What is worse? Heightism or Obamacareism?

More properly, I should say sexual Heightism or sexual Obamacareism for that's what we're talking about.

First, take heightism:

...A while back, I conducted a poll: "Would you go out with a guy who's shorter than you?" Around 40 percent of the women who responded said: "Hell-to-the-no." Another 32 percent or so indicated they'd date a guy the same height or a "teeny bit" shorter. How many women would go out with a significantly shorter man? Around 25 percent. In other words, most women are heightists.

I'm sure there are all sorts of goes-back-to-the-Stone-Age psychological and physiological reasons. A taller man may subconsciously suggest to a woman that he's more likely to provide for her than, say, a shorter dude. True or not, animals conditioned to believe one thing over untold millennia are hard to reprogram.

At 5'6," I have certainly been the victim of "heightism," and I think that the instinctive rejection of shorter partners may well be grounded in our evolutionary past.

But let me examine my individual pathology by starting with a pathological admission: I would not want to have sex with anyone who did not want to have sex with me because of my height.

You don't think that sounds pathological? Well, it is, and I will try to be my own shrink and explain why. Suppose I had bone-lengthening surgery to make me, say, five inches taller. How would I ever know that the people willing to have sex with me after that weren't heightist bigots who would never have had sex with me before the surgery? I wouldn't. So I might even be worse off than I am now. At least this way I know whether people really like me for who I am, and not what I "look like."

But does that really end my fearless and searching moral inventory for today? Hardly. Because, in all honesty, how can I know for certain that those people who are attracted to me now might not actually have a "thing" -- a fetish, if you will -- for short men. What that means is that they really wouldn't necessarily be liking the real me, but they just want to sexually objectivize my shortness. To use and exploit me -- something I should find intolerable!

So while I initially found it refreshing to read that a full 25% apparently do not conform to this kneejerk "cave man" approach to dating, the more I thought about these hidden and subtle forms of heightism, the more I wondered what that might really mean. Are those 25% truly openminded and just don't care? Are they truly "size blind"? Or are they heightist perverts who get turned on by other people's shortness?

Once we posit "heightism" as a form of bigotry, there's no winning. Far be it from me to solve a tall problem like this in a short blog post!

Keeping "heightism" in mind, let's have a look at Obamacareism. To my utter dismay, I learned that some young people with "RockTheVote" (who obviously think they are very cool) are organizing around the idea of rejecting sex with partners who don't believe in Obamacare.

I kid you not. Just look at these geniuses.

At least there's a possible evolutionary explanation for heightism. I don't know what excuse the above twits have.

The YouTube caption reads:

Question: What would you withhold from someone who opposes health care reform? Cookies, a Christmas gift, sex?

I'd like to turn the question around if I might, and ask,

What would you withhold from someone who supports health care reform? Cookies, a Christmas gift, sex?

Seriously, though, I think these girls (and guys too, at least I think they're being included) might be looking at this the wrong way by speaking about sexual favors in the negative, as something to be withheld. Instead of seeing the glass as half empty, they ought to be offering sexual favors to people who support Obamacare.

Not "I won't have sex with you unless you support Obamacare," but "If you support Obamacare, I'll have sex with you!" They'd get a lot more takers.

I also think they're making an erroneous assumption if they think that no one would lie in order to get laid.

It's easier to lie about your political opinions in order to get laid than it is to lie about your height in order to get laid.

Speaking of young twits, I think Nick Gillespie did a great job of handling this one in the video that Glenn linked earlier:

Ever the gentleman, Gillespie at no point cheapened the debate by threatening to withhold sex from her. I think such restraint is commendable.

(And they say libertarians are against moral lessons!)