South Dakota - Go Fuck Yourself
I've come up with the solution to the abortion problem.
Thought it was complicated, didn't you? Think I'm being pretty arrogant saying I've figured out one of the most bitterly divisive issues in North American culture? Figure if we haven't all determined a solution in the decades of public debate, I probably won't be able to cook up a working strategy here, right?
You could be forgiven for thinking that.
But the solution to the abortion problem for women is simple.
Until women have an assurance that we will have free access to abortion - in perpetuity, period, end of sentence, full-stop - all straight women refuse to have sex. As it is the act of having sex with men that impregnates us, and men are telling us it's our own faults if we're impregnated, well, no problem. We clearly just can't have sex with them anymore.
Not with fuck-buddies, not with boyfriends, not with fiancés, not with husbands, not with affairs. That's it, nada, zilch.
I know, we've all heard similar things before, it's not exactly an original notion. It's been tossed out there in anger, as a "what-if", as a political statement, out of frustration. The thing that hasn't happened is an honest, with-a-straight-face proposal to women to seriously consider actually meaning it.
In the choice-less utopia Bush, South Dakota, et al are desperately trying to create with their legal battering rams (phallic imagery intended), the logical consequence of intercourse is us becoming pregnant and being forced to mother whether men do their part or not (financially, emotionally, childcare, etc). Men in North America are actively, deliberately working to block our access to alternatives to pregnancy. Politicians are legislating that we can't have abortions even if we might die without one, and simultaneously legislating the right of pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control.
The logical result of these deliberate actions on their part is pregnancy on ours. If every act of sex potentially equals an act of forced motherhood, then hetero-intercourse is something we just can't do. We can't afford to. It's us who are left with the responsibility when an unwanted child comes into the world, it is overwhelmingly us who don't turn our backs on those children and walk away from them - otherwise we'd all just leave them on the steps of the White House in protest. We know women won't do this. Thus, if it cannot be us who get to choose if we breed or not, we must take whatever steps remain to protect ourselves. As so many men are legislating their own right to tell us what our futures can be, we are left with only one choice.
We can't have sex with them. Not with fuck-buddies, not with boyfriends, not with fiancés, not with husbands, not with affairs. Can't do it. Can't take all the risk and be left with all the consequence and none of the choices. If they take our right to choose away from us, and take our right to contraception we are forced to exercise the only choice they leave us with.
The choice not to have sex with them. Any of them. Ever.
Except - when they want to have babies. That's it. This means the first and only time we'll have sex with one of them is when he decides he's ready to be a dad and puts it in writing. Otherwise, he doesn't get any. If he wants to have sex 12 times in his life, he is doing so because he wants to have up to twelve children. Or, I guess, twenty-four if twins run in the family. We won't even do the math for triplets.
Observing how so many of them feel about being fathers now ("Aren't you on the pill?"; "Fuck that, it ain't mine"; "You decided to have it, not me"; "I'm not ready to be a father", and my personal favourite, just plain 'gone'), how many do you think are going to get laid under that system? There will be some couples who want kids, sure. There will be some men married to pro-life women. There will be some boyfriends with pro-life girlfriends.
But that's not going to add up to that many. And the rest of them get nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Because they've actively, and with intent, left us with no other way to protect ourselves.
"But wait!" the women of North America yell. "I like sex! That's not just deprivation for them, I don't get any under that plan either!"
I hear you, sisters. That's why we spend a tiny percentage of the money currently going into fighting for choice and buy vibrators for all of us. Vibrators for every pro-choice woman in North America (including the queer girls because they're predominantly pro-choice too). The tiny amount of cash wouldn't even be noticed in the face of what these battles are currently costing us. No, it's not exactly the same, and no, it wouldn't do in the long-term, but it'll cover us in a pinch.
And I'm willing to bet a pinch is all it would be.
How long do you think the men of North America will push for laws over women's bodies if the consequence is that they're not allowed to have sex anymore? Do you think men would overwhelmingly vote for laws that say they are not allowed to fornicate unless they plan to procreate? The Average-American Joe won't step up to the polls to support a law to restrict his sexual freedom, and that's what will be in effect if we exercise our choice to protect ourselves by ceasing to sleep with them. If no straight men get to have sex until they want babies, no husbands get to 'enjoy the marital bed', how long do you think it will be before THEY are demanding a woman get her right to choose back? How long before they are voting politicians out of office who are going to threaten their access to fucking?
Not fucking long.
