Amanda Marcotte's blog

Freedom's Just Another Word for Punishing Women

2008-06-25T08:00:00-04:00

The two traditional symbols of inevitability in this world are death and taxes, but I would like to propose a third: If women are the main victims of a policy built around basic bigotry, then the common sense objections to bigotry usually trotted out by ostensible liberals will fly out the window. Witness William "Lord" Saletan convincing himself yet again that he's a contrarian. Why? Because he behaves in a way predictable for men like him -- self-satisfied sexists so convinced of their own liberal nature that they don't even realize how sexist they can be -- and rushes to defend pharmacists who single out women for abuse in their pharmacies, refusing to fill prescriptions for those patients doing deplorably female things like taking hormonal contraception.

My favorite part of his immoral defense of the right for pharmacists to treat women with bigotry was when he excuses a pharmacist who implies that a woman is a slut -- or maybe even calls her a slut, because there's bound to be a point when purse-lipped refusals to provide basic pharmacy services won't be satisfying enough and the word will have to be uttered. Speaketh Lord Saletan:

Humiliation? Sorry, but part of true equality is brushing off people who don't respect you. If the guy behind the counter won't sell birth control, he's the one who should be embarrassed, not you. Walk out, and don't come back.

First class evidence that Lord Saletan thinks bigotry towards sexually active women doesn't count in the way other bigotries work. Imagine suggesting to civil rights activists that the only proper reaction to widespread humiliations like water fountains, lunch counters, and bathrooms marked "whites only" was to walk out and mutter about how the bigot should be the one humiliated -- even as you know the bigot is the one preening over how awesome he is because he showed the members of the hated class who's boss.

I like that part, but I also like how he lies to make his point that the poor, poor pharmacists are just religious rubes whose bigotry should be indulged by its targets. He buys the false claim that anti-choice pharmacists are motivated by the urban legend about birth control pills being abortions. Well, yes, that's what they like to say because it sounds a little less bigoted than, "Really, I think that women are inferior to men and should be forced to become pregnant against their will as punishment for being sexual and really just for being women." Lord Saletan plays along with the lie:

Because some pro-lifers view hormonal contraception as potentially lethal. I don't share their anxiety about this theoretical risk to an early embryo, particularly when the alternative, in the event of pregnancy, is a high likelihood of fetal killing.

From the original article Saletan is referencing:

But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

Emphasis mine. Anti-choicers oppose abortion, birth control pills, and condoms because they all see these as methods that sluts use to escape their fate ordained by God: Forced childbirth. They come up with lies about killing "babies" to sell this belief to the public, but the fact of the matter is that they haven't figured out a way yet to convince anyone that condoms are "abortion," and yet they still won't sell it at pharmacies. Saletan won't admit a fact that appears in the first paragraph of the article because it destroys his pro-bigot argument grounded in "religious freedom" for pharmacists. Admitting that the bigoted pharmacists in question are using religion as a shield to hide their blatant misogyny and bigotry towards people who don't share their fundamentalist beliefs would destroy his argument.

Unfortunately, that's the truth of it. If a pharmacist refused to fill out a Viagra prescription for a black man he saw walking around with his white wife, we would have no problem seeing this behavior as bigotry, even if said pharmacist claimed that Jesus told him to do it. But if a pharmacist refuses to sell birth control pills to a woman who isn't wearing a wedding band, somehow that's legitimate religious expression, even though his rights are extending well past her nose. If Muslim pharmacists started refusing to fill out prescriptions for Christians because those Christians don't share their beliefs, we would have no problem seeing that the religious freedom pinched was that of the customer's, not the pharmacists.

But if the victims are singled out because of sexism, then somehow society can't see the bigotry. If the victims of religious bigotry are specifically women, we don't see them as the victims of religious intolerance that they are. But that is exactly what they are. The pharmacists see a prescription for birth control and feels that's good evidence that the woman in question needs to be punished for having different religious beliefs than theirs. It's not much different from a fundamentalist Christian who humiliated and ejects you from his restaurant because he glimpses a business card in your wallet indicating that you're an atheist. Or a gas station attendant who refuses to serve someone he suspects of being Muslim.

Look, Pharmacists For Life doesn't even go to great pains to hide that this is about women and hating women. When the bloggers at Feministing criticized them, for instance, Pharmacists For Life used a common misogynist term that suggests that the belief that women are men's equals is comparable to a belief in fascism that led to the genocide of 12 million people. Is it about imaginary babies or about punishing uppity women for thinking we're equal?

Saletan pooh-poohs the effects of pharmacy refusal on the quality of women's lives. How widespread could this practice get? Well, in the cities, women probably always will be able to get services. But as Deborah Kotz notes, a lot of rural communities only have one pharmacy, and quite a few of them might be facing pressure from local churches to start treating female customers like they're second class. Certainly we have a long national history showing that it's not difficult to get entire communities to comply with bigoted policies that alienate a huge percentage of the local population. That's not only what segregation was about but also more recent culture war battles--creationism in schools, abstinence-only programs, and even, when I was growing up, the banning of MTV from local cable providers in the panhandle of Texas. That history suggests that it would actually be pretty easy for powerful churches in rural communities to deprive all the women of contraception with a few strategic demonstrations of pressure on local pharmacies.

The Truth About Pro-Choicers

2008-06-23T09:52:02-04:00

Amanda straightens out misconceptions about pro-choicers, celebrates Women on Waves, and interviews the editor for Sadie Magazine. Also: The money's still in women bashing women.

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Links in this Episode:
Women in politics
Digg RH Reality Check
Vessel
Chris Matthews spreads misinformation
Mob Logic on abortion

Transcript:
This week on Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing the editor of a new teen girl magazine called Sadie. Also, a documentary about Women On Waves, misinformation about pro-choicers in the mainstream media, and more woman-bashing on MSNBC.

Thanks to Shireen Mitchell for posting an MP3 of a recent appearance she and I made, along with Kim Gandy, on San Francisco's KPFA to talk about Hillary Clinton and women in politics.

insert women in politics

So I get to occasionally do non-podcast radio. But I like the podcast stuff best, and wanted to take a moment to ask you to help out the show. You can either go to iTunes and leave a review or go to Digg and Digg our podcast page. Links should be available on the podcast page of RH Reality Check.

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Oh this is awesome. There's a movie coming out called Vessel, about the Women on Waves project.

insert women on waves 1

The trailer has a great quote from Robert Burns: "Every generation gets the pirates it deserves." Unfortunately for anti-choicers, pirates are still pretty hip. Lady pirates are really sexy, too. I know that this is a clinic and you have to be very conservative to set at ease the more nervous women, but it would be awesome if the security people working the boat were sporting bandanas and eyepatches and feathered hats. Actually, some do wear bandanas, so there's that.

The trailer is absolutely fascinating, and I bet the movie more so. The boat goes to countries where abortion is banned and loads women up on the boat, takes them 12 miles from shore, aborts their pregnancies, and drops them off at home. It's basically legal. But because legal abortions are not known in these countries, the boat landings turn into a 3 ring circus much of the time.

insert women on waves 2

I had heard of Women On Waves before, of course, but until I saw the visuals from this trailer, I didn't have a really good grasp of how effective they are in translating the feminist viewpoint into visuals that anyone can grasp and not misinterpret. Here you have this boat with women getting on of their own free will. And around the boat, mobs of angry men screaming in anguish that this is happening and it's not in their control. It'll take a lot of bloody fetus pictures to erase the blatant truth captured in that moment. This is what this is about, and it's ugly. It's men thinking women belong to them. It's them using the state to declare that right.

Here's the founder, Rebecca Gomperts, talking about some other symbolic value to this project.

insert women on waves 3

I tend, as a rule, to be hostile to the idea of just symbolic activism, because it's easy for it to devolve into a time for people to express themselves, and they lose focus. In order for a public protest to work, it needs to be focused. What's interesting about Women On Waves is they avoid the problem of focus entirely because they have a mission and they do it. They provide abortions. With actual abortion provision at their center, the symbolic games play out on their own.

insert women on waves 4

The critical combination of focus, concrete action, and creativity is powerful. Women On Waves tried to dock in Portugal, and was stopped. So Gomperts went on TV and instructed women on how to do safe abortions at home with medication. The message was clear and to the point: Women will have abortions no matter what, and the debate is whether or not they should be safe or dangerous. The result is that Portugal has legalized abortion in the years since.

