Female Trouble

May 5, 2022 - The relevance of this essay from 2012 (now updated) is a sad testament to the insanity that surrounds the issues of  female self-determination, family planning, contraception and abortion, seemingly the most important things in the world to the conservatives among us. With the SCOTUS poised to eliminate federal protections for abortion rights, my observations from a decade ago are still painfully obvious and devastating - Oblio

Preface: this is a rant about the systematic misogyny and anti-woman legislative attacks being carried out by the Regressive Conservatives in Congress and state houses across the country. If you don’t believe there’s a ‘War On Women’ taking place in our modern political discourse, then you're either not paying attention, don’t care, or live in a world without women (a sad and lonely place, indeed). 

I'm not a woman, so I'll assume that some of the nuances involved in this essay will never EVER be completely self-evident to me. However, I feel like I have more female-centric empathy than the Average Bear. A staunchly conservative female co-worker once described me as ‘the gayest straight man’ she’d ever known, and I took that as an honest compliment because that's how she meant it. 

I don't understand the current hysteria being screeched by Conservatives over family planning, contraception, abortion and the subject of women’s healthcare. It’s the antediluvian mindset that's brainwashed those who would limit, restrict or eliminate a woman’s right to make decisions about her body. The entire (mostly male) segment of our Right-leaning politicians and citizenry are bound and determined to take us back to the days when women were chattel, owned outright by their male overlords. Don't forget... it wasn't until 1920 that women were allowed to vote.

“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” – Florynce Kennedy 

It isn’t simply a case of Regressives not wanting ‘their’ tax dollars used for things they don’t really consider healthcare. It’s actually an overreaching ploy to establish and maintain authority and control over women’s individual rights and life choices. Regressives need to feel they have control over women, and the fake-pious Rethuglicans keep sticking their size 10’s into their mouths with every pronouncement of how they'll assert control over female bodies, specifically the uterus. 

It's fascinating that the same folks who espouse the concepts of Smaller Government and States Rights and Personal Freedom and all that… want the federal government to force women to simply roll the dice when it comes to having sexual relations. If they wind up preggers, oh well… GOD’S WILL. 

They don't just want to eliminate family planning, contraception and abortion. They want theocratic control over women’s physical lives to match a stilted vision of 'How Things Should Be', as directed by that Great Eye In The Sky and his minions on Earth who wear dresses in church and rape young boys in the small rooms behind the altar, with the visage of a mythical dying man nailed to a torture device, hanging on-high, exalted. 

Is that too harsh? Too bad… deal with it. I have no patience for uninformed, narrow-minded religiosity when it comes to the issue of women's reproductive rights. 

Fact: 98% of women in this country use, will use or have used some form of contraception in their lifetimes. Since they're uniquely equipped to give birth, it only stands to reason that each and every woman must have the ability... the right... the choice to conceive and give birth or not as they see fit, and this is specifically a women’s health issue. It has nothing to do with religious freedom.

"Keep your rosaries off my ovaries" -- anonymous bumper sticker 

Let me be clear on something before I continue with my little rant: I totally accept that there are lots of people who consider every aspect of my viewpoint on this issue as a non-starter. For them, anything that interferes or obstructs the natural process of conception is an abortifacient. For them, anyone who willfully terminates a pregancy before giving birth is guilty of MURDER. I understand their arguments, but as has been confirmed (up to now LOL) by the Supreme Court and in countless surveys, studies and polls, the vast majority (70%+) of Americans are pro-choice and support a woman's right to choose whether or not to conceive and/or give birth. 

I will always respect an individual's right to believe what they choose to believe, but there's only one set of facts here. Facts and reality do not support those who, as the result of their own personal beliefs,  vehemently oppose and want to eliminate access to family planning, contraception and abortion for everyone else. 

OK, back to the ranting. 

I hate to break it to the forced-birthers out there, but here’s a news flash: contraception is a modern woman’s RIGHT, not a privilege or some special gift that requires anyone’s approval or blessing. Limiting and/or eliminating access to family planning, contraception and (as a natural progression) abortion services does NOTHING to advance the role of women in our society. Limitations to these services only holds women back, hostages to their evolutionary role as progenitors of the species. Women aren't simply walking uteri, mammalian vessels whose sole purpose is to give birth and make dinner, a concept championed by the uber-religious on behalf of their Unseen Sky Wizard and his ghost-written magnum opus. 

