the whole family dynamic? she would be a far better storyteller. SHE WAS FORCED TO MARRY THE GENTLEMAN WHO STOLE HER VIRTUE. AS IN YE OLDEN DAYS. if you want dirt, that lady is the one to get dirt from. should she ever be in a position to reveal it.

AMANDA: and her options were: have the baby, or have the baby and have your mom steal your baby. although i would bet that bristol and levi’s porn performance options are roughly equal.

SADY: um, yeah. i’m kind of surprised that there’s no bristol “paylin” porn on the market already. maybe they’re waiting until they can get levi?

AMANDA: oh man—mind went slightly insane imagining all the creepy options available. “trig palin isn’t the only thing sarah wanted to trade”

SADY: you know. every now and again i realize what life would be like if i had no scruples. and i imagine myself rolling around on a bed of pure gold with a mattress stuffed with $1,000 bills.

AMANDA: and a handler named Tank!

SADY: and all i would have to do is to invent some scenario whereby levi “johnson” and todd “paylin” bond – WITH TANK, TANK’S NAME COULD STAY – over snowmobiles and enthusiastic outdoor sexual escapades.

AMANDA: what does it say about society that one political family’s story translates so easily to pornographic storylines?

SADY: power corrupts. and power within a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere where the kids have nothing to do but make out to conserve their bodily heat and their mom is better suited to image-making than rational thought corrupts absolutely. or something.

It is a simple formula for both comedy and political commentary:

Take a public figure (Sarah Palin) who holds disagreeable views (abstinence-only education). Zero in on an aspect of her personal life counter to those views (her own teen daughter, Bristol Palin, becoming pregnant). Reveal the comedic irony and/or hypocrisy of the public/private contrast. Repeat ad nauseam on blogs, 24-hour news channels, and late night talk shows.

We should all beware this construction. Though very easy to pull off—and often journalistically and comedically sound—it is a trap. And it will render us all hypocrites. Three lessons from history, after the jump.

SARAH PALIN

DISAGREEABLE VIEW: Too many to count, but in this case, it’s the abstinence thing.

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: When Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol became pregnant months before Palin rose to political fame as John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, political commentators and comedians held up Bristol’s pregnancy as evidence that abstinence is futile—even under the roof of your state’s no-sex-before-marriage Governor.

IT’S A TRAP! The revelation came at the height of election season fervor, and liberal commentators ate Bristol’s sexual activity up with a spoon. The term “knocked up” became par for the course. When the baby’s father, Levi Johnston, told Tyra Banks that he and Bristol had practiced safe sex, Tyra et. al dismissed him as a liar. The late-night comedy cycle feasted on the Bristol-is-a-slut jokes. Even Palin family cheerleader Greta Van Susteren asked Bristol if she had been “lazy.”

We forgot that even the most responsible of 17-year-old condom users don’t put it on right every time. We forgot that condoms break. And we forgot that, when you’re the governor’s daughter in the small town of Wasilla, requesting birth control from your family doctor, seeking Plan B at a local pharmacy, or even buying condoms—anywhere—could cause such a shit-storm for you, your boyfriend, and your family, that it would have been hard to mount the courage to even approach the counter.

At some point, we forgot about why Bristol having sex was funny to begin with. The insane glee that we all derived from a teenage girl having sex before marriage became counter-intuitive—and downright creepy. We had crossed the hypocrisy bridge. We were no longer making a point about how young women should be free to choose to be sexually active. We no longer joked to show how bogus abstinence was. We joked to show that Bristol Palin was slutty, and that was enough to make it funny.

—

CARRIE PREJEAN

DISAGREEABLE VIEW: During the Q-and-A section of  the 2009 Miss USA pageant, Miss USA California Carrie Prejean described her views on same-sex marriage this way:

“I think it’s great that americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, and in my country, and my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be a man or a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that was how I was raised, and that’s how I think it should be. Between a man and a woman. Thank you.”

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: After rising to blogosphere infamy—with the help of question-asker Perez Hilton’s videoblog declaring her a “bitch”—Prejean’s past modeling career caught up to her. When topless photos of the 21-year-old Prejean surfaced on the Web, Prejean was accused of both violating her pageant contract and preaching inconsistent moral views. Who is she to preach good Christian values when she’s flaunting her assets for cash?

IT’S A TRAP! Wait a second—since when did we start caring about women upholding the contractual obligations of beauty pageants? Pageants are among the most sexist and anti-feminist of American traditions. They encourage patriarchal views about the traditional roles women and men should hold in society. And guess what—gays don’t have a place there.

