The founder of the progressive online channel “The Young Turks” apologized on Thursday after making sexist and derogatory remarks on his blog years ago that included commentary that argued women are genetically “flawed” because they don’t want to have sex often enough.
The blog posts by Cenk Uygur from the early 2000s were first flagged by TheWrap.com in online archives after they were deleted.
“Obviously the genes of women are flawed. They are poorly designed creatures who don’t nearly want to have sex as often as needed for the human race to get along fruitfully and peacefully,” Uygur, now 47, wrote at the time.{mosads}
In another post called “The Rules of Dating,” Uygur explains what should happen physically as the dating process progresses.
“Women, ignore these at your peril,” he wrote in 2000. “Rule 1: There must be some serious making out by the third date. If I haven’t felt your tits by then, things are not about to last much longer. In fact, if you don’t get back on track by the fourth date, you’re done.”
“Rule 2: There must be orgasm by the fifth date.”
Uygur apologized in an interview with The Wrap, stating he deleted the posts more than a decade ago because he no longer stood for them.
“The stuff I wrote back then was really insensitive and ignorant,” Uygur said. “If you read that today, what I wrote 18 years ago, and you’re offended by it, you’re 100 percent right. And anyone who is subjected to that material, I apologize to. And I deeply regret having written that stuff when I was a different guy.”
Uygur added that he wrote the posts while he was still a conservative before becoming a liberal.
“If someone said that today, I would heavily criticize them on the show and rightfully so, and I have. I’ve criticized myself over the years,” he added. “I had not yet matured and I was still a conservative who thought that stuff was politically incorrect and edgy. When you read it now, it looks really, honestly, ugly. And it’s very uncomfortable to read.”
“The Young Turks” began as a radio program in 2002 before becoming a web series in 2005.
Earlier this year, the progressive outlet hired former MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, radio host David Sirota and former MSNBC producer Jonathan Larsen after a crowdfunding campaign raised more than $1.5 million.