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I'm so sick of all the misinterpretations out there about pro-choicers. Why do people believe such weird things about us? I have a theory, and I think it goes back to the fair and balanced thing. It's hard to be fair and balanced between pro- and anti-choicers because one side, the pro-choice side, unfairly is the reasonable and fact-based side. So, to even it out, the media pretends that anti-choicers are more reasonable than they are. The media hides how many of them want to ban birth control and the links between abstinence-only and the anti-abortion movements. And then, to even it out even more, they say crazy things about pro-choicers that aren't even remotely true. Like Chris Matthews, of course, on June 12th.

insert matthews lie

I'm going to assume he's conflating "Democrats" with pro-choicers, which is in itself a misleading statement. There are pro-choice Republicans and anti-abortion Democrats, though to be fair, there's not any Democrats in Congress that I know of that are against contraception and education. To make it worse, Matthews said that right on the tail of admitting that Obama is speaking frequently about increasing funding for family planning and education.

You know who's against contraception and education and you know, reducing abortions?

insert more babies

Yes, that's Leslee Unruh of Abstinence Clearinghouse, arguing famously against the birth control pill, which prevents abortions, on Fox. Unruh is a major player in the anti-choice movement, and like most leaders in the movement, would like to see the abortion rate skyrocket by making it nearly impossible to prevent unplanned pregnancy. And then they want to ban abortion so that you have to get it in a back alley. All this to maximize your punishment for having sex.

It's they who are shutting down discussions about birth control and education. They who pushed abstinence-only into the classroom against the will of pro-choicers. Matthews couldn't be more wrong. Not only are pro-choicers talking about the means to reduce the abortion rate, we're the only ones talking about it.

This kind of misinformation seeps out and infects the minds of people who should know better. Lindsay Campbell at Mob Logic put together a video where she seems a bit self-congratulatory about being so different than most pro-choicers, but she's basing her opinion on some wrong information. She says she's pro-choice and then adds:

insert Lindsay

Actually, her opinion is the mainline pro-choice opinion. Lindsay is bashing a strawman to make her point. The central argument of the pro-choice movement is not based around fetal life so much as it is on the points she brings up in the video---it's too personal and private a choice to be left to the authority of anyone but the person who is pregnant.

insert Lindsay 2

Once again, blame the anti-choicers. The pro-choice movement wasn't spawned from an esoteric desire to prove that fetuses aren't people. It came out of the women's movement. It was and always has been about women's rights, period. Our opposition tries to make it about fetal life because they know that stating their true intentions to oppress women would make them a lot less popular. Agreed, it's a distraction. But disagreed that pro-choicers created the distraction.

Okay, one more strawman. I don't want to make it seem like I'm bashing Lindsay Campbell, who put together a good argument mostly and is probably reaching people I'm not. But she constructs her argument against mythological pro-choicers.

insert Lindsay 3

When people say this, they mean, "I don't want abortion to be used as casually as contraception." Again, credit where it's due and she admits that defining casually is hard to do. But it's still a misinterpretation of reality. I'm about as adamant a pro-choicer as they come. I don't think it's a baby in any meaningful way until it's got a functioning brain. I think "life" really began 4 billion years ago in the primordial swamp and thus philosophical questions about conception are silly. I think we mourn miscarriages not because it's a baby because we're mourning the potential lost. If we thought it was a baby, we'd have funerals.

But even though I'm as radical as they come, I fall far short of the pro-choicer she constructs in this video to argue with. I don't think having an abortion is casual. I'm religious about contraception for that reason. Most pro-choicers are more conservative than me. But who's to blame Lindsay? She lives in a world where the mainstream media critically distorts the debate to make it seem more fair than it is. She's just working with the false information that she's got.

**********

Now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. MSNBC's Hardball is still pushing the idea that women are these inferior creatures that probably shouldn't be allowed to vote, much less run for office or have reproductive rights. This time the offender is talk show host Heidi Harris.

insert heidi harris

There's a lot of money to be made if you're a woman willing to bash other women like this, because it just sounds better coming from a woman. But it's so illogical, because if women are just stupid, then doesn't that mean that Heidi Harris is also stupid and shouldn't be listened to? Huh, listen to me using logic, which is supposed to be againt my nature or something.

Why Same-Sex Marriage Isn't (Is) A Threat to Heterosexual Marriage

2008-06-18T08:00:00-04:00

Oh, we liberals love to laugh at right wingers, mostly evangelical Christians, who claim that same-sex marriage is an assault on "traditional marriage." If a gay couple down the street gets married, we reasonably ask, does that invalidate your marriage? Are you going to get a divorce in protest? These retorts leave our opponents sputtering, mostly because they grasp for a lie to cover up for their homophobia, and few people can really lie smoothly. Or they commit the fallacy of tautology, claiming that marriage simply is between a man and a woman, many of them knowing as they say it how lame that sounds -- after all, everyone but the dumbest among us understands that marriage is whatever society agrees it is.

However, just because conservatives dance around why same-sex marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage, it doesn't mean they're crazy or don't have their reasons for opposing it. Mostly, they know that their reasons won't sit well with the general public. Which is why I read with amusement Tara Parker-Pope's piece in the New York Times about why same-sex relationships might be healthier on average than opposite-sex marriages.

The article had a tin ear for what makes opponents of same-sex marriage fearful. Conservatives say that gay marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage, and this article all but answered, "Oh yes it is and thank God for it."

The article was very convincing if you're already convinced that marriage equality, and equitable marriage, are good things.

Controlling and hostile emotional tactics, like belligerence and domineering, were less common among gay couples.

Same-sex couples were also less likely to develop an elevated heartbeat and adrenaline surges during arguments. And straight couples were more likely to stay physically agitated after a conflict.

Sounds good, right? But the reason for lower stress levels goes right back to why same-sex marriage is indeed a threat to "traditional" marriage [emphases below are mine].

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones...

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll...

The egalitarian nature of same-sex relationships appears to spill over into how those couples resolve conflict.

The Times article argues that the equality modeled by same-sex relationships could influence opposite-sex marriages to adopt that kind of equality. This is exactly the assault on "traditional" marriage that conservatives are talking about.

In 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention made a point of highlighting Ephesians 5:22-23. Not a random choice, this was a direct reaction to the creeping peril of feminism. The verse made it loud and clear that "traditional marriage" is not egalitarian at all, but that women should "submit to your husbands as to the Lord." Which sounds like sound common sense to the largely male leadership of the fundamentalist movement.

And now those yappity-yap decadent liberals are telling us that not only should same-sex marriage be legal, but that it might actually teach straight couples a thing or two. Opposite-sex couples can learn how to relate more equitably, and equal marriages are happier.

Happier, pray tell, for whom?

Not for the men who would suddenly be living in a world where dishes don't just do themselves and diapers aren't changed by magic. Men who face the prospect of having to give up being right in every conflict, having to take the wife's opinion on finances seriously, or even of having their right to name their wives after themselves called into question might dispute the idea that they'd be "happier" in this new egalitarian world.

Like the husband in this scenario:

Can you explain just how submissive a wife should be towards a husband without losing her identity and respect?.....

Today the kids were eating a hamburger in the car, and they were looking for a drink. My husband says to the kids, "Grab your bottle of water" (they keep a bottle in the car at all times). Well, I remembered I had a can of soda in my purse, so I gave it to them, and he says I undermined his authority! I didn't think it was a big deal, but he did.

Do you think that guy is going to read an article in the Times telling him gay marriage is good because it might provide a model of equality for his own marriage? I suspect this man reading it will only be reassured that gays should not get married, if they're going to give his wife ideas about how she has equal authority in their marriage.

The Times article doesn't hide the fact that it's straight women who suffer from inequality in opposite-sex marriage.

"Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship," said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women's studies at San Diego State University. "That's very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with."

But fundamentalists would probably argue that the solution isn't to change marriage so women are happier in it (because remember the threat of men with dishpan hands), but to change women so they are happier being second class. Like this article:

Pray each morning that God will guide you and give you a servant's heart.

Do those with a servant's heart demand that their masters share the housework with them? Not if they want to keep their jobs, they don't.

The New York Times article read like it was trying to soothe opponents of same-sex marriage by telling them that their fears of a spreading contagion were ill-founded and that same-sex marriages might actually be a model for more happiness through equality.