But the patriarchy is also responsible for one of the most damaging of all hypocrisy constructions: the virgin-whore dichotomy. Shaming Carrie Prejean—a woman we’ve elevated through beauty pageants—for taking topless modeling photos is a very short leap for shaming gays and lesbians for expressing their sexuality. That’s why this whole thing was hypocritical in the first place—but perhaps we’re all too distracted by Carrie Prejean’s boobs to remember. We may keep posting them in the interest of “revealing hypocrisy.” But we all know the real reason they’re on the Web: It’s not hypocrisy anymore; it’s hotness.

—

LARRY CRAIG

DISAGREEABLE VIEW: As a Republican Senator from Idaho, Craig often championed conservative moral values. William Saletan got specific in 2007, pointing out that Craig “helped to enact the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” revealing his “anti-gay hypocrisy.”

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: In June of 2007, Craig was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop in the Minneapolis airport:

According to the report filed by the officer who arrested Craig at the Minneapolis airport in June, Craig stood outside the officer’s bathroom stall for two minutes, repeatedly looked at the officer “through the crack in the door,” sat in the stall next to the officer, tapped his foot, and gradually “moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot … within my stall area.” Craig proceeded to “swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds” three times, palm up, using the hand farthest from that side of Craig’s stall. Most of these gestures, the officer explained, were known pickup signals in a room known (and hence under surveillance for) public sex. When the officer took Craig outside and told him so, Craig claimed he had been reaching down with his hand to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor. The officer wrote that no such paper had been on the floor.

IT’S A TRAP! I’ll admit it—this is rich, fertile ground for the hypocrisy construction. Craig blows Palin and Prejean out of the water with this Perfect 10 hypocritical move: enacting anti-gay policies in law, and being gay in private. Jokes at Craig’s expense were easy, valid, and very popular.

Conservatives, when not denying that any of this happened, joined in the shit-throwing. After all, this is the stuff homophobes’ nightmares are made of—strange gay men attempting to have sex with them while they’re taking care of business in a public restroom. For them, Craig reinforced the idea that homosexuals are sick and disgusting individuals just waiting to pounce on your unsuspecting bare penis. In other words, gays can pose a very real threat to their heterosexuality, and Craig proved it.

And yet, those who railed against Craig’s institutionalized homophobia were the ones who took the most immense joy in the gay jokes. So—again—reveling in jokes about Larry Craig being gay began to lose their hypocritical anchor. On some level, the hypocritical construction allows people with pro-gay political views to indulge in some homophobic ribbing of their own. They see a rare window where making fun of gay sex is politically acceptable, and they sieze it. It’s the same tale with Sarah Palin: People who support progressive sexual health policies, like comprehensive sex education, sieze the opportunity to make jokes about sluts. It’s the same tale with Carrie Prejean: People who rail against patriarchal values, like “opposite marriage” and beauty pageants, sieze the opportunity to make sexist jokes.

So, let’s all try not to descend too deeply into the hypocrisy construction’s rabbit hole. Fall too far, and we become ripe for ironic commentary ourselves.

There are no words. [Via].

CAN SARAH PALIN SEE THIS WOMAN FROM HER HOUSE? Some are hailing this leggy blond Livejournal blogger as the future “Russian Sarah Palin” (or at the very least, the Russian Ann Coulter). She’s 24, hates immigrants, and has been photographed “drunk, wrapped in a Cuban flag” (right). An excerpt from her blog:

“Думаю, заметку про меня в Дейли Мейл нужно как-нибудь откомментить. Поскольку журналисты иногда стесняются спрашивать и предпочитают додумывать:)”

Incendiary!

Her name is Maria Sergeyeva. Know it.

THE LEVI VIDEO: Hunky redneck expounds on “maturity” from truck:

Aww.

SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY: Republicans hope for the Palin draw: “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will serve as the keynote speaker at the GOP congressional committees’ annual fundraising dinner in June, helping the party boost its coffers in an otherwise tough climate for collecting cash,” WaPo reports. The gala will be held June 8.

IN OTHER FORMER CANDIDATE KID SPOTLIGHT NEWS: McCain spawn and Daily Beast contributer Meghan McCain thinks women who call her fat can kiss her “fat ass.”

NEXT UP: GAY IS THE NEW TEEN PREGNANCY: New Majority’s David Frum says Bristol proves the GOP can’t win on morality alone. Anti-gay attitudes still make the cut; traditional family values, not so much. “Many conservatives carry in their heads a mental image of American society that’s a generation out of date. They imagine the existence of a huge class of socially conservative downscale voters, ready to vote Republican because of abortion and gay marriage. The story of Bristol Palin should help puncture this illusion.”

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: This anonymous Internet commenter has found a new sport for Todd:
“Run, Levi, run. Sarah and Todd will give you five minutes head start. If you hear a helicopter, try to hide.”

MEDIA NOT TO BLAME, REPORTS MEDIA: Greg Mitchell, author of Why Obama Won, feels some need to defend “the media” against claims that it caused Sarah Palin’s downfall. I’d quote from it, but it’s all super boring.

