Argentina's Illegal Abortions

A short piece on illegal abortion in Argentina.

The picture of the coat hanger made me remember what it is we are trying to prevent here.

"Earn Your Right To Wear White" and ignorance on your wedding night.

Thanks to Feministing for this link. Check out the undies.

For those who don't want to bother chasing the links, the undies comprise of one white thong with ABSTAIN in big letters across the front and "Earn your right to wear white" in little red letters. What is this suppose to achieve I wonder?

Is it supposed to serve as a little reminder for horny teens getting it on at the drive-in? What's going to happen? Boy reads message and says, "What the...." and girl says, "Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm saving myself for marriage. Tee hee!" Or maybe it's more of a warning than a reminder: "Succumb to the evil carnal pleasures tonight and hell fire will await you, you slut!" Oooh yes, better keep those undies on Miss, God doesn't like you when you like it.

*sigh*

Seriously now. The thing that gets me about virgins being prized above those who have dared to brave the sweatier parts of coupledom, is that it's only a good thing for the bloke. Other than being prized for something she hasn't done, Little Miss Virgin loses big time.

First of all, here's why it's a good thing for the bloke:
1. Guarantee that no other seed has contaminated his breeding vessel.
2. Little Miss Virgin is going to have no idea how shit he is in the sack having no one to compare him to. It will be years before she figures this out, if ever, so he won't need to make any effort with regard to her satisfaction until then. Woohoo!

Lets see how little Miss Virgin fairs:
1. Her perceived "value" goes up which is fine and dandy as long as all she wanted to be was someone's breeding ground and house cleaner.
2. If she thinks that losing your virginity is going to be all Mills and Boon type milk and ambrosia she's in for a nasty shock. Personally I count losing my virginity as one of my all time sexual lows. Painful, bitterly disappointing (I'd read too much Mills and Boon), something I wanted to get over with, and compared to later sexual encounters with different people DEAD BORING.
3. If she never gets married she never gets to have sex. The only people who love God that much are nuns, and even they get their end away occasionally (see Emma Dickens, Immaculate Contraception).
4. If he turns out to be the kind of lazy douche bag who won't go down her and believes female orgasms are a myth she's stuck with him.

There are worse things than being a lazy douche bag in the sack though. How about blokes who have educated themselves via bad porn and thus, having never actually seen a girl have an real orgasm, think that all there is to women and their sexual enjoyment is a bit of a moan here and there. Or maybe he's the kind that thinks sex is just for procreation and that she should take it lying down like a good girl? What about blokes who seriously believe that the clitoris is "hard to find" and thus don't look too hard for it? (For any possessors of the Y chromosome who may have read this far, it's front and centre.) Also, if HE doesn't have sex before marriage he's going to have no idea on her wedding night, other than what he's read about or seen on the television. Those of us who are a bit better travelled in the sweaty arena can say unequivocally that IT'S NOT LIKE ON TV and that trying to make it so will lead to disappointment. The way I see it, to double the inexperience on the wedding night is to double the ignoramus disaster, and triple the pain for the girl.

I'd love to say more, but I've run out of time. I'll leave you lovely well-meaning Abstinence (Misery) Pushers with this:

Your God is not a fun God.

The only moral abortion is my abortion: When Pro-Lifers have to choose.

I came across this while chasing links (how else?) and while I prefer arguments to anecdotes these stories were illuminating. If blatant hypocrisy makes you angry, steer clear.

http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

UPDATE: I have just been reading about belief systems, a guy I only know as "Green 1971" states that often belief systems exist as clusters that are only internally coherent. Contradictions in the overall belief system (between clusters) are rarely detected as the clusters are never set side by side and examined for inconsistency.

In the case of the Pro-Lifer who suddenly 'needs' an abortion we have an example of two belief clusters being set side by side for the first time.

Belief cluster 1: Abortion is always morally wrong and it should be illegal.
Belief cluster 2: I need to make choices that are best for my individual situation.

The result of being confronted with conflicting belief clusters in this case appears to be (if one believes all the anecdotes) passionate justification of one's own choice while remaining convinced that it is wrong in all other cases.

This is almost proof that religion teaches one not to examine one's belief system despite the intimate presence of a contradictory reality. If it weren't for the number of intelligent, articulate Christians I know, I would say that it is proof that religion cannot afford an intelligent population.

"Judge not lest ye be judged." There are, despite the misogyny and hypocrisy, some beautiful bits of wisdom in the bible. Sadly, the folk picketing outside abortion clinics, labeling women and doctors 'murderers', appear to feel they are exempt from this particular teaching. I'd listen to their justifications for it if I thought they'd make the slightest bit of sense.

Anyone can see me in my tit-sling, but only friends can see my Profile.

Is this kind of behaviour logically incoherent? Or am I becoming a fuddy-duddy in my old age?

I was procrastinating by chasing links in FaceBook when I came across a comment from a certain Naomi from the UK. In her photo she's either wearing a bikini or her knickers, it's hard to tell, but she's inside so I'm going for knickers. Normally this kind of thing wouldn't faze me, it's FaceBook after all, and Gen Y appear to have different ideas about how much flesh is too much to reveal to the public.

