The Echoing Silence of Your Own Irrelevance

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Social conservatives are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore. They get in a huff about swearing, abortions, homosexuality, transgender folk, premarital sex, the wrong kind of marital sex,  and/or the idea that anyone, anywhere is engaging in any of those even though all they have to do is not interact with those that do. The world needs to fit their very narrow view of morality, a morality usually based on an often confused and confusing millenia old collection of stories that even experts on said collection cannot completely agree upon. Anyone that does not agree with them is a horrible sinner and an enemy to be destroyed, even if it means ignoring some of the clearer and more numerous rules in the Bible.

They attack works of fiction that display a morality different from their own, they lie and cheat to defame those who work to help others in a manner not to their liking. In some extreme cases they celebrate the deaths of soldiers to express their anger at society not conforming to the norms they insist it should. They verbally abuse women who advocate for women’s health issues. In short, they behave like rabid animals.

There is a simple reason they have been so vicious of late: they know history is not on their side. They are on their way to irrelevance and it scares them. Oh, they will still be around, and hopefully, so long as they don’t hurt others (though they don’t have the best track record on that front) they can live in peace with the rest of us. What changes is they no longer get to control the narrative. They are losing their special place as the arbiters of right and wrong, and though that is just, to them it just doesn’t seem fair.

All I have to say is, welcome to being like everyone else. You can no longer indulge in your moral and cognitive laziness and sit back comfortable, thanks to your once privileged place in society, comfortable that no one will question the rightness of your actions. Morality, real morality, is hard. It requires reflection on your own behavior and attitudes and how they affect others. You don’t have to do the work of it, but if you don’t, we no longer have to pretend you have the high ground. Them’s the breaks.

I have high hopes that most of those still holding out will learn. They will see their happy gay neighbors, the healthy, sexually active women around them, those living their lives different but not hurting anyone and realize “hey, this isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s kinda neat!” Those that don’t, well, again so long as they hurt no one, I hope they can find some kind of comfort in their bitter self-righteousness.

Underestimating The Lure of Male Privilege

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This post may cost me a few friends depending on who reads, but honestly I am beyond the point of caring where this issue is concerned any more. A word of warning, I use some strong language here. I have had it up to my eyeballs with the whining of mostly-white, mostly-male, right wing Christians whining about how they are somehow under attack. I will write even more about that tomorrow but for now, I want to shine a light on one of the issues they keep on getting worked into a lather about: birth control.

Specifically, at least today, I am really angry about the brouhaha over the morning after pill. Or as the completely uneducated, theocratic freak show that is right wing Christianity like to call it: “the abortion pill.” The facts that this moniker has been shown, over and over again, to be completely inappropriate, that the pill prevents the implantation of the egg, that conception itself isn’t some instantaneous, “we fucked five minutes ago so either you’re pregnant or you’re not” scenario, all are ignored by these folks. You know what though, I don’t care if it is abortion because a) regardless of the circumstances, it is none of your business and b) the morning after (actually five days after) this is what you would be aborting:

If that is a full human being to you but this

is not, you are officially a jerk. Sorry, it’s true, deal with it or do not, I don’t care, but I’m fairly certain I don’t even want to know you at this point.

The first image is a collection of cells. There is no brain, no sensory organs no nervous system of any kind. There is not even a heart. Your sole reason for wanting to accord it status of any kind hinges on the utterly impossible to prove notion that it has a soul.

Before you decide to accuse me of putting words in your mouth, before you cry that “I never said that woman isn’t a full human being” let me just make it clear, yes you fucking well did. You decided that she, or any woman, isn’t a full human being when you decided they cannot do as they see fit with their bodies. You whine that it is against your faith to let you insurance provider cover their birth control. You lie about the costs of said birth control, complaining that the providers would raise your rates for providing it when in fact the opposite is true (pills are cheaper than babies or miscarriages.) Her status as an individual is tied completely into your wants and needs of her.

You decided to say that she was less of a person by suggesting that, unlike you, she was not allowed to have relatively consequence free sex. You decided she was less than you when you suggested she should not enjoy sex at all. You decided she was less than you when you continue to sit silent as authorities continue to use slut shaming on rape victims rather than challenge the rape culture we live in. You decided she was less than you when you decided to use phrases like “women have to learn to cross their legs.”

I know I’m getting a lot more riled up than normal. I know I am using harsher language than normal, but I am out of patience. I am out of patience with people trying to use their utterly arbitrary notions of the divine to tell other people how to live, and I am out of patience with men who are so desperate to hold onto their privilege that they are willing to be hypocrites and liars that create an ugly world for their daughters. I am out of patience with woman, so afraid to stand up for themselves, or so enamored of their Christian privilege, that they enable those men. Finally, I am out of patience with those of us that sit back and let these fools control the dialogue. Get angry, call these bastards out and take a stand. We’ve underestimated the lure of male privilege for too long and it is time to pull that rug out from under them.

The Rush To Punish Women

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Between this pundit, this one, and this “person”, I think perhaps Rush Limbaugh was starting to get angry over his waning relevance in the “movement” he practically created. Maybe that’s why he went completely over the top, even for him, and attacked a young woman barely in the public sphere. Rush has always had a mad on for women and women’s equality, but calling someone a “slut” and a “prostitute” simply for stating the need to cover birth control is vicious in the extreme. Maybe it was just Limbaugh’s way of eulogizing culture warrior Andrew Brietbart.

It takes a lot to make one’s own coining of the term “feminzazi” look sensitive to women, but Rush managed it. He has every right to his opinion, and considering that Ms. Fluke put herself in the public eye by advocating for women’s health publicly, his statements probably fall under the same protections that saved Larry Flynt when Jerry Falwell went after him. I for one will defend that protection, after all it protects me when I call him a spineless blowhard that hides behind a microphone and his class privilege. His words, which come from a professional polemicist who probably believes only every fifth word he says publicly anyways, do not bother me anywhere near so much as the people that actually do believe it.

Frankly I am not surprised that they are out there, and that he finds a ready audience to eat up his garbage. After the Slut Walks of last year that shined a harsh light on the victim shaming of our rape culture you had to know that the male privilege machine (and its collaborators among right wing women) would be rolling out their “family values” guns. If anything, I am surprised that it took them so long to do it.

Strong women that have control of their own sexual and reproductive destinies (two often but not necessarily overlapping ideas) are a threat to male dominance of all culture. If a woman can enjoy sex and avoid pregnancy and STD’s then she can enjoy being an equal part of the work force and political dialogue, freed from the looming certainty of motherhood that keeps her out of the public eye and illness that keeps her afraid.  Strong women that enjoy sex are a threat to male sexual identity. They bring into question the natural order of things (as promised before, there will be more on that, tied to the question of homophobia soon, tomorrow even.)

We have to fight back. I am not suggesting keeping Rush, or any of the army of frightened, anachronistic troglodytes that agree with him be kept from voicing their own, very backward, opinions. However, we have to fire back with our own. Let our voices be heard. Do not be timid and do not let Rush, or his ilk, punish you for being a complete and healthy woman.