But what if your opponents think that equality is the very contagion from which they have to protect their own marriages?

Anti-Choice Song Review

2008-06-16T10:10:39-04:00

Amanda interviews Rick Perlstein about his new book Nixonland. Also: A review of anti-choice music, George Will insults women, and CNN looks at medical conscience clauses.

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Links in this episode:
365 Days
Nixonland
Daniel Radosh
George Will thinks he's funny

Transcript:
This week on Reality Cast, we'll have an inteview with Nixonland author Rick Perlstein. Also, a segment on the right of doctors to refuse treatment, why George Will has no empathy, and a review of anti-choice songs. I promise the review will be more funny than painful

I'll admit; I'm fascinated by the Christian version of sex advice books. You know, the ones that are strictly for married couples. There's a recent one that sounds almost kind of nightmarish.

insert 365 days

I'm honestly not surprised that a lot of evangelical couples find that it's hard to ignite the passion. It's too much pressure to be utterly celibate before marriage and then turn it up to 11 after the wedding. This immoderate solution will probably have the same problems. Meanwhile we heathens have perversely learned the value of moderation

***********

This segment demonstrates why I find religious arguments endlessly frustrating. Religion turns into this get out of jail free card that's denied to non-religious people in so many ways. Like the issue of refusing to give medical care to someone. Not that you find doctors doing something like refusing to treat prostate cancer in anti-choice men on the grounds that they should learn that gender is destiny, but if doctors are going to hide behind religion, I'd like to see other, more rational doctors have equal rights to just make up the rules as they go along themselves.

June 10^th, on CNN, American Morning had their legal analyst Sunny Hostin on to talk about doctors refusing treatment to patients on bigoted, er, religious grounds.

insert sunni

I don't know if it should be framed as a freedom of religion issue, because that calls into question how many other bigots out there can start claiming god told them to mistreat entire classes of people. Pharmacists are already hiding behind "freedom of religion" to deny basic services to people they have prejudices against. Sexually active women and gays are the two major classes of people that Jesus gives these pharmacists permission to hate, but what if some pharmacist has a revelation that, say, Jesus doesn't want him dispensing drugs to black people? There's a whole can of worms when you use freedom of religion as a cover for bigotry.

That said, I think doctors should have a general right to refuse patients, but should be obligated legally to disclose their prejudices up front. Doctors are special, because the service they provide is so personal that it's just important that the doctor is a good fit for the patient. If a doctor can't be fair to a patient, then it's in the patient's best interests that this be disclosed so she can go to a doctor that will fight for her.

insert sunni 2

Good advice, but I think it should go a step further. Patients are often, and for good reasons, intimidated by doctors. Doctors should own the responsibility to inform the patients up front, perhaps in a sheet that you sign with all your other paperwork. Just something that says, "X, Y, and Z are things I won't do for you, so if that's what you need, go elsewhere." Interestingly, doctors who provide abortion are all up on this responsibility, really creating a model for other doctors. A lot of good abortion providers have counseling sessions ahead of time to outline what will and won't be happening in their care. That should be the industry standard, I think.

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insert interview

************

Daniel Radosh, the author of "Rapture Ready" was recently on Reason TV talking about the weird world of Christian pop culture.

insert Daniel radosh

Oh, I know all about fundie Christian pop culture, at least one area of it, which is the anti-choice industry. There's cartoons where fetuses loll around in over-sized uteruses that look like apartments. There's little necklaces shaped like tiny feet, and you can have tiny feet stamped on your checks so as better to terrorize hapless bank tellers with the knowledge that you oppose their basic human rights, at least if they're female.

But one thing that never stops puzzling me is the huge numbers of maudlin songs about how terrible abortion is. I've played a couple on this show before. I played a country western song last week about the Colorado ballot initiative to define fertilized eggs as persons. But I've never done an overview. And now, without further ado, I shall.

The first category, and possibly my favorite, are the songs sung from the perspective of the fetuses themselves. Like this one called "Deliver Me" by Marie Morrison.

insert deliver me

This pretty much hits all the themes. First of all, it's imperative that the talking fetus be male. If there's singing fetuses out there that are female, I haven't heard any of them. I'm not doubting that there's one or two, but the main thing here is that by pretending to be the fetus itself, a man takes on this authority to berate women and tell them what to do that's kind of unseemly otherwise.

The singing male fetus genre hit new heights when Nick Cannon released a song a few years ago called "Can I Live" that was all up on the Total Request Live hit parade.

insert can I live?

The video is from "Can I Ball" productions. He also has a song called "Dime Piece" where a variety of women are sized up as "potential stalker", "old school freak", "emotionally unstable", and in a great act of hypocrisy, one is blown off for having "too many baby daddys". Luckily, there are no singing fetuses in that, because who knows what things they'd say.

Another category of anti-choice song writing is similar in the sense that it's still about being self-absorbed, and of course treats women like second class people. These are songs that flatter the listener by telling them they're a unique snowflake, and suggest that abortion rights are a direct assault on that.

"One In A Billion Choices" by Lawrence and Diane Marie Leach fits this bill.

insert one in a billion

You can guess what the lord is going to say, since the lord says whatever the songwriters want him to say.

And of course the genre of anti-choice songs would be incomplete without Christian heavy metal. Oh yeah, Satan's music brought to bear for the lord's work in oppressing women. Here's Holy Solider, singing as the fetus of course, in their song "See No Evil".

insert see no evil

Usually the lyric, "Mother, I'm coming soon," means something entirely different in heavy metal songs.

If you come across anti-choice songs that make you scream for mercy because of the suckitude, please email them to me at amanda dot Marcotte at gmail dot com.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, George Will edition.

insert george will *

First of all, Obama's comment was made in reference to sex education, not abortion. But the general point is the same, I'll grant you.

What I don't get is why these men think it's so ridiculous for women to think that being punished with a baby should be a bad thing. What part is foolish? The part where we don't think babies should be punishment? The part where we think that babies should be wanted and a joy? The part where we think that it's unfair to be punished for sex while men get off scot-free? I'm thinking that's the part Chris Matthews and George Will think is so hilarious. Those silly ladies and their belief that they should have the same rights as men to own their own bodies and sexuality.

What's Perverted About Curiosity About Sex?

2008-06-12T08:00:00-04:00

Mary Roach has dealt mostly with death in her former books Stiff and Spook. In her most recent book, she decided to tackle the other most uncomfortable topic: sex. If that's not enough to make our wingnut brethren squirmy, she mixes in the other big "no-no" of the fundie set -- empiricism. The book is called Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, and I can't rave about it enough.

You'd think the topic would be a natural draw, because sex is just so damn interesting. As Roach explains after reading the works of Masters and Johnson -- not necessarily. In the hands of dry science writing, even sex can seem kind of boring. But Roach is the antithesis of a dry writer. Jokes jump off every page and strikingly few of them are smarmy - a real achievement if you think about the subject.

I loved the book for all the great science-y stuff I learned of course, but I was also impressed with Roach's handling of a touchy subject - people who make a living addressing touchy subjects. Many of the scientists she spoke with were less than thrilled about the assumptions people make about you when you research human sexuality. An example from the book:

Levin can recall overhearing a pair of [colleagues in physiology] sniping about him at the urinals during the conference where he presented his paper. The unspoken assumption was that he was somehow deriving an illicit thrill from calculating the ion concentrations of vaginal fluids. That people study sex because they are perverts.

She notes that being a writer covering sexual topics, she tends to get the same reactions from people, something to which I can relate. Writing about sex in frank terms and advocating for sexual health and reproductive rights means your opposition will happily reach for the term "pervert" or a synonym to dismiss you. Nevermind that the moral scoldings of anti-choicers demonstrate far more perverse imaginations than the rest of us could summon -- witness anti-choice state senator Bill Napoli from South Dakota, who lavishly imagined the violation of the only woman he'll allow to have an abortion, stating, "A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated." Even Larry Flynt would have had trouble coming up with that.

What Roach demonstrates in the book is that prudery, coupled with suspicion about kind-hearted people who do not flinch from sexual frankness, create major obstacles for scientists who really just want to collect empirical evidence to help people.

A theme can be easily detected.

