What over a decade of incel messaging and Bronze Age Pervert have done to Young Republicans
“The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.”
“Sex is gay”
“Sex? It was rape.”
“Epic”
This text exchange is part of the cache of messages sent in a Telegram group chat by Young Republicans. In these messages, exposed by POLITICO reporters Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, hundreds of racial and homophobic slurs are used by leading Young Republicans, including a Kansas state senator, along with joking references to Hitler and the Holocaust.
A lot has already been said and written about the deeply racist, misogynistic, and anti-LGBTQ+ exchanges from this group chat. But I wanted to focus on this exchange because I think it helps highlight some crucial aspects of the sexual politics of the new young right.
I’ve argued in the past that the new right has endorsed a politics of rape, one that is in keeping with a longer tradition of rape and domination as keys themes in right-wing, authoritarian politics. Here, I want to elaborate on this argument by stressing how a fixation on the male form, homoerotic ideas about strength and beauty, and a contempt for women’s bodies plays into this right-wing politics of rape. [Continue reading…]