The problem here isn't whether or not men will stop supporting anti-choice laws if they stop getting access to pussy as a consequence. Millions of 18 year old virgin males who can't find a girl to help them 'lose it' will fight each other to get to the polls. No, the problem is that it's unlikely that women would ever band together and do it. And why is that? I know why the pro-life women won't, but they're a relatively inconsequential percentage and thus don't figure in that greatly. It's the rest of us I wonder about. Why won't we?
No, seriously, why won't we?
Because those of us with nice, respectful partners see no reason to 'punish' them for something they haven't done? Unless your husband is on the front of a picket line actively agitating against his male counterparts who are writing these laws, there is still 'something he hasn't done'. Until all women stand together to insist that all sexually-active men take this on, none of us will be protected. When we lose the right to self-determination, we all lose it. Even those of us with nice, respectful partners.
Does your male partner go to pro-choice rallies and marches on the weekends? Is he waking you up, telling you to hurry up because you've both gotta go to the demo? Is he actively lobbying government and putting money into the pro-choice movement? Is he refusing to vote for any candidates or parties who don't have a vocally pro-choice platform?
No? Would he if he lost the right to have sex? He can't leave you for someone who will put out, if none of your sisters do either. And no, there aren't enough pro-life women to go around. When there is no where for them to turn, will choice become important to them too?
I think yes. I think no one truly understands choice until they know what it's like not to have one. To have your daily life be controlled by circumstances of someone else's doing, according to someone else's choice. To not be able to live how you choose, have orgasms when you choose, be close to another human being when you choose. Because, make no mistake, if men lost that, lost all access to that, lost a basic thing they consider simply part of their right to be human, well, choice would change in their eyes.
The Rabid Right keeps pounding the pulpit yelling that sex has consequences and all us baaaad women need to learn to take some responsibility. I propose that we do. I propose that, for ourselves and our sisters, we take ALL the responsibility that we are left with by default anyway, and we clarify those consequences. We remind ourselves and them that when you take a right for granted you may lose it, and when consequences affect one, they affect all. I propose that we remember that we have the power to make those consequences felt in a deeply profound and personal way, and I posit that it is the ONLY responsible choice they are leaving us with.
No choice for us leads to no choice for them. It's only fair, it's only responsible, and women, I guarantee you it would change the international complexion of the abortion question faster than you can say "hand cream".
Thought it was complicated, didn't you? Think I'm being pretty arrogant saying I've figured out one of the most bitterly divisive issues in North American culture? Figure if we haven't all determined a solution in the decades of public debate, I probably won't be able to cook up a working strategy here, right?
You could be forgiven for thinking that.
But the solution to the abortion problem for women is simple.
Until women have an assurance that we will have free access to abortion - in perpetuity, period, end of sentence, full-stop - all straight women refuse to have sex. As it is the act of having sex with men that impregnates us, and men are telling us it's our own faults if we're impregnated, well, no problem. We clearly just can't have sex with them anymore.
Not with fuck-buddies, not with boyfriends, not with fiancés, not with husbands, not with affairs. That's it, nada, zilch.
I know, we've all heard similar things before, it's not exactly an original notion. It's been tossed out there in anger, as a "what-if", as a political statement, out of frustration. The thing that hasn't happened is an honest, with-a-straight-face proposal to women to seriously consider actually meaning it.
In the choice-less utopia Bush, South Dakota, et al are desperately trying to create with their legal battering rams (phallic imagery intended), the logical consequence of intercourse is us becoming pregnant and being forced to mother whether men do their part or not (financially, emotionally, childcare, etc). Men in North America are actively, deliberately working to block our access to alternatives to pregnancy. Politicians are legislating that we can't have abortions even if we might die without one, and simultaneously legislating the right of pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control.
The logical result of these deliberate actions on their part is pregnancy on ours. If every act of sex potentially equals an act of forced motherhood, then hetero-intercourse is something we just can't do. We can't afford to. It's us who are left with the responsibility when an unwanted child comes into the world, it is overwhelmingly us who don't turn our backs on those children and walk away from them - otherwise we'd all just leave them on the steps of the White House in protest. We know women won't do this. Thus, if it cannot be us who get to choose if we breed or not, we must take whatever steps remain to protect ourselves. As so many men are legislating their own right to tell us what our futures can be, we are left with only one choice.
We can't have sex with them. Not with fuck-buddies, not with boyfriends, not with fiancés, not with husbands, not with affairs. Can't do it. Can't take all the risk and be left with all the consequence and none of the choices. If they take our right to choose away from us, and take our right to contraception we are forced to exercise the only choice they leave us with.
