Mr. Campfield, back already?

The douchebubble who brought us death certificates for aborted fetuses, a bogus attempt to join the TN Senate Black Caucus (he then cried racism when they told him to GTFO), banning people on public assistance from winning the lottery (because clearly, people on welfare win the lottery ALL THE TIME and then stay on public assistance afterward, costing the state a metric ass-ton of money, right?), and the other day's cheerful "No grades, no food" bill, is back for another round. 

He's reviving last year's "Don't Say Gay" bill, which prohibits teachers and other staff at public schools from even mentioning homosexuality in any context for grades k-8, but with some fun new additions.  Specifically:

At grade levels pre-K through eight (pre-K-8), any such classroom instruction, course materials or other informational resources that are inconsistent with natural human reproduction shall be classified as inappropriate for the intended student audience and, therefore, shall be prohibited.

LEA policies and procedures adopted pursuant to this section shall not prohibit:

A school counselor, nurse, principal or assistant principal from counseling a student who is engaging in, or who may be at risk of engaging in, behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and wellbeing of the student or another person; provided, that wherever possible such counseling shall be done in consultation with the student's parents or legal guardians. Parents or legal guardians of students who receive such counseling shall be notified as soon as practicable that such counseling has occurred

Bolded is the new addition to the law.  The thing is, it's kinda sneaky.  Ostensibly it's just about making sure the parents know if their child is in trouble and might need help, and that's what conservatives will (and maybe already have, I haven't checked yet) claim as defense against it being pointed out that they're trying to legally compel outing children to their families.  (In fact, at first glance, that's what I thought.  For about half a second.)  But look at where it is in the law, and what it's attached to.  You can't in one breath you say "You can't talk about Teh Gay..." and in the next say "...except if the kid is in need of counseling and then you have to tell their parents" without the very strong implication that counseling a student *for* Teh Gay is what needs to be reported to the parents. 

This gets especially sinister if you're familiar with some of the common right-wing fundie arguments against non-het sexuality.  They genuinely consider it - non-het sexuality itself - to be disordered behavior, perversion, inherently harmful.  To them, two women who have been together for thirty years, never cheated, no abuse, no major issues at all, still as blissfully in love as the day they met, are harming themselves and each other simply by being together.  Take that and make it about teenagers, about whom conservatives are already having several large litters of kittens over their hormones and sex drive and the possibility that they might not remain utterly chaste and have their first kiss at their ultra-het church wedding...and any sign of Teh Gay could instantly be taken as "potentially harmful behavior".

So for all the plausible-deniability of "it's not about gay, it's about troubled children who need help!", it's not even the slightest stretch, especially in that area of the country, to imagine evangelical Christian school staff "counseling" a child simply because they believe the kid to be non-het, because they do believe it to be "behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and wellbeing of the student" - and then, per the new requirements, making a call to Mom and Dad to tell them "I think your child has a case of Teh Gay".  And who gives a shit what happens then, amirite?  It's not like GSM youths make up some 40% of the homeless population in that age bracket, despite being only 5-10% of the total population.  Not like anti-gay parents have ever, like, abused their gay children, or had them faux-kidnapped and sent to isolated abuse camps to try to "convert" them.  No, I'm sure a non-het kid being outed to a potentially anti-gay family is totally and completely safe.

And when I finish this sentence and stand up, a unicorn will materialize out of my ass.

Please, Campfield, stop wasting everyone's time with your reprehensible, harmful garbage legislation.  Crawl back into the hole you came out of.  I would very much like to not have to type your name ever again.  Kthx.

The Pagans Are Coming! The Pagans Are Coming!

I like to imagine the preshow meeting going something like this:

