Weekly Roundup: Masculine Grooming for God and Country
Summary
Brad is joined by special guest co-host Dr. Sara Moslener. They begin by discussing the hilarious trailer for Tucker Carlson's new original show, "The End of Men," which among other things touts the practice of tanning one's testicles in order to increase testosterone levels. After some jokes about the merits of red and blue balls, they breakdown the model of masculinity Carlson is upholding as ideal and how it connects to patriarchal visions of God and country.
"If God is male, male is God." - Mary Daly
Brad's article on God as Ultimate Masculinity: https://therevealer.org/god-is-ultimate-masculinity-evangelical-visions-of-manhood-in-the-wake-of-the-atlanta-massacre/
In the second segment Brad and Sara discuss the remarkable Right's new buzz word: Grooming. In their view anyone who doesn't oppose CRT and wants children to learn basic facts about history (including slavery and racism) and human health (including comprehensive sex ed) is a groomer who supports pedophilia. Sara traces this all the way back to the 19th century to proslavery theologies. Brad links it to similar rhetoric from the 1960s and 1970s when schools were integrated.
Sophie-Bjork James on the history of the Right's grooming rhetoric: https://religiondispatches.org/the-rights-grooming-rhetoric-didnt-begin-with-qanon-you-have-to-go-back-a-bit-further-to-get-to-the-source/
The final segment examines the fact that all three Republican candidates for attorney general in Michigan are willing to make birth control illegal for any unmarried person. You heard that right.
Transcript
Brad Onishi: Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco, show associate in partnership with the Capps Center UCSB. My illustrious regular co-host Dan Miller is out today with a minor medical thing. He's all right, everything is good friends, don't worry. But he's not with us, and that means I'm joined by another illustrious co-host, and that is Dr. Sarah Maslener. So Sarah, how are you?
Dr. Sarah Maslener: I'm doing all right, it's Friday. It might actually get to be spring here in Michigan at some point. Things are turning colors that aren't gray and brown, and we're getting close to the end of the semester. I am really looking forward to a summer of writing, and that hasn't been the case this semester, but today I'm doing pretty well.
Brad: I love it. I love it. Well, we got to say this—your seminar is coming up in about two weeks, well a little bit more, but still. And spots are few. The spots are scarce, I should say. And so friends, if you'd like to sign up and you're not familiar with Dr. Sarah Masliner, who's been on our show a bunch of times, Sarah is a world expert on purity culture and is the co-founder of the—I'm gonna get this wrong, Sarah—the Purity Culture Collective? No, After Purity. What did I just say wrong?
Sarah: So yeah, I am the director of the After Purity Project, which is my research. And I did not found the Purity Culture Research Collective—that was founded by two students, and Liv Schultz, two amazing scholars and thinkers. But they approached me and asked me to join. So they have really been behind it. But yes, the Purity Culture Research Collective—we have just been making our work more public and wanting to boost each other's work.
Most recently, we were at a conference together, and someone said, "You know, this is only the second time I've seen scholars who genuinely support and enjoy one another's work." And that's when I realized what a gift it really is. These are all people who've come out of purity culture, who've taken some kind of academic or artistic interest in purity culture. So yeah, it's a pretty amazing group of young scholars and artists and mental health care professionals.
Brad: And so, you know, if you're listening friends, Sarah's bona fides when it comes to studying purity culture—having experienced it—are second to none. So she's leading our seminar starting in May: "Purity Culture, Race and Embodiment," that will look at, among other things, the kind of racial dynamics of purity culture. You may have never known that there's a deep racial and racialized history of purity culture, and so the seminar will dig into so many of those things. There's a few spots left. Sign up as soon as you can.
Now today, Sarah, we're going to talk about some heavy things. We're going to talk about, I think, the fragility of white American masculinity. I think we're going to talk a lot about the grooming rhetoric from the right—about how basically, if you don't agree with everything the right puts forward, you are then just put in the category of a pedophile who is grooming children. And I think we also want to talk about the ongoing threats to democracy by ways of coup and violence, coupled with the desire to restrict women's bodies. And so all of that, to me, is tied together. If it doesn't seem like it is, friends, hopefully we'll hear that in the next couple of minutes.
But in order to talk about masculinity, Sarah, we're gonna have to just—we're just gonna have to go there. And that is this week, a trailer dropped for Tucker Carlson's new series, "Tucker Carlson Originals," and the trailer—there's a 49-second trailer that dropped—is for a piece of work called "The End of Man" or "The End of Men." And it really is trying, I think, to bring back "real American muscular men," but it does so in a way that the internet and Twitter and just any person with a sense of humor found incredibly ridiculous.
And so if you have not watched it, friends, please do. I usually would never say to watch anything Tucker Carlson has come anywhere close to, but this is actually worth the 49 seconds. Because Sarah, I was doing this with my wife last night—we were watching it over and over. And if you ignore the fact that it's coming from Tucker Carlson, and you add different music, like this trailer could be anything from an advertisement for Magic Mike 3, you know? Like there's so many muscular men sweating and lifting weights and dancing and showing off their bodies. And the pièce de résistance is men tanning their testicles in order to increase their testosterone.
So I have some analysis I want to do here. But I'm sorry, friends, we have to do this. We just have to. We're going to have to just dip our toe into the waters of testicle jokes. I'm sorry. It has to be done. If you don't like testicle jokes, this is a time to just hit fast forward for about two minutes.
So Sarah, I'm not asking Sarah the scholar. I'm not asking Sarah the overwhelmingly intelligent person, professor. I'm asking Sarah just the person who saw a trailer where there was so much sweaty muscle action and tanning of testicles. What did you think when you saw this?
Sarah: Yeah, part of me wanted—wants us to just record ourselves watching it live, just sort of do an MST3K thing on it. It is remarkable, and in terms of—it really does feel like such a heightened, ridiculous version of masculinity. And it just feels—and I can easily see the way it's trying to work on a different kind of level. It's not working on a level that says "we're here to actually provide you with information." We're here to further destabilize some ideas. So you just use the most shocking and confusing things.
But the greater point is, I think, one that has been around for so long. And I've been thinking about this—I've been thinking a lot about George Gilder, who I write a lot about in my book, and just this idea of hegemonic masculinity as the foundation of civilization. And James Dobson, a name we all know, was someone who was deeply informed by Gilder. And so this is late 20th-century conservative masculinity that was created really to combat feminism, in particular.
And so to see this—and I don't know, I would love to show this to George Gilder or James Dobson and see what they say. But it's really interesting how easily it tips over into something like homoeroticism.
Brad: Thanks for listening to this free preview of our SWAJ episode. In order to get access to the full episode and so much more, become a Straight White American Jesus premium subscriber by clicking the link in the show notes. It'll take you like two clicks, I promise. In addition to getting access to this episode, you'll have access to the entire SWAJ archive—over 550 episodes. You'll also get an extra episode every month, ad-free listening, Discord access, and so much more. All that for less than six bucks a month, and it helps us keep our flag up and continue to safeguard democracy from religious nationalism, extremism, and rising authoritarianism. Check it out. It's not hard, I promise.