It was the laboratory where scientists confirmed that women really do orgasm from clitoral stimulation, and that the clitoris is on the outside -- not that the source of orgasms drifted into the vagina as a woman matures as Freud would suggest, or that the clitoris sits at the back of a woman's throat as a very famous seventies porn movie would have it.

It was in the laboratory where Masters and Johnson discovered that committed gay and lesbian couples were having better sex than committed straight couples, and that straight couples could improve things by embracing better communication. Because scientists have forged ahead and measured and observed human sexuality, they've improved contraception and STD prevention.

In other words, by shaming scientists who research sex, culture warriors restrict access to valuable knowledge that could help women and gays push back against their oppression and advocate for better health and happier sex lives. Some might call that a coincidence but I call that the patriarchy.

We don't call people who obsess over studying geology perverts, nor do we shame those with a passion for French literature for wanting to deepen their knowledge. But one area where we can clearly chart the direct line between knowledge and power is sex, and that's one area where searching for more knowledge gets you labeled a pervert. Isn't that the whole rationale for abstinence-only programs - that somehow sex is the one special area where knowing less is supposed to be preferable to knowing more?

Sadly, some liberals poo-poo the importance of empirical knowledge of sexuality arguing, with good reason, that many women knew where their clitorises were before scientists pulled the big "A-ha!" in the laboratory. True. But women also "knew" that vaginal orgasms were "more mature" than clitoral ones (because Freud said so outside of the world of empirical research) and that douching with Coca-Cola prevented pregnancy. Folk wisdom can be right or wrong but we're all better off with an opportunity to test it out in the laboratory and start settling some bets.

The best defense against accusations of perversion because you like to research or write about sexuality is a good offense. Cultivate a distinct disregard for the opinions of prudes. I've always found accusations that I'm obsessed with sex to be paper-thin if challenged. Why is it a bad thing to think about sex a lot? No one can really say.

Really, if it's so bad, it should have bad results. Yet prudery shames people away from pushing that line of inquiry as well. As Mary Roach discusses in her book - to cast doubt on an obsession with learning about sex is more to cast doubt on any obsession with learning. Few people are interested in being branded as know-nothings, and so pointing this out will often suffice as a defense against the perversion-through-intellectual-interest accusation.

Inconsistent Contraception Use

2008-06-10T09:33:29-04:00

Sharon Camp explains why even women using contraception can be at risk for unplanned pregnancy, the pill doesn't kill but bad music might, and "The Today Show" gets something right. And more Marc Rudov firing watch.

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Links in this episode:
Robert Engelman
Estelle Griswold
Treacly anti-choice music
Sexists on "Sex and the City"

Transcript:
This week on Reality Cast we'll have an interview with Sharon Camp of the Guttmacher Institute about women's inconsistent contraception use. Also, the anti-choice movement is moving to ban the birth control pill, but the Today Show is getting smart about contraception for teenagers. And why Marc Rudov can't define the word "shallow".

The intersection of women's rights, environmentalism and population issues is a touchy subject, and a subject that Robert Engelman is dealing with in his new book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. He was on Talk of the Nation discussing the book.

insert Robert engelman

Interesting interview. You should check it out. My view on population and reproductive rights is that increasing women's access to birth control and power couldn't hurt the environment and it could help.

**************

The question is not when the anti-choice movement is going to get serious and start making a bid to ban birth control pills. The question is why did they go with the year 2008? Because there's no doubt that wingnuts are on the move this election year. The American Life League has decided to move past quietly opposing the right to birth control to having a national campaign called The Pill Kills, with anti-pill activities that happened over the weekend on June 7^th, the 45^th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, which was the Supreme Court decision legalizing contraception for married couples.

Suffice it to say, The Pill Kills website is full of lies and misinformation. But they're intellectually dishonest even when they are sticking to the facts. Dan Savage covered this aspect on his podcast.

insert dan savage

I mean, maybe whoever wrote this is that stupid. Maybe they don't understand that Estelle Griswold violated an unjust law, but that she, in the spirit of non-violent protest, did it on purpose to challenge the law. She didn't engage in obstruction of justice. I mean, if you're going to squeal about her disobeying the law, you're putting yourself in the same camp as racists in the 60s who squawked about Martin Luther King because he didn't Obey The Law. At this point in time, honorable refusal to obey just laws is considered legitimate protest so long as you work within the system post-arrest.

Anti-choicers know this. Some engage in civil disobedience themselves. So why is American Life League pretending not to understand? Because dishonesty is a favorite tool of theirs. The entire talking points sheet they have is lies, particularly about how the pill is, their term, "chemical abortion". It's not. The pill cannot make you unpregnant if you are pregnant. By suggesting that women can cause abortion by taking the birth control pill, they are threatening the health of women who believe them and try. Seriously, there's not a level at which their lies and misinformation isn't a shot at women's health and happiness.

But who needs facts when you have aesthetically distasteful sentimentality? Cristina Page discovered this song that's apparently been written in support of Colorado's ballot initiative to give fertilized eggs personhood, which is part of the attempt to ban the birth control pill.

insert crap song

He rhymed "person" with "her son". I guarantee you that guy, like most anti-choicers, thinks he's a unique snowflake with a special talent given to him by Jesus and spared by angels from the vacuum aspiration tube.

At least it's not one of those songs where the singer is pretending to be a fetus singing to its mother. There are a lot of songs like that and every single one makes me think abortion should not just be a right, but a mandate in occasional singing cases.

But as the sappiness of the song suggests, we're facing a situation here where the anti-choice movement is not just coming clean about their desires to ban the pill, but are also taking legal measures to do so. The hope is that by repeating the idea that the pill works by killing fertilized eggs enough, it will magic that lie into the truth. And that, coupled with the Human Life Amendment in Colorado, will give them the legal grounding to ban the birth control pill.

I'm not sure why anti-choice forces are on the move now. I'd have thought they'd move into Phase II: Increase the Unplanned Pregnancy Rate after abortion was banned. Maybe they think abortion is so close to being banned they're moving on. Or maybe the space aliens told them through Christian rock that 2008 is their year.

**************

* insert interview with Sharon Camp *

********

The Today Show, which I usually pick on, managed to put together a really good segment on the issue of providing contraception in high schools. The starting point is a high school in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the health staff at the high school is fighting with the hospital they work for the right to give students contraception.

insert Gloucester 1

The reason is that their teenage pregnancy rate literally quadrupled in a year. The show doesn't make it clear if the problem was abstinence-only education discouraging kids from using contraception or if it's just a statistical blip. But one thing they do know is that the pregnancy rate is unacceptable. And you have to remember---for every girl you know is pregnant, there's probably one or two more that quietly aborted.

I'm really proud of the Today Show for tackling the subject in a way that was edifying instead of scandalous. They did what you rarely see in such a news program and brought on a school administrator who had previously resisted handing out contraception in Portland, Maine schools and has since changed his mind.

insert Gloucester 2

Two things I really liked, besides the fact that he's matured on this. One, he admits that the negative "just say no" reaction from parents comes from a place of emotions, not reason. Which is understandable, because your kids getting older and becoming sexual human beings raises all these feelings about aging and death and the passage of time. But it's not helpful to kids. Second of all, I'm interested in the fact that he learned that the need for secrets is actually much lower than he suspected. Parents hear about kids getting birth control and abortions without parental permission, and many panic thinking of their own kids keeping secrets. But if the doors of communication are opened, it turns out a lot more kids talk to their parents than you'd think. Hell, I'm surprised. I'd have never asked my mom for birth control in a million years as a teenager, but kids these days maybe are more honest.

They also had on NBC's medical editor to talk about why comprehensive sex education, including distribution of contraception, is a good idea.

insert Gloucester 3

I think she meant 1 in 3 women will be pregnant before 20. Which just reconfirms my suspicions that a lot of reported pregnancy rates at high schools are lower than they actually are.

insert Gloucester 4

Eh, I don't think that the real concern is that the pill is so dangerous, because statistically, pregnancy is many times as dangerous. Exponentially more dangerous. And that's just the risk of death or maiming or illness, not to say the life risks of having a baby at an early age. Or the trauma of having to grapple with abortion at 15, 16 years old.

I think people who get upset at the idea of teenage girls on the pill are bunched up at the idea of teenage girls having sex without ye old consequences, and use concerns about the pill's safety as an excuse.