What fazed me is that this woman's breast bones were clearly visible to the point that it was ugly and off-putting. The only time I've seen bones like that is when women are starving themselves to fit the impossible ideal fed to them via a media dominated by the male gaze. I sent her a note to that effect which I now regret - none of my business really - but when doing that I found that only Naomi's friends could see her FaceBook Profile.

Get out.

The entire internet community can see you in your knickers but only friends can know the real you?

Did you want to perpetuate the idea that a woman's only value lies in being sexual eye-candy? One day valued as Sexual Object the next, valued as Domestic Goddess and Baby Machine. There's a fine line between advertising a great body (if a bit on the starved side) and aiding and abetting the patriarchy by implying that your body is the best thing you have to offer and the rest of you is not worth seeing.

Again, maybe I'm becoming prudish in my old age, it's not that I think women shouldn't be able to flaunt a gorgeous young body, it was the discrepancy that bothered me. The blatant advertising of the outside over the inside and the deep, sinister implications this can have for how women are viewed.

I don't want to be viewed solely in terms of my appearance, no women I know wants to be viewed that way. I wonder if Naomi does? I wonder if she's thought about it at all?

UPDATE: I would just like to add that Naomi responded to my message and has seen this post. She was a terrifically good sport about it considering my critical take on her choice of photo. She responded that she was proud of her body, and didn't care what people thought about it - a good thing in itself. However, she has now changed her FaceBook pic to a beautiful face shot. I think this far more complementary! Cheers mate.

A treat from Catherine Deveny

I am an unashamed fan of Catherine Deveny. Mostly because I knew her in a previous life when we were both flinging plates at high speed onto the tables of the upper crust at the Victorian Arts Centre. I was being paid $3.45 an hour for it because I was under 18 (that's about a quarter of the going rate my other waiter counterparts were receiving). Catherine found out, was incensed, marched into the manager's office and a week later I got a substantial pay rise. I've never forgotten it. Though, to be honest, Catherine is hard to forget just because she's Catherine - smart, irreverent and funny.

Read her piece on Youth Week here.

Pro-Life Adsense Adds

I'm not sure why I decided to use Google Adsense, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately since many of my posts use the word "Abortion" I am attracting adds from disreputable Pro-Life websites. Apparently there is a way to prevent this but it's a tad tedious so I haven't gotten around to it. Until then, I'm really sorry. Obviously the adds do not reflect my position.

Oh, and I do respect their right to advertise, I just think my right to block them from my pro-choice space trumps their right to express their views in said space. :-)

Leave Telstra Yey

Hey Peeps,

I've submitted and I'm back, sort of. A student of mine needs help with her PhD editing and her submission date is the 31st so I'll be very quiet until then :-(

However, I did write this small vent to a friend of mine who is a Telstra employee and he giggled himself silly so I thought I'd post it here.

Language warning folks!

The other day I spent an hour on the phone to the Telstra help desk trying to figure out why it was that I couldn't pay my bill online. I've been using online billing since it started and I've never had problems before. This note was my vent after dealing with no less than three phone pool idiots.

"The way I see it, if both firefox and safari give errors that say their web site is trying to redirect me to a page that doesn't exist, or that their website is trying to peer up its own bottom by redirecting me to a page I am already on, then it is nothing to do with my end.

Fucking fucktards.

Nothing personal. But seriously, it took me an hour to be put on to someone who new more about the internet than I did.

One woman was arguing with me about whether or not you could get onto the telstra website using .com.au. she insisted that my problem stemmed from putting in the .au suffix, that she'd been there for twenty years and it had always been .com (what the???) and had never heard of buying up multiple domain names and redirecting.

Again, I say fucktards. Imbecilic cocksucking fucktards.



So I'm still here, still annoyed, just up to my neck in jobs that don't allow for leisurely blogging :-( Back soon.

Internet Nutters make way for the Hedonist Nuts.

I really am working on my thesis! I was trying to verify the precise physiological reaction to pain under local anaesthetic when I came across this.

Apparently they want to free the world of physical and emotional pain through biotechnology. Wow. I have recommended that they read Paul Brand's The Gift of Pain. It includes some horrific descriptions of the kinds of pathologies that can ensue from a lack of pain sensation in humans. Here's one example before I get back to work...

We take it for granted, but the ability to sense that we are uncomfortable and shift our stance or posture prevents prolonged stress on our joints and reduces inflammation. Congenital analgesics (people born with an inability to sense pain) do not shift their weight, change posture or even roll over in their sleep and as a result they undergo repeat orthopedic operations to correct deformities in their knees, hips, and spine. Ick. And that's just what a lack of pain sensation will do to your bones. There's more, like being blissfully unaware that you are chewing off parts of your tongue or suffering severe burns because you didn't know your leg was up against a radiator. In general there is simply cutting, bruising or burning yourself without realising then adding insult to injury by using the affected body part as though it was not injured, leading to infection and delayed healing.

The lesson? Bodies without pain warning systems tend to end up twisted and deformed messes. I'll take my functioning alarm system over their twisted and deformed painless utopia any day.

Back to work Emma!

*grumble* *sigh* 10 days to go.