“If men could get pregnant, they’d sell do-it-yourself abortion kits at Home Depot.” – anonymous bumper sticker 

Women are half of our citizenry. Women are more than half of our workforce. Women deserve to be treated with the same respect as men at every level of our society. HOWEVER… since men will never EVER be put in a position to have their bodies taken over by the process of childbearing, women also have a far heavier burden of responsibility towards procreation. Therefore, since women are solely responsible for gestation of the unborn, it's logical to conclude that ONLY women should decide whether to conceive and give birth or not, and must have at their disposal every option and opportunity to exercise that choice. It's the only civilized response to their singular status. It’s not that difficult a concept to grasp. 

I've often posed the concept that women, as a member of the species homo sapiens, are just a tick further evolved than men. That statement is usually met with sneers of derision from men (and affirmative head nods from women) until I list the facts: 

1. Women live longer than men. 

2. Women can handle pain better than men. 

3. Women regenerate blood and sinew faster than men. 

4. Women are all, to a certain extent, psychic (sorry, guys… you know it’s true). 

5. Women have an incredible level of sensitivity and intuition. 

6. Women can engage multiple layers of conscious thought streams simultaneously. 

7. Women have their reproductive organs on the inside of their bodies. 

8. WOMEN CAN GIVE BIRTH. 

9. Women have the ability to make men completely wall-eyed and stupid(er) with a simple word or deed. A push-up bra also puts men into full-tilt chimp mode (sorry, guys… you know it’s true). 

These are only a few of the the facts that IMHO establish women as the more-evolved of the species, as the people we single-minded testicle-dragging meatheads must offer as much deference to as possible. Conversely, these facts are also why, in almost every human society since the Stone Age, women have been oppressed to control their influence and quash their voice. In almost every religious doctrine now being practiced on this planet, women are treated as second-class, second-rate, second-in-line. Women have been cast as the lesser of the species, subject to the vagaries of their ‘stronger’ male counterparts, when in fact men have always oppressed women because they secretly feared the power of the uteri-laden. 

"For a woman to get half as much credit as a man, she has to work twice as hard, and be twice as smart. Fortunately, that isn't difficult.” -- Charlotte Whitton 

I'm reminded me of a favorite scene from the film ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’, where patriarch Gus Portokalos, called out over another instance of his dunderheaded ways, pronounces “MAN… is the HEAD of the family!" As an aside, his wife tells their daughter, “The man may be the head of the family, but the woman is the neck, and the neck can turn the head ANY WAY it wants to”. 

Soooo... now that you have a pretty good idea of where I stand on the issue of women's reproductive rights, you may be asking yourself what you can do about it  The answer is simple: SPEAK OUT. VOTE PRO-CHOICE. Don't stand by and allow the regressive theocrats to take another step towards the oppression of every American woman. Our wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, Mothers and friends need every voice to be raised in support of their singular and ongoing struggle to control their own lives, to be in charge of their individual futures. This isn't really a partisan political issue, although the battle lines do seem to be drawn in shades of bright Red and Blue. 

Sad to say, in the year 2022 we're still having a heated national argument over women's reproductive rights. I remain optmistic that we'll eventually reach a point of agreement/understanding on this issue, although it promises to be a knock-down drag-out battle in the upcoming primary and Presidential election seasons. I know this much: when it comes to the subject of women's rights, I'm a foot soldier on their behalf, ready to lead the conga line towards a more equal society. Come dance with me, won't you? 

"If you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?" - anonymous bumper sticker

Click the links below to find out more about these issues:

National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL)

www.prochoiceamerica.org

Planned Parenthood

www.plannedparenthood.org

Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF)

ffrf.org

Lead image 'Crucified Woman' by Eric Drooker, Muchismas Gracias de globalvoicesonline.com; Garbage 'Sex Is Not The Enemy' and Monty Python 'Every Sperm Is Sacred' videos, gracias de youtube.com

Genie In A Bottle

We modern Amerikkans certainly are lucky, amirite?

We have every convenience that science (if you believe in that stuff) can offer. Spacephones that provide all the information we could ever want right there in our hands unless we drop the damned thing and the touch-screen goes CRUNCH.  We have cars that are also Wi-Fi hot spots and mobile entertainment pods, with ass-vibrators to warn us about other cars or slow-moving skin bags because we’re too busy looking at the spacephone while we’re backing up.  We have mega-screen plasma HD 3D teevees that will stream digital movies, browse the web, order a crappy pizza and display multiple basketball games so you don’t miss a single point or foul or cheerleader up-skirt.

Yep, we sure are lucky. Unless, of course, you are a woman who decides she doesn’t want to be pregnant.