**********

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. Don't worry; we're still on Marc Rudov firing watch. He dropped a misogynist howler recently on the subject of the new Sex and the City movie, as did Bill O'Reilly.

* insert marc ain't got no sex

Shallow? I hope most women are that shallow. Because the four characters on the show had romantically full lives, with rewarding and challenging careers, deep loves, marriage, divorce, babies, abortion, good friendships and a love of art, music, and beauty. The show dealt with parents dying, the work-life balance. and debates on being a good feminist. Sure, it was funny, but it was a comedy. Any random character on that show had more depth than Marc Rudov has in his nose pores, which is sad, because they're fictional characters and he's a real person.

It's obvious the word "shallow" is a code word that means "woman who lives for herself instead of the opinions of misogynists like Marc Rudov". In what case, every woman should strive to be shallow.

When Motherhood Can Do What Rehab Can't

2008-06-05T08:00:00-04:00

If you were looking for a philosophy that linked together the disparate players in the anti-choice movement--from the wild-eyed misogynists to the sanctimonious hymnal singers--you could do worse than "gender determinism." Specifically, that's the belief that women's main purpose in life, to which all else should be secondary, is making babies. And not just that -- proper motherhood, gender determinists believe, should be a feminine, passive enterprise. Babies should wash over you, installed by the decisions of man and deity, not by your own active choice to be a mother. Contraception and abortion aren't just wrong because they can be used to prevent birth altogether, but also because they're used to create an immoral motherhood of active choice instead of passive acceptance.Motherhood the way it should be!

It's this line of thinking that creates the enthusiasm for belief in "post-abortion syndrome," which anti-choicers believe in totally undeterred by reality and scientific evidence not withstanding. The belief is not only that women are destined for a life of motherhood, but that only by fulfilling this role as submissive ciphers will they achieve peace and happiness.

It's insulting for all women, and not just the childless, because it deprives women who are mothers of their agency and their dignity of owning their choices. Unfortunately, the view that unplanned motherhood is some sort of woman-taming tool isn't limited to religious fanatics. Witness the tabloid fascination with Nicole Richie's (presumably) unplanned stumble into motherhood, culminating in widespread coverage of her statements about how she owes the baby her life. Why? Because her daughter Harlow magically transformed Richie from a drug-using, drunk-driving, food-refusing emotional mess into a paragon of domestic bliss. Submissive acceptance of motherhood turned Richie, in other words, from a woman out of control to a woman firmly under control. The article even goes so far as to rhapsodize about how the pregnancy linked her to a "conservative" partner, with the implication being that this is necessary for real feminine bliss.

While I don't want to begrudge Richie the pleasures of having to keep it together to meet your responsibilities--something that people quietly do all the time for work, family, or even hobbies--the coverage of this story made me cringe, because it feeds the narrative that women's misbehavior is the result of women's independence, and only by submitting to a strict formula for life that absolutely centers around motherhood can women really be happy. And to boot, it emboldens the anti-choice narrative about how women need to have our rights taken away for our own good.

It's a dangerous game, of course, because even if Richie has reformed herself, there are lots of women (and men) who don't find themselves compelled to pull their lives together just because they have children. All you need to do is sit in your local Al-Anon meeting to discover this fact. I hope that women out there with drug addictions don't get the message that having a baby will be your ticket out.

It's bad enough coming from the religious elements and the tabloids, but from the woman who is famous for coining the term "third wave feminism," gender determinism feels like an open betrayal of women. Rebecca Walker, in a move notable mostly for being the least classy thing you can do with your clothes on, published an anti-feminist rant picking on her mother Alice Walker in conservative UK rag The Daily Mail. The article is shot through with poor reasoning and hyperbole, and is generally poorly written, which gives the reader reasons to wonder if Walker resents her mother more for her weak parenting skills or her great talents.

But Walker is clever. She knows what her anti-feminist audience wants to hear: that women are happier when they submit, and that motherhood is an example of submission. She uses passive language when talking about motherhood, as if it's something that just happens to women. She contrasts motherhood with independence, as if the two are mutually exclusive. She decries her mother's belief that motherhood is "enslaving," but doesn't explain why, if Alice Walker was so anti-motherhood, she had children herself. She idolizes her father's second wife for being a housewife. And she bashes women who divorce, even though she hasn't exactly gotten around to marrying the father of her son.

I don't mean to say that I disbelieve Rebecca Walker's observations about her mother, but it's fishy that she blames her mother's drift from a predetermined destiny for women instead of the more obvious causes--that Alice Walker has a massive personality flaw. Would Alice Walker really have morphed into the perfect June Cleaver if she renounced feminism?

Even though Walker claims that she had a mother not cut out for motherhood, she can't help but sing the praises of a bundle in every woman's basket.

Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: 'I'd like a child. If it happens, it happens.' I tell them: 'Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.' As I know only too well.

Perhaps instead of honoring gender determinism, Walker should listen to her friends and honor their ambivalence. It's not feminine stupidity to want to be sure before you have children. The word I'd use for it is "love." The love for potential children and the love you have for yourself is what causes many women to want to be very sure before they take the big step into having children. Because while regretting the children you didn't have is a sad thing, so is regretting the children you did have, especially if they grow up to be as consumed with bitterness towards their mothers as Rebecca Walker has.

The New Libertines: Flying Solo and Embracing Monogamy

2008-06-02T10:17:21-04:00

Gay couples continue to celebrate the new right to settle down into the monogamous "lifestyle", abstinence-only nuts consider forbidding teenagers to have doors that shut, and Rush Limbaugh continues to have a job. Also, we shake it up with an interview with erotica editor Rachel Kramer Bussel about dirty stories and feminism.

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Links in this episode:
Family planning conference
Sex ed battle in New York
New York City Planned Parenthood
Angry parents against their children's health
The safest sex of all
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Tony Perkins on "The Colbert Report"
Ellen rips McCain
Limbaugh still crazy

Transcript:

This week on Reality Cast, something of a departure with an interview with Rachel Kramer Bussel, who has a new book of erotica for and by women. Also, a sex education hoopla in New York state, the dialogue on gay marriage really shifts, and Limbaugh deludes himself into thinking he's smart. Again.

If you haven't heard it yet, there's a really good MP3 online of a conference panel Ms. Magazine had on international family planning. Here's Kathy Spillar making her opening remarks.

insert family planning conference

Obviously, that's just a hint of what's about to come. The U.S. is in a perverse situation. The majority of the responsibility for funding these programs falls on our shoulders, but we're uniquely short on lack of will because we're so conservative. It's a conundrum in American politics, and I can't recommend my interview last week with Jeff Sharlet enough as a primer on how things got this bad.

***************

While reasonable, caring parents across the country are suffering because their kids are being denied basic comprehensive sex education, a group of anxiety-ridden parents in New York state are throwing a temper tantrum because their kids are lucky enough to be getting sex ed from Planned Parenthood. Before I get into the nature of these specific complaints, here's a clip of a New York city educator running down a general idea of what comprehensive sex ed teaches.

insert pp ed run down

Notice how abstinence is mentioned? It's always mentioned. No one is telling your kids they have to have sex if they don't want to. In fact, sex educators are usually feminist-minded, and like the evil, man-hating feminists we are, we usually make it very clear that no one should have sex if they don't want to. Ideally, a comprehensive sex education course takes time to really talk to kids about why coercion is really bad, not to say criminal.

That same video has a doctor explaining what life was like under the regime that this group and all anti-choice groups would like to bring back.

insert pp doctor

I continue to be astounded that parents are willing to sacrifice their children's health or happiness in service of an ideology. On my more optimistic days, I think they're just ignorant. But then I look at the website of this group, and I see that they engage in the same lies and misinformation. They tell kids that condoms don't work, which just encourages kids not to use condoms. Like this quote: "Why do you assume that kids, many of whom are impaired at the time by drugs or alcohol, will put on the condom before any emission or arousal, a wildly implausible scenario?" End quote.

Okay, so they think that a kid high on drugs might use a condom wrong, so the solution is to have same kid high on drugs have sex without even trying? Good god. The site pretty much puts to rest any doubts that the group is about making sure that kids who have sex are punished with maximum danger. Not very loving, parents.

But it gets even sadder and weirder. Tracy Clark Flory of Salon has this angle covered.

insert salon masturbate

The group's website is covered with all these facts about STDs and teen pregnancy. You know what can't get you pregnant or give you and STD? Masturbation. Yes, even when girls do it, the unplanned pregnancy rate is still zero from that activity.

I was recently reading Rick Perlstein's new book Nixonland, and I recommend that all sex education advocates read this book. It's about the rise of the populist right, and sex education was a big issue in the 60s and 70s. People back then didn't even pretend that they promoted abstinence for health reasons. It was all just outrage at the idea of an open acknowledgement of sex. One sex ed protester bragged that he hadn't ever talked about sex with his wife in their whole 17 years of marriage.

***************

insert interview with Rachel Kramer bussel

**************

The fallout of the California courts upholding the rights of gays and lesbians to marry continues. The tone this time is so much different than when Massachusetts did it. This time out, even the most rabid opponents of gay rights are feeling a little subdued. I was impressed because homobigot Tony Perkins actually went on the Colbert Report, even though he knew what was going to happen.

insert tony perkins 1

Yeah, uh-huh. I love these arguments. If you equate your romantic love of your dog or a box turtle or even a relative with the love that same sex couples who marry have for each other, then that's a personal issue. Seriously, don't these people realize how that sounds? You might as well say, "Well, if I don't get to hump my sister, you can't marry the love of your life!"

Then Colbert went in for the kill.

insert tony perkins 2

Of course, the Bible is---and I know this will shock some of our opposition listening to this---not actually the same document as our Constitution. I know! The way people carry on, you'd think that they're one and the same thing. But they're not. In fact, and I know this will be shocking, the Constitution actually forbids the government from establishing a religion. Which of course not only means that the Bible is not a government document, but by law it can't be treated that way. So even if Jesus said anything about gay marriage, and he didn't, that doesn't mean that it's the law of the land.

Perkins was on plugging a new book he has out about faith and public policy. Interestingly, while he includes coded language about banning abortion on the front cover, I don't see anything about gay marriage. There's even stuff about global warming, believe it or not. I guess even Perkins is realizing gay marriage is a losing issue. He certainly didn't want to talk about it on the Colbert Report---he complained towards the end of the interview about it. Oh well, shouldn't have been such a reliable bigot, Tony.

Ellen DeGeneres also is riding high with glee. I shouldn't have been, but I was impressed and surprised when she confronted John McCain on her show about his lack of support for gay marriage rights.

insert ellen rips mccain

You know, I don't want to single out McCain because all the major candidates dither like this on this issue. They do what McCain is doing here, and admitting a) that homosexuality is a legitimate way of being and b) that same sex relationships deserve rights and respect. And then they deny that marriage shouldn't be extended to same sex couples. Because marriage is a country club for straight people. Not very excusive, since most people are straight and all of us can get married.

I'm glad Ellen showed how very un-American that idea is. The government shouldn't be in the business of treating some citizens like they're superior to others for arbitrary reasons. That's like Democracy 101.

********

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. Going old school on the demagoguery today, with a clip from Rush Limbaugh that probably needs no comment.

insert Limbaugh

It's obviously an understatement to note that Limbaugh is a stellar example of unexamined privilege. No woman, much less a black man, could suck up a ton of drugs and rave maniacally on air for hours on end and become a millionaire. If there was a merit system, much less a "feminazi plan", Limbaugh would be fulfilling his real talents begging for change from people stepping over him on the sidewalk.

Only Pigs Say No to Condoms

2008-05-28T08:00:00-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, while enjoying an adult beverage at a local pub, I had a rare opportunity to feel pleased with a marketing campaign. And no, it wasn't the Lone Star beer campaign that employs a little tongue-in-cheek Texas chauvinism to hawk its wares. This one was for Trojan condoms. First, you see the posters in the bar's bathroom: A picture of a barful of pigs hitting on reluctant women, with one man talking to one very interested woman. It's a reference to the TV ad campaign that compares men who refuse to use condoms to barnyard animals. To reinforce the message -- "Evolve: Use a condom every time" -- the bottom of the pint glasses had little pictures of pig noses in them, with the Trojan branding and slogan on the reverse.

It's a brilliant strategy, and could only be better if they had condom machines in the bathrooms. This pub isn't cruise-y, but a lot of people go there on dates. So Trojan is still grabbing people with a safe sex message right before they get into a situation where unsafe sex often happens--after a date that involves drinking alcohol. The ads use humor to take the edge off, but also bluntly address one of the most significant unspoken barriers to getting people to use condoms every time: a lot of the time, women are afraid to request or men actively resist condom use. The uncomfortable fact is that men have more of the responsibility for use with condoms, but women run a greater risk in unprotected sex. (I'm sure it works the other way around, but I suspect the responsibility/risk ratio means that it's more common that men resist and women cave.)

All I could think while examining this marketing campaign was, "Why haven't we seen more of this? Campaigns like this should be in high school buses and coffee shops, too. Plus, this should have started long ago." But America is in short supply of the sort of common sense that says that condom ads should be located where people are in danger of having unsafe sex, and that said ads should bluntly address barriers to using condoms properly. When the first ads from this campaign came out, CBS and Fox balked at showing them.

You can't blame prudery. Fox aired this blunt advertisement for Victoria's Secret lingerie during the 2008 Superbowl. The meaning--this underwear is a preliminary for the Hawt Sex right after the game!--couldn't have been more explicit. I'm not a prudish person by any means, but watching model Adriana Lima flop around and spread her legs while wearing skimpy underwear in front of my friends, and suffering the knowledge that this was supposed to inspire middle-aged sports fans around the country to rip off their team jerseys and hump their wives atop king-sized beds, well, it all made me blush pretty hard. To Fox, that was acceptable, but a Trojan ad where everyone kept their clothes on and innuendo was employed more effectively was somehow off-limits.

Of course, Fox explained the decision in bluntly anti-woman tones, arguing the use of condoms to prevent pregnancy offended their network standards. Presumably, the Victoria's Secret ad is acceptable, as long as the viewer thinks she's posing half-naked as if to say, "Oh you hot football fan studs, impregnate me now."

I shouldn't be surprised. Obvious double standards like that fly under the radar of far too many people. I'm thinking specifically of the popular right wing blogger The Anchoress, who in a bizarre tirade that was presumably about how everyone should shut up about sex, made it clear she meant, "Everyone but me because it's different when it's me." But maybe she should have re-thought sharing information like this:

I like various positions! With the lights on and off! In the daytime and the nighttime! In the ocean and in the windowseat! I like sex on Sunday mornings! Can I get an "AMEN" for Cunnilingus? AMEN for cunnilingus! Can I get a "You know how to whistle, don't you" for Fellatio? "You know how to whistle, don't you?" Can I get a "Ride'em Cowboy" for my husband? Yippeekayae! Can I get an "arghghghghg" for Readi Whip and maraschino cherries? Arghghghghghg! What, no brownies?

Which just made everyone wonder if she's so right wing because she suffers from a staggering lack of imagination. Contrast her entitled attitudes about her own sex life with her brutal lack of generosity for others. If you can follow: if you're an American married right wing nut, then you get to have sex in various positions with extremely silly nicknames and you get to pat yourself on the back for it. But if you're from Myanmar and your community has been ravaged by a typhoon and your access to health care is limited, then you deserve to die of AIDS for "Ride ‘em Cowboy." Got it.

This double standard--where explicit sex is fine but explicit discussions of safety make people squirmy--must play a huge role in inconsistent condom use. The squeamishness around the Trojan ad is just one example. For once, we have an ad that has the potential to help educate people about negotiating for condom use as well as sell a product.

Another example that comes to mind for me is the role of lubrication in condom usage. A recent episode of "Sex Is Fun" alerted me to this problem. Many people, women especially, think they are allergic to latex who aren't because they had bad reactions to condoms, including pain or itching. In fact, many of them simply aren't using enough lubrication. So now you have a situation where women are shunning condoms because of these side effects, when a bit of accurate, straightforward, and, yes, explicit education would go a long way.

But even the more explicit lubrication ads for companies like KY dance around the nitty-gritty of how you should use their product with a condom. This is not because they don't see the sales potential in that, I'm sure. It's because of the double standard. You can talk about sex explicitly, but you can't talk about safety.

Marriage Victories and Women's Losses

2008-05-27T05:00:00-04:00

Amanda celebrates the legalization of gay marriage in California, denounces the advancement of the "egg as a person" law, and interviews Jeff Sharlet about the secret fundamentalist power structures.

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Links in this episode:
Washington U. protests
Go gay marriage!
History lesson
"Judicial activism" is an empty phrase
Ellen Degeneres
Bashing the happy couple
The Family
Fox 31 on the Human Life Amendment
Most sexism on the campaign trail

Transcript:
This week on Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Jeff Sharlet about his frightening new work of investigative journalism called The Family. Also, the aftermath of the gay marriage decision in California, a loss for the right to use birth control in Colorado, and more sexism against the first major female candidate for President.

Congrats to the students and faculty at Washington University who stood up for common sense.

insert schlafly *

They're absolutely in the right to do this. Schlafly has always railed against women's equality, and yet here she is taking an honorary degree. She should put her money where her mouth is and refuse to take the degree on the grounds that these sort of things should be reserved for men. She's an odious person who has spent much of her life agitating against women's very right to be safe in the own homes, and she defends men who beat and rape their wives, saying that if women leave such men, they're to blame for breaking up the families.

****************

Go, gay marriage!

* insert gay marriage report *

In our little part of the world---the social activist feminist sex positive part---the California court ruling for equal rights laws was the big news of late. First of all, let me say this to this to the thousands of couples who have been waiting for this day to arrive.

insert champagne *
insert woo hoo *

I'm sure the wedding industry is gearing up to take full profit advantage of this new onslaught of potential customers. California is a big state after all.

What I want to know is why people feel so compelled to be on the wrong side of history on these sort of things. I mean, history has not looked well upon those who supported segregation, bans on interracial marriage, or denying women their rights. You know how these things turn out when they get underway, and the progressives will win the moral victory. Why not be on that train from the beginning?

Here's a clip from Gloria Allred explaining some of the history of the lawsuits.

insert Gloria *

Naturally, the media went straight to the bigots and haters to weigh in on the ban. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was immediately ushered on Fox News to spew hate.

insert perkins *

Lies, all lies. The legislature recognized same-sex marriage and the Governator vetoed it and said that it should be left to the courts. Judicial activism" is a meaningless phrase and always has been. Right wingers will pinch your rights however they can, and this phony concern for process should be recognized as the dishonest maneuvering that it is. It's like how opponents to civil rights suddenly got this enthusiasm for the letter of the law during the era of nonviolent resistance.

insert perkins 2 *

I love how conservatives invoke images of forcing gay marriage, right down to Perkins implying that someone's going to be frog marched down the aisle. I can assure you that the ruling does not mean you have to marry someone of your own sex. I have relatives in California and in the week and a half since the ruling, not a one has been assigned a spouse of the same sex.

The anti-same sex marriage arguments are remarkably weak, even by the low standards set by social conservatives, and I think people are really beginning to see through them. Perkins might win a little rope with his lies about judicial activism, but everyone knows this is about gay marriage, period. And the injustice of it is beginning to be really obvious.

One thing that's going to help is how many beloved Hollywood stars are now going to make it official, and show people that gay marriage, even very famous gay marriage, won't be the end of the world. The most famous announcement, of course, was Ellen Degeneres's. Grab some tissue, this one's a weeper.

insert ellen *

She and Portia di Rossi did not, after the announcement, grow fangs or eat any children. I suspect their very normal sweetness will make haters like Perkins seem that much uglier. The audience went nuts, which shows that a lot of people are already on board.

Of course, Greg Gutfeld on Fox News had an excuse to bash the happy couple.

insert greg gutfeld *

Cute. He's pretending this is about proclamations of love in general, but if that were true, then he'd have had segments bashing straight couples for getting married a long time ago. A quick Google search demonstrated that Gutfeld has produced the equivalent of a public bowel movement, because he's married, and he described his courtship of his wife in great detail in his book. So it was okay for him to make a big public stink over his sexuality and relationship, but not okay for Ellen Degeneres?

Of course, he could just be jealous of her greater talent.

************

insert interview *

********

We give you the good news, and now for the bad. Anti-choice crazies in Colorado have managed to get enough signatures for the Human Life Amendment to be put on the ballot in Colorado. It's an amendment aimed at defining personhood as beginning at fertilization, and contrary to most reports, this isn't just an attack on abortion rights, but on the right to use contraception.

Fox 31 News covered it, and I have to say, what's really funny about the You Tube page I got this link from was the paranoid ranting in the info section written by the guy who uploaded it. His main beef seems to be that they allowed female reporters to cover the issue, suggesting that this is further evidence that the media is anti-American. He's also angry that one reporter has given sympathetic coverage to what he describes as "foreign invaders", that is undocumented workers.

He's probably mad that the anti-choice nuts look stupid just by having cameras put in their faces.

insert hla 1 *

One day, someone should infiltrate one of these protests and convince them to sing this.

every sperm is sacred *

I bet you they'd do it. You'd have to sell it with the right amount of piety, but if you could work yourself up into a holy rolling fit while singing it, the word "sacred" would be too alluring and the protesters would be all about it.

insert hla 2 *

It's worse than that. If the anti-choicers just wanted to ban abortion, they could define personhood as beginning when a woman is pregnant. This is about defining it at a point prior to pregnancy, and as such is not just an assault on abortion rights, but on the right to use birth control. That's why anti-choicers lie and claim the birth control pill works by flushing fertilized eggs. It actually works by preventing ovulation, but if this bill passes, expect not just assault on abortion, but on hormonal contraception.

As I've noted before, it's also broad enough that overzealous misogynists could take it as an assault on the right to menstruate in peace, because in theory any random menstruation of a sexually active woman could have a fertilized egg that didn't implant.

Don't think they wouldn't go that far. Remember the crazy Romanian government, that got really excitable about anti-choice legislation and had mandatory pregnancy checks and other assaults on women's rights. And remember that our anti-choice nuts are even crazier than the ones in communist Romania. At least in Romania they had a real world reason for it---they wanted to create more workers for the state. Anti-choice arguments in the U.S. are based in magical thinking and therefore are not nearly as bound by reality.

Meanwhile, I hope they at least throw a bone to non-pregnant women who could have imaginary persons floating around inside, and let them use the HOV lane on the theory that every woman, no matter how not pregnant, could be driving for two.

****************

Now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. It looks like, barring any last minute changes, that Hillary Clinton is not going to make it across the finish line to be the Democratic nominee for President. But that doesn't mean that I can't continue to spank the whiners and moaners on TV and radio who just can't stand the idea of a woman running for high office. Is this the 21^st century or the 1^st century?

The most recent example of a man openly calling Clinton a "bitch" on TV was Alex Castellanos on CNN.

insert white bitch *

One day I'll crack the mystery of why no one seems to be willing to understand that sexist slurs are, you know, sexist.

Birth Control "Options": Just Like Tex-Mex?

2008-05-22T08:00:00-04:00

Recently, a public interest group with no anti-choice agenda that I'm aware of filed a petition with the FDA requesting that the contraceptive patch be pulled from the market, saying that the patch's uneven distribution of hormones that varies from woman to woman made it too dangerous for use. Without getting into the debate over whether or not the group, Public Citizen, successfully made the case in their complaint, I can say that the whole situation has highlighted a situation in contraception development that I'd like to call the "Tex-Mex Factor". In Texas, we make cracks about how the diversity of the cuisine called Tex-Mex is an illusion: it's all rice, beans, cheese, meat, tortillas and chilis, and you just call it different names depending upon how you roll it. That's fine if you like those ingredients, but if you don't like tortillas, for instance, you won't find much to eat in Tex-Mex.

Women seeking a contraceptive method that's effective, reversible, and doesn't require you to fiddle with devices in the middle of a sexual encounter seem to have a myriad of options: the pill, the patch, shots, implanted devices, cervical rings. But like with Tex-Mex, it's all the same thing, just called different names depending upon how you roll it. All these methods are variations on the original earth-shaking and still controversial birth control pill. It's great if you're good with hormones, but like a person who wants Tex-Mex but doesn't like tortillas, you're out of luck if hormones don't work well with your body (IUDs have filled in the gap for some women, but they are uncomfortable to insert and still have a bad reputation, despite huge improvements in the technology.)