OKAY: NOW BACK TO BRISTOL!

MEANWHILE, DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL IS NOT AMUSED. Commenting on some blog, Debbie writes:

Not only does she not believe in abstinence, but she doesn’t believe in marriage either, apparently, since it’s been almost a year since she learned she was pregnant and almost two months since she had the kid. And yet, she’s still a baby mama. Hilarious that people call her mother– who enabled this baby mamahood and continues to put a roof over it– the “conservative of the year.” Simply hilarious. Not only has America become socialist under Obama, but conservatives have abandoned any sense of family values. In this one family– the new template for America’s conservative movement– you have a Mr. Mom, teenage pregnancy, single motherhood, and opposition to abstinence teaching. Awesome.

COMMENTER OL-DIRTY-/B/TARD RESPONDS: “Debbie Schlussel is a stupid whore.”

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: Big ups to Toddy’s body from the National Ledger: But the ladies can attest that one of the biggest draws of Sarah Palin was sexy, help around the house, husband, Todd Palin, better known as Alaska’s First Dude.”

MORE BRISTOL: Can Greta Van Susteren ask a fucking question? I’m not convinced. Let’s review:

“I don’t want to pry too personally, but I mean, actually, contraception is an issue here. Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have a philosophical or religious opposition to it or…”

“So it’s not just an issue of abstinence. That’s one issue. But once we get beyond that — you know, because when you have the discussion of abstinence, it’s almost — I always sort of feel badly because there’s a wonderful child here and talking abstinence sounds — I mean, it sounds…”

“You know, the bigger topic is, OK, now the situation—the bigger question is, like, now—you know, how to make it go right.”

THE FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER LAST WORD: My very favorite Alaskan newspaper writes that as oil prices fall, so does Palin’s cred in the “lower 48″: “‘Given these bad times, she’s going to have a much more difficult time traveling outside Alaska,’ said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. ‘When times are good, people will let their governor roam. In bad times, citizens expect their governor to stay home and work on solving the problems.’”

Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.

I think this speaks to one commonality between the two sets of parents: They get upset when their kids prove their own values wrong. For a blue-stater who supports pre-marital sex, a child becoming pregnant or contracting an S.T.D. shows that contraception methods are not infallible, and forces the parent to come to terms with what her kid is actually doing behind closed doors. For a red-stater who opposes contraception, a child becoming pregnant provides a less permanent reality check: once the pregnancy is aired, the parent can rationalize the situation back into their world-view by saying that her child is in love, engaged, and will raise her own baby as a gift from God. Blue-staters without God to look back on probably just have to bite the bullet.

Last month, reports of a 17-year-old Palin spawn’s unplanned pregnancy briefly satiated tabloid hunger for babies-having-babies coverage. The announcement redirected the evergreen “Pregnant Teen” story from Britney sis and new mom Jamie Lynn Spears, also 17, who gave birth to her first child in June. Now, tabs like the National Enquirer (probably more reliable than USA Today!) are again turning their exacting eyes on Spears. “Whoops—she did it again!” reports the Enquirer:

“Jamie Lynn is about eight weeks pregnant, and she and her mom Lynne are hysterical,” revealed a close source. “Neither of them knows what to do, but for now they’re trying to keep the news from getting out.”

“Too late,” sneers the Enquirer, after reporting that Spears’ “pals are begging her to abort.”

There’s something very strange about outing celebrity pregnancies (many gossip mags have their own “bump watch” to perpetuate the fetal rumormongering). But reporting on the reproductive activities of underage girls—those who are raised in the shadow of fame, and those who encounter it, suddenly, when their personal lives become political news—can be downright sinister.

Here’s why: Teen girls, for the most part, aren’t planning to become mothers. Those who do carry a pregnancy to term stand to sacrifice their childhoods, leave school, and abandon their career paths in order to become moms. That choice, of course, is a valid one. But by poaching these girls’ pregnancy stories before they’re able to even make that choice, the tabloid, blog, or mainstream paper that outs a girl’s pregnancy effectively eliminates her option to choose abortion. It’s a funny thing about conservative families, industries, and cultures—the abortion option looks a hell of a lot better when it’s done in secret, without neighbors, friends, or the entire media knowing about it. Once the pregnancy is revealed, though, you’ve got a baby, a marriage, and a hastily-worded press release on your hands.

The shame machine affects girls in pro-choice environments, too (like Godless, liberal Hollywood). No matter a girl’s situation, if a tabloid gets her pregnancy story out before she does, “pro-choice” politics bend to a more powerful force: PR. (Yeah, adoption’s probably off the table, too).

So here’s the rule on pregnant teen coverage, Enquirer. It’s only a story when she says it’s a baby. Hey, there’s an upside, tabloids: When you don’t shame a teen into having a baby, it’s a lot easier for you to continue to shame her for having the baby.

Photo by Pete Barr-Watson.