Here we are, in the second decade of the 21^st century, living in arguably the wealthiest and most liberated nation on the planet, yet still having a terribly dividing discourse on whether or not women have the right to decide for themselves if they wish to have children or not.  It’s a real-world issue that is muddied-up by sanctimonious morons who champion their Bronze Age religious dogma as justification for making sure their personal beliefs are codified into laws for everyone else. First Amendment?  What First Amendment?

But that’s not primarily what this essay is all about, nope nope nope.

This essay is about big stiff dicks… raging hard-ons… massive cocks… turgid penises… throbbing dongs.  You know, that which is held most exalted in the male performance-dominated psyche, fixated on what all  men are supposed to be truly concerned about:  getting a great big dick whenever it suits him.  And we have the technology to make sure that happens, thanks to modern medicine.

Are we a nation filled with men who are obsessed with having huge, stiff boners that will stay hard as a Louisville Slugger for hours at a time?  This is a serious question, and I think the answer is “Yes”.

Consider the amount of advertising dollars being spent to market the promise of a raging hard-on for any man who wants one, who needs one, who simply is not a real man unless he has one.  It’s becoming almost comical, this intense focus on the erect male member.  We dare not refer directly to the throbbing boner, nor can we EVER actually show one (unless PORN), but obsessed with the throbbing boner we are, and it is big bidness, baby.

 I never watch traditional stick-and-ball sports on teevee because they bore me to death.  However, I watch a lot of network news and NASCAR racing and OMIGOSH it seems like every commercial break is peppered with ads for Viagra and Levitra and Cialis (what's up with the damned bathtubs?!?) and Androgel 1.62 and all the other modern meds that work wonders on flaccid dicks, making them ramrod-straight and potent.  The ads are filled with are not-so-subtle phallic imagery, from sailboat masts to redwood trees, from Doric columns to muscle cars, from surfboards to large rock formations… anything that issues the subliminal message that you too can be ‘ready’ at a moment’s notice to have sexual relations with your significant other, your medically-induced boner leading the way.
 

 

Can't get much more phallic than that, right?

And the people in the ads who are ready to bang away, they all have the same insipid grin on their faces, hee hee hee, because he’s gonna have a BIG DICK in about 5 minutes and she is just so happy about it.  I wonder… is she using birth control, or is she too old to get preggers? Think he’ll use a condom? And the men in the commercials, so handsome and craggily virile, all hetero male and no guessing.  Sure, they might look slightly middle-aged, but they are in CONTROL of their lives… er, that is, they can control their hand that pops a pill in their mouth so that in a few minutes they can wave their fresh boner around and stick that thing right where they want to.  He knows how to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.

Now, don't get me wrong... I totally understand that our sexuality is a very complicated point of reference, whether male or female. We all want to remain vital sexual beings as long as possible, so it's no surprise that some women turn to hormone-replacement therapy to stay sexually active and satisfied as their baby-making years wind down.  For men, getting older also means lower testosterone levels and the resultant impact on popping a successful boner.  The problem with the male plumbing is that the big dick (or lack thereof) is a clear visual indicator of liftoff or crash-n-burn, and it can be devastating to the terribly fragile male ego when things go awry.

There’s a reason why male and female hormone levels drop as we age.  It’s called GETTING OLD, and it was something that adults just dealt with until boner pills and HRT became readily available. Yes, I know all about modern medicine, why we should take advantage of it to make our lives better yadda yadda yadda, but this medical dick-stiffener thing has me wondering why it’s become so pervasive, so important.  It makes perfect sense to me that as we age, our body’s natural chemical cocktail would begin to curtail hormone production because no more babies, but I also understand that we want to extend (heh heh heh) our recreational sexual lives for as long as possible because even us olds like to fuck.

There's another layer to this medically-induced boner thingie, and it has nothing to do with the phenomenon of 'erectile dysfunction'. Boner pills are doing a huge business with men of all ages who simply want to guarantee they can bang for hours, thus creating a false reality for themselves. Why (the advert-centered thinking goes) should ANY man not have an insta-boner at his beckoned call? I have known many guys, all younger than me, who made it a point to have the boner pills in-hand for their next big date, their weekend in Las Vegas, their next party run, no thinking necessary.  Just eat the pill, stand back and watch the fun begin.  What happens when they don't have that pill, that guarantee of being able to perform?

Here’s what I really wanna know:  why does it seem like there are never enough ways to market boner pills for men on the teevee, but it is verboten to do the same for meds and procedures for women who want to prevent or end an unwanted pregnancy?  Why are erectile dysfunction and ‘premature issues’ such pressing and urgent concerns that hundreds of millions of advertising dollars are spent to market boner pills, but don’t even THINK about airing ads for condoms or birth control (when was the last time you saw a birth control ad?) or family planning, all to prevent those medically-induced wild boners from knocking-up every fertile female within ejaculation range?

Why indeed.

It’s all about the big dick.  It’s why men take their countries to war (LBJ would actually whip out his dick in cabinet meetings during the Vietnam war to tout his mastery of the situation).  It’s why mouth-breathers buy huge 4WD trucks that never go off-road, or insanely fast sports cars that never see the inside of a race track. It’s why guns of every imaginable type are so popular in this here US of A.  They are all proxies for the big dick, snickering allusions to what supposedly really matters to modern males. Mine is bigger than yours, and here’s a nuke to show you just how much bigger.  Here’s a matte black assault rifle slung on my back to stand in for my tiny penis but you’ll act like I have a massive dong because I have a gun that looks like a big dick.

While the Republican-supported War On Women continues to scythe through women’s individual medical decisions, the boner pill issue hasn’t gone unnoticed by female legislators.  In state houses across the country, female representatives have tried to turn the tables on their male (and many female) counterparts who are bound and determined to eliminate access to birth control, contraception and abortion.  The gals decided to amend the anti-choice laws with their own bills, ones that would issue restrictive guidelines on ‘male enhancement’ medications, forcing men to jump through the same hoops women now must navigate in order to get their dirty slut baby-killing pills or patriotism-hating soshulist abortions.

In Virginia, as the Senate debated requiring trans-vaginal ultrasounds for all women seeking legal abortions, Senator Janet Howell proposed mandating rectal exams and cardiac stress tests for men seeking their Very Important erectile dysfunction baby-making pills. Her amendment failed by two votes, while the girlie-parts-probing sneak-a-peek bill was overwhelmingly passed and signed by the Governor.  Hypocrisy much? In Ohio, a bill introduced by state Senator Nina Turner would have compelled men to get psychological screenings before getting prescriptions for boner meds. Her bill also failed.  Shocking. 

Time after time, in one state house after another, Republicans have passed numerous anti-choice laws, all to subjugate and eliminate a woman’s right to decide what is best for her.  But when the discussion turned to passing the same type of ‘we know what's best for you’ laws aimed at men, the male legislators suffered brain aneurisms at the very notion of MEN being subjected to restrictions before they could get their boner pills.  The misogynistic lawmakers even had the audacity to claim that while boner pills were a necessary ‘medical’ treatment, contraception was nothing more than a ‘lifestyle’ choice and not a health or medical issue.  The gals lost their arguments to the testicle-draggers in every case.

Excuse me?  Pregnancy prevention is not a ‘medical’ issue?

What I don’t get is the disconnect, the cognitive dissonance that leads conservative men to demand access to and cherish the boner pills and the rampant sexing that results, but to also denigrate contraception and birth control as unnecessary lifestyle choices, as if boners and babies have no bearing on each other.  It reeks of the longstanding fact that whatever men think is important to them is sacrosanct, but whatever doesn’t directly affect them, no biggie, don’t matter, perish the thought.

Assholes.

As the bumper sticker sez:  “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”
 

I may be a dense wolverine, but even I can see the latent hypocrisy in this issue of boner pills vs. contraception.  I submit that since these two modern medicines are inextricably linked by sex and biology and human nature, for every teevee commercial hawking boner pills, there should be a matching ad for contraception or family planning. 

Yeah, I know.  It will never EVER happen, because our society is still ruled by the mostly dumb and always hypocritical Conservative Men's Club, at least for now.

So here's the crux of the biscuit: we USians are indeed wallowing in the most advantageous period of human existence to this point.  We have access to the best technology, the cleanest and healthiest foods, a lifestyle that allows us to live far longer than even our grandparents, and modern medicines that give us more control of our health than we could have ever hoped for.  It stands to reason that both men AND women should be allowed to control their own destinies when it comes to sex and procreation.  We are not dumb animals (at least not most of us), beholden to the ancient and primitive state of existence, living merely to eat, sleep, procreate and die.

If a man can legally buy and consume a pill to ensure he can get a stiff dick with which to fuck, a woman should be able to legally buy and consume a pill to make sure she doesn't get or stay pregnant.  Why is this such a difficult concept for so many of our fellow 'Murricans to grasp?

Why indeed.

"Today's so-called 'conservatives' don't even know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion.  That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the Pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It's not a conservative issue at all." -- Barry Goldwater

Pill image, gracias de mashangel.com; transporter image, gracias de jayski.com; Music Machine 'Talk Talk' video, muchismas gracias de youtube.com.