Ed:  Our anti-gay routine has been feeling pretty stale lately.  I mean, Bryan's compared them to Nazis like a million times, and we've worked the pedophilia, bestiality, and fecal matter angles half to death.  NOM's got the "they're coming for your children" angle covered.  What can we do to keep this fresh and interesting?  What possible tone can we take that will be something new, something they haven't heard before?
Buster:  Hmm.  You're right.  Let's see...we could try to work patriotism in there?  Paint gays as anti-American.
Ed:  But we've done that before, too.
Buster:  Oh!  I know!  We'll use the patriotism angle, but we'll make it about the Founding Fathers, specifically.  Nobody can argue about the Founding Fathers, criticizing them is totally off-limits and everyone knows it, right?
Ed:  I just don't know if that's enough, though.  It's not scary enough.
Buster:  Scary?  What could be scarier than un-American Americans everywhere?  It worked for McCarthy, didn't it?
Ed:  Yeah, but...oh!  Oh, I got it.  We're talking to a really fundamentalist Christian audience here, right?
Buster:  Of course.  We've alienated pretty much everyone else who ever existed.
Ed:  Well, what is this kind of Christian scared of?
Buster:  ...non-Christians?
Ed:  Bingo, buddy.  Bingo.  So we'll make it about being unChristian!  Not just generically anti-Christian, cause that's been overplayed too, we will make it about...PAGANS.
Buster:  Ooh, I like that!  Paganism.  It calls up mental images of the decadence of Rome...
Ed: ...and specifically, the fall of Rome.  So we associate the gays with paganism, everyone thinks of Rome and falling empires, and bam!  Scared shitless and ready to do what we tell 'em.
Buster:  Falling empires...that's deep, man.
Ed:  Thanks.  So, that's our thing, then?  Founding Fathers and paganism?
Buster:  Yep.  Let's do it.

Two middle-aged white men sit behind microphones and self-righteously mansplain at each other and the viewer.  Relevant quote from 2:03:
Buster:  Dr. Gary Gates at the Williams Institute, an arm of the UCLA School of Law, [says] an estimated 3.5% of all adults in the United States identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and an estimated 0.3% of adults recognize themselves as transgender.  Ed, your thoughts on those figures first?
Ed:  Well, 3.5%, of course, includes bisexuals in that estimate. [Yes, because they were measuring lesbian, gay, AND BISEXUAL, it was right there in the quote.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.]  Um, most of the recent surveys in this country show that those who self-identify as homosexual men or women is lower than that [with Very Serious Concern Troll Face].  It's actually closer to 2.5%.  But some people say, well, you're just arguing over a few percentage points.  [Because you are.  Actually you're not; you're arguing over a single percentage point, and it looks very much like you're doing so just to make the queer community seem as small and easy to dismiss as possible, as if bisexual people somehow don't count as part of that community.  Which makes you even more of an inane jackass.  But do go on.]  But the point of, the point we take issue with, is not the percentage, it is the ideology behind the normalization of sexuality.  It wouldn't matter if it was 20% - if it was 20% we'd be in big trouble [yes, you would be; bigger communities have more voting clout, usually, and you'd have a lot harder time trying to stuff that many people back in the closet] - but um.  We're talking about a return to pagan sexuality, a pagan view of sexuality, that says that it doesn't matter with whom you have sex, and uh, that God's laws do not apply to us and there are no absolutes when it comes to sex.  And, frankly, even if you are not a Christian, you do not believe the Bible, or you have no real Christian viewpoint in this - we are talking about a departure from the view of our Founding Fathers, who held to the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God," as it says in the Declaration of Independence! 

You know, the Founding Fathers (and can I just say, I'm ridiculously over that phrase and the patriocentrism it's got going on?  Ugh ugh ugh.  There were women involved in the founding of this nation, asshats) used the phrase "the Laws of Nature's God" to refer to freedom and self-determination as an independent nation.  IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH TEH GAYS OR TEH BUTTSECKS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.  It wasn't about sexuality at all.  Y'all have seized on this one tiny phrase, taken it out of context, twisted it, and are milking the everloving fuck out of it to try to promote your Dominionist aims.  For the record, it's part of a much longer sentence, called the preamble to the Declaration of Independence - you may have heard of it? - which goes like this:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

In this context, they're talking about more of a philosophical question of rights and freedoms and such, in contradiction to such philosophies of governance as the whole divine right of kings thing.  It's not about Christianity.  It's not about the Bible.  It's about countering the idea that the Creator (science hadn't really gotten to the point of explaining how we could come into existence without a creator being, therefore it was assumed almost universally that there was *some* kind of Creator.  This does not mean they all believed in the Bible or Christianity; most of the FFs were actually Deists.) had endowed certain special people with the divine right to rule, and replacing it with the idea that the Creator had endowed all people* with the divine right of self-determination and self-rule.

Which, y'know.  HAS SHIT ALL TO DO WITH THE BIBLE AND DOMINIONISM AND AMERICA-AS-A-CHRISTIAN-NATION AND ALL THE BULLSHIT YOU KEEP TRYING TO MAKE IT MEAN!  It's a POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

Ahem.  That aside (she says, three paragraphs and much swearing later), I am cracking the fuck up at the whole "zomg pagan sexuality" thing.  This is...meant to be a problem of some kind?  In case ye olde mansplainