No, just that she aspires to be one.
Does it matter to a prostitute who is handing over the money?
Bingo.
The thinking behind “slut” being defamation per se was that it was an actual accusation of lack of chastity. When I asked earlier what, from an objective standpoint, a slut was, it was to illustrate this problem. At common law, a woman is presumed chaste, and asserting she’s engaged in fornication was actionable.
In today’s world, however, I don’t think that presumption is workable. But if we wish to apply it to her benefit, then she must live up to ye olde standard: not guilty of fornication, i.e., sexual intercourse between unmarried persons.
Sort of, yes. If it’s a film producer, you’re an actress. When a third party pays for sex, it’s not always prostitution.
And when a scientist testifies that nicotine has no bad health effects and then receives a fat check from RY Reynolds, some might say he has prostituted himself. He can’t sue them, pointing out he never took it up the ass from a Reynolds exec.
Granted if she is in porn she can accept money from someone else for having sex. However in this case I see no insinuation that she wants to engage in professional porn but rather from this and other comments that she is a prostitute.
In the case of the researcher the context is clearly not one of having sex for money. Limbaugh made this explicitly about having sex.
From her testimony, we don’t even know if she uses contraceptives personally.
Right?
If Limbaugh was just some tool sitting at a bar spouting his crap then I’d agree.
However, Limbaugh has an audience in the many millions. I cannot find it now but someone had compiled a screenshot of Twitter messages from conservatives who jumped on Limbaugh’s bandwagon and were spewing even more vile hatred towards Sandra Fluke.
Other media also picked up on this and ran with it continuing the slander of Ms. Fluke:
Bet we could find more if we looked.
Also, Limbaugh did not just make one off-color remark once. Far from it. He ran with it and continued his slander over the course of days.
That is why this should matter and amounts to a civil wrong.
She’s testifying on their behalf and she’s grateful that it will meet the needs of many women: not that it will meet her needs (or as she could have phrased it if she were a party, “our needs”).
That said, I think she stands to gain from this. She’s demonstrated legal knowledge and capacity for public speaking. I think the only way she could pursue a suit at this juncture is if she could prove that she lost out financially due to his comments (future employment perhaps - which as I said, seems unlikely).
Wait…Pam Geller, the “Bikini Pundit”, said that? Irony can’t keep up with these people…
No, he isn’t saying that literally either. He’s using hyperbole to ridicule her policy position. And there’s no mistaking that.
That’s Rush Limbaugh’s argument. But either way, there’s no way to reasonably interpret his remarks as a statement of fact that she’s an actual prostitute.
I find myself in the same position as Bricker, even though Bricker is well-known as a conservative, religious Republican and I’m a liberal, atheist Democrat. One, I might add, who despises Rush Limbaugh.
But what Limbaugh has done here, regardless of how reprehensible it is, is not defamation. He’s not making a statement of fact that any reasonable person would understand to mean that Fluke is a working prostitute.
Saying that something should be a civil wrong and concluding that it constitutes defamation under current law is two different things.
If we were going to have a discussion about a law making it actionable to trigger public harassment of an individual through traditional and online media, that might be an interesting discussion.
What if there were a cause of action for ridiculing someone in public? Would we give Ghyslain Razaa a cause of action?
You seem to be claiming that explicitly calling somebody by name a prostitute who wants to be paid to have sex is a defense against slander?
Limbaugh didn’t say Fluke is like a prostitute. He said she is a prostitute and then went on to say that she wants to be paid to have sex, in case anyone who was listening wasn’t aware of what a prostitute is.
If Fluke had been arrested for prostitution and Limbaugh were testifying against her in court, he couldn’t have made his statement any clearer.
If I call Limbaugh a douchebag and then go on to cite all the reasons that he is a douchebag, then are you going to thing that I am making a statement of fact that Limbaugh is a rubber device used to administer vaginal irrigation?
You don’t believe that.
Does right-wing idiocy create cognitive blindness in left-wing listeners?
You’ve got to be kidding. His statement, used in a trial against Fluke for prostitution, could have been much clearer.
Q: So, Mr. Limbaugh, you testified that Ms. Fluke is a prostitute?
A: Yes.
Q: And by that you meant that she was paid money for the act of sex?
A: Yes.
Q: And who paid her this money?
A: You, me, the American taxpayers.
Q: And with whom was the sex act consummated?
A: Uh…
Q: I assume you don’t mean, sir, that Ms. Fluke had sex with you, me, and the American taxpayers?
A: Uhh…
Correct, although it’s not a weak inference, since she said “we” students have faced financial, emotional, and medical burdens as a result of the lack of contraception coverage. She includes herself in that list, although perhaps we might instead infer that she merely wishes that contraception were covered and her financial, emotional, and medical burdens have arisen from her lack of contraception, not the necessity of paying for her contraception out of pocket.
He wants video.
Are you talking merely about the prostitute angle, or about Limbaugh’s comments in general? Because I think the potential exists of a valid claim under the “slut” line for the reasons set forth above. Not so much on the prostitute bit.
But Limbaugh ALSO made it clear that she wasn’t accepting money to engage in sex, but rather asking for money to pay for contraception so she could have sex. That’s not prostitution. You can’t jump on the “Limbaugh made it clear” wagon when it suits you and then jump off when something else he made clear doesn’t suit you.
For that matter, Liimbaugh also made it clear he wants video – why isn’t he analyzed as a porn producer, then?
How far does this go as a defense to libel?
I can call someone any name in the book and as long as I can claim no reasonable person could think I was being literal then what I said is ok?
It does not matter that my comments are clearly slanderous/libelous in nature?
If no reasonable person could think you were being literal then your comments can’t have been defamatory in nature.
The Legal Satyricon also examined this issue, but did not reach your conclusion. In short, courts may be less willing to extend defamatory per se status to unchastity in light of evolving sexual mores.
I think this is correct. What is your intuition as to the propriety of holding someone liable for defamation per se if they said “So-and-so has an inappropriate number of sexual partners.”? But it seems to me that this is just a less inflammatory way of saying “So-and-so is a slut.” It is well-settled that the First Amendment does not only protect courteous speech, so speech communicating the same content needs to enjoy the same protection.
While this is less ambiguous than the other statements, I think the usage may not be inclusive but affiliative… She’s identifying with the students that “have faced financial, emotional, and medical burdens”, just as someone that supported the Denver Broncos could have experienced a crushing defeat. It’s strange, because I really don’t care if she has ever had penetrative sex at all… I have a feeling that her speech will be dissected for at least another week though.