Rock the Vote's Video Fail: Tells Youth to Withhold Sex for Health Reform

by Alex DiBranco · 2009-12-23 15:00:00 UTC
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Heather Smith, the president of Rock the Vote, wants to let youth know that "they have a stake and a say" in the debacle of health care reform. Rally, oh swarms of my un- or underemployed and uninsured peers! Tell your representatives to shape up!

Wait, no, sorry. Actually, our "stake" is that if we don't support health coverage, we won't get laid. And our "say" is the ability to refuse to fuck the opposition.

That's right: Rock the Vote's hot new video campaign asks young people to pledge to withhold sex from opponents of health reform. While I guess you could still be getting it on with supporters (and progressives are, of course, sexier anyway), the emphasis on abstinence strikes The Sexist's Amanda Hess as "counter-intuitive."

After all, what do Republicans hate even more than public health care? Young people having premarital sex! If I were a Republican, I would love this Rock the Vote campaign. It reads like a conservative porn script: No health care, plus a bunch of young hot chicks sexily announcing that they’re not going to give it up!

Rock the Vote defends the video as a humorous, provocative way to engage young people. Because obviously the only way to get our attention is by appealing to our pants, not our brains.

In addition to creepy abstinence messaging, while the video is chock-full of women in push-up bras trying to seduce the guys -- either to turn them on for health care or, in the case of one cougar, just to turn them on -- the male eye candy is severely lacking. Yeah, Zach Gilford is cute, but I can't help but notice how well covered up he is in long sleeves and a T-shirt. (C'mon, don't we even get to see some abs?) As Hess puts it, "According to Rock the Vote, women are sexy teases; men are insatiable buffoons."

In a nice male fantasy moment, one of the "smoking hot Columbian chicks" pledges with her hand over the other girl's heart -- we're clearly supposed to think "potential threesome" rather than "lesbian couple." And, in a of transphobia, one of the girls is encouraged to lie to her would be lover: "I don't have a vagina." Doesn't lying about why you aren't screwing him (in the good way) defeat the purpose of the campaign?

The video is apparently supposed to "show you the cool and sexy ways you can Rock the Vote." If they were going for cool and sexy, couldn't they have come up with a campaign less sexist, homophobic, and, well, focused on not having sex? When I think of sexy ways to rock the vote, my mind goes to something a little more ... active. Hasn't Rock the Vote heard that sex is good for you? What better way to energize the troops?


Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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