Posted by Nate Jones on 08/24/2012 at 10:39 AM News

The Popdust Files: akon, Rep. Todd Akin

It’s been an odd week for those of us who follow both pop music and politics. Ever since Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) comments last weekend that is was biologically impossible for women to get pregnant from “legitimate rape,” the word “Akin” has become shorthand for a nationwide effort by social conservatives to roll back women’s rights.

Which is confusing because, before this week, we (and we’re guessing many of you) had never heard of Rep. Akin before. We had, however, heard of Akon, the Senegalese-American R&B singer behind “Smack That” and “I Wanna Love You.” This has led to a brief moment of confusion every time Rep. Akin’s name pops up in a tweet. “Wait, Akon said what?”

Complicating matters is the fact that Akon the musician has his own history of spouting horrible misogynistic crap. Is it even possible to tell the two apart? We’ve rounded up a collection of the various sexist, homophobic or just plain clueless things both Akin and Akon have said, to find out!

Akin or Akon?

1. “Women will start realizing why men don’t treat them like ladies. Men are looking at them like, ‘You’re trying to be like me.’ Femininity is all out the window. The sweetness, the love aspect of it, the emotional part of the woman is gone because she walks around with her guard up.”

2. “Anybody who knows something about the history of the human race knows that there is no civilization which has condoned homosexual marriage widely and openly that has long survived.”

3. “I’m looking for someone who’s not trying to compete against me. I’m looking for a woman that’s willing to be a woman. Let me do the manly things, [let her] do the female-y things. … I know today a lot of women like to compete against guys. Like they feel like ‘I can do it myself; I don’t need no man.’ I don’t like that attitude.”

4. “I know that here in the States, it’s hard to bump into [women] right away because they’ve all been tainted a certain way. They all look at men in a certain way. [I'm] not saying that its their fault, because here in the States guys do a lot of things to make women treat them the way they treat them, too.”

5. “In a real messy divorce [marital rape laws can be used] as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”

6. “I can afford to have as many wives as I can afford to have.”

7. “There [are] people who use false [rape] claims, like those that basically created Roe v. Wade.”

8. “There’s a misunderstanding about [Don't Ask Don't Tell]. If people are gay they can serve in the military now. It’s just that they can’t allow their gayness to get in the way of getting the mission done.”