Most adaptations on the hormone theme are driven by the question of how to conquer the problem of inconsistent use, which is no small problem. As a recent Guttmacher report shows, half of women who intend to avoid pregnancy put themselves at risk every year through inconsistent contraception use. And the pill, for all that it beats the shot and the patch for dosing women just right, also lends itself to inconsistent use. Taking a pill every day at the same time can be hard to remember to do, and as the report shows, big life changes that mess up your daily schedule--moving, a job change, or a personal crisis--makes it even more difficult to keep a consistent dosage routine. The beginning or end of relationships also present an opportunity for inconsistent use. When transitioning from "coupled" to "single" in either direction and the frequency of your sexual contact changes, a daily pill can seem like a mismatch for your needs. I can attest that when you're single and not getting laid a whole lot, you begin to wonder why you're bothering to swallow a pill every day. If you remember it, you do it for the same reason you get dressed every day even when you work at home--a combination of optimism and propriety. (Read the whole report and the PDF as well, because there are many more reasons for inconsistent use I don't delve into here.)

So clearly, getting women to use their contraception more consistently is a major priority. The fact that drug companies try to address the problem by developing variations on the pill geared towards giving you less opportunities to screw it up is a good thing. Still, I can understand why some women who can't use hormones get annoyed when faced with this illusion of diversity. Why can't we have something that's like the pill in terms of ease of use and effectiveness but that works differently than fiddling with hormones?

The short answer is, not to be facetious, that we're lucky to have the pill. We live in an era of so many earth-shattering inventions that we sometimes forget you can't just snap your fingers and get a new one. At the time of its invention, the birth control pill was, like the vaccine, a godsend invention, and, like the vaccine, it relies on the body's innate biological tendencies to work (vaccines depend on the immune system's learning capacities, and the birth control pill relies on the hormone levels which signal to the body not to ovulate.)

The invention of the birth control pill was such a unique and momentous event that this pill ended up earning the moniker of "The Pill." You know, out of all the pills in the world. Even the Bible rarely gets called The Book, and needs the clarifying adjective "good." Erectile dysfunction drugs have contended for the Most Famous Pill Ever throne (I'm detecting a theme), but still not a one has laid down a real challenge to dethrone that pill which we call The Pill. If lightning hasn't struck again to create a non-hormonal version of hormonal contraception, should we attribute that to laziness or sexism on the part of researchers, or the fact that coming up with something even better might require a lot more knowledge and time than we've had up until this point?

Of course, the entire discussion around improving women's ability to control unwanted pregnancy neglects to include STD protection. This brings up a related question about how hard it is to improve upon the already marvelous invention of the humble latex condom. As with the pill, most condom failure is user error, but unlike with the pill, you can't fiddle with dosage schedules in hopes of reducing the opportunities for inconsistent users to screw it up. Next week's column will be "all about condoms" and what sex educators, condom sellers, and activists can do to encourage people to use them right every time.

Restoring The Balance

2008-05-19T08:56:44-04:00

More coverage of John Hagee's under-covered views and a tribute to a good sex educator to offset all the bad ones we expose. Also, an interview with David Nolan from Catholics for Choice, here to set things straight about Bill Donohue and the Catholic League.

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Links in this episode:
The Onion Radio News
Hagee column
Hagee on Hurricane Katrina
Hagee sermon
Sue Johanson retires
This argument's a gas

Transcript:
This week on Reality Cast, I'll have an interview with David Nolan about the Catholics for Choice's new report on Bill Donohue and the Catholic League. Also, a review of John Hagee's teachings in his reactionary San Antonio church, a tribute to Sue Johanson, and a wingnut who has a refreshingly honest understanding of his own inability to argue a point.

Ah sweet! Fellow podcasting fans, if you didn't know, The Onion now has satirical news reports as short podcasts. It's called The Onion Radio News. You can subscribe on iTunes, just like you can with this podcast.

insert onion radio

The failure of many of us to have the exciting sex lives we'd like to have is a constant source of humor at The Onion, and usually hilarious.

**************

A few weeks ago on this podcast, I did a segment exposing the politics of Rod Parsley, a minister that's influential on the McCain campaign in the same way that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is on Obama's. You know, in interest of keeping it fair. And I followed it up with a column about another powerful minister that's not getting nearly the news coverage that Wright is, Pastor John Hagee. Then I realized, oh yeah, Hagee's got all sorts of audio out there to clip from so I can get the word out to you guys on what a scary dude he is, so back to that subject here on the podcast.

Hagee is a scary dude because he's the head of the Christian Zionist movement here in the U.S. that wants the government to make decisions about our relations with Israel to be decided on Hagee's interpretation of Biblical prophecies. Yeah. Well, that's outside the scope of this podcast, but don't worry, Hagee is as obsessed with sex as the rest of the wingnutteria. Here he is in 2006 talking about Hurricane Katrina.

insert hagee 1

Yeah, he really thinks god is cruel enough to kill people to make Hagee more comfortable about that homosexuality thing. Interestingly, this belief lets government officials who did not do enough about the hurricane off the hook.

Of course, the Hagee church practices demon exorcism, and you can guess about how progressive and feminist a practice that is. Here's an example of a Hagee disciple church practicing this.

insert hagee 2

Yep, witchcraft. You also can get rid of lust and cancer by casting out demons. Whether or not that works is never questioned.

Some more clips of Hagee being political.

* insert hagee 3

I like this part, because wingnuts are always trying to recast religious dogma they're shoving down our throats as if it were secular wisdom. But once they think you're not listening, suddenly, the interest in science, evidence, or reality goes out the window.

* insert hagee 4

Yeah, well I've been saying that there was no secular reason to be anti-sex, and Hagee agrees. I guess we just don't agree that the 1^st Amendment and the separation of church and state should be honored.

* insert hagee 5

Actually, you can't duck out into the nurse's office and get an abortion in between classes. You can probably get a tampon, which is probably why Hagee is confused. It's true that they'll let any old girl menstruate without getting her parent's permission.

I like this quip from Hagee.

hagee dishwasher

If a man's hand toucheth a dishrag, then his balls shrivel up and fall off his body, so sayeth the lord.

If we're going to start exposing the political speech at the pulpits, all I'm saying is let's be fair about this.

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insert interview

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Sad news: Sex education guru and Candian grandmother Sue Johanson is ending her show "Talk Sex with Sue Johanson". She's in her late 70s and the show is on really late at night, so she's slowing down a little bit. Still, in her 70s, Sue has more energy than most of us combined.

Still, it's a sad day. She was fresh, fun-loving and genuinely interested in helping people, a complete 180 from your average abstinence-only speaker, who has more than a little glint of misogyny and sadism going on. For sex educators the worldwide, she has been a role model. She understands that you can't really educate about sex sticking to the dry biological or safety topics, but you have to really be comprehensive and talk about fun and play and pleasure, too. So you could learn anything from how to use a condom on her show to how to use a sex toy. Watching her was like getting sex advice from your grandmother, and I mean that in the best possible way.

insert sue 1

I could have really used the information in this next clip in high school. I was terrified of getting an STD from a toilet seat. There seemed to be some ironic karmic humor in the idea of a virgin whose prom date possibilities were iffy getting some vile STD without having any more fun than peeing usually is.

insert sue 2

Don't worry. I did have a date to the prom. And I did not get a disease from a toilet seat.

Sue also had a lot of relationship and dating advice.

insert sue 3

When I first saw her show, I was so startled at the combination of the grandmotherly vibe and the blunt sex talk, I just howled with laughter watching her show. But then I got to really listening to her and I thought she was a really great educator, exactly the sort of person I'd feel comfortable asking anything of.

insert sue 4

In case you were worried about that.

She talked about the pleasure issues and clarified places where people were confused, but she also covered safer sex issues and health care. Here she's talking about the IUD versus the pill.

insert sue 5

After last week, with the playing all those scary anti-choice abstinence scolds that call themselves educators, it's nice to hear someone who thinks that your body belongs to you, that pleasure is good, and that sex should be as healthy as possible. Sue will probably still be doing some sex education in schools as she's always done, but she'll be a sorely missed presence on TV. We need many more out there like her.

************

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. I liked this recent video from a guy ranting about how global warming and the war are non-issues to him as long as women have rights.

insert ranting ro

What's cool about it is that he realizes he's got no argument, so he just farts in the camera. There's a refreshing honesty to that, because most anti-choicers have deluded themselves into thinking they can argue a point.