The choice not to have sex with them. Any of them. Ever.
Except - when they want to have babies. That's it. This means the first and only time we'll have sex with one of them is when he decides he's ready to be a dad and puts it in writing. Otherwise, he doesn't get any. If he wants to have sex 12 times in his life, he is doing so because he wants to have up to twelve children. Or, I guess, twenty-four if twins run in the family. We won't even do the math for triplets.
Observing how so many of them feel about being fathers now ("Aren't you on the pill?"; "Fuck that, it ain't mine"; "You decided to have it, not me"; "I'm not ready to be a father", and my personal favourite, just plain 'gone'), how many do you think are going to get laid under that system? There will be some couples who want kids, sure. There will be some men married to pro-life women. There will be some boyfriends with pro-life girlfriends.
But that's not going to add up to that many. And the rest of them get nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Because they've actively, and with intent, left us with no other way to protect ourselves.
"But wait!" the women of North America yell. "I like sex! That's not just deprivation for them, I don't get any under that plan either!"
I hear you, sisters. That's why we spend a tiny percentage of the money currently going into fighting for choice and buy vibrators for all of us. Vibrators for every pro-choice woman in North America (including the queer girls because they're predominantly pro-choice too). The tiny amount of cash wouldn't even be noticed in the face of what these battles are currently costing us. No, it's not exactly the same, and no, it wouldn't do in the long-term, but it'll cover us in a pinch.
And I'm willing to bet a pinch is all it would be.
How long do you think the men of North America will push for laws over women's bodies if the consequence is that they're not allowed to have sex anymore? Do you think men would overwhelmingly vote for laws that say they are not allowed to fornicate unless they plan to procreate? The Average-American Joe won't step up to the polls to support a law to restrict his sexual freedom, and that's what will be in effect if we exercise our choice to protect ourselves by ceasing to sleep with them. If no straight men get to have sex until they want babies, no husbands get to 'enjoy the marital bed', how long do you think it will be before THEY are demanding a woman get her right to choose back? How long before they are voting politicians out of office who are going to threaten their access to fucking?
Not fucking long.
The problem here isn't whether or not men will stop supporting anti-choice laws if they stop getting access to pussy as a consequence. Millions of 18 year old virgin males who can't find a girl to help them 'lose it' will fight each other to get to the polls. No, the problem is that it's unlikely that women would ever band together and do it. And why is that? I know why the pro-life women won't, but they're a relatively inconsequential percentage and thus don't figure in that greatly. It's the rest of us I wonder about. Why won't we?
No, seriously, why won't we?
Because those of us with nice, respectful partners see no reason to 'punish' them for something they haven't done? Unless your husband is on the front of a picket line actively agitating against his male counterparts who are writing these laws, there is still 'something he hasn't done'. Until all women stand together to insist that all sexually-active men take this on, none of us will be protected. When we lose the right to self-determination, we all lose it. Even those of us with nice, respectful partners.
Does your male partner go to pro-choice rallies and marches on the weekends? Is he waking you up, telling you to hurry up because you've both gotta go to the demo? Is he actively lobbying government and putting money into the pro-choice movement? Is he refusing to vote for any candidates or parties who don't have a vocally pro-choice platform?
No? Would he if he lost the right to have sex? He can't leave you for someone who will put out, if none of your sisters do either. And no, there aren't enough pro-life women to go around. When there is no where for them to turn, will choice become important to them too?
I think yes. I think no one truly understands choice until they know what it's like not to have one. To have your daily life be controlled by circumstances of someone else's doing, according to someone else's choice. To not be able to live how you choose, have orgasms when you choose, be close to another human being when you choose. Because, make no mistake, if men lost that, lost all access to that, lost a basic thing they consider simply part of their right to be human, well, choice would change in their eyes.
The Rabid Right keeps pounding the pulpit yelling that sex has consequences and all us baaaad women need to learn to take some responsibility. I propose that we do. I propose that, for ourselves and our sisters, we take ALL the responsibility that we are left with by default anyway, and we clarify those consequences. We remind ourselves and them that when you take a right for granted you may lose it, and when consequences affect one, they affect all. I propose that we remember that we have the power to make those consequences felt in a deeply profound and personal way, and I posit that it is the ONLY responsible choice they are leaving us with.
No choice for us leads to no choice for them. It's only fair, it's only responsible, and women, I guarantee you it would change the international complexion of the abortion question faster than you can say "hand cream".
posted by Crowbar at 11:15 a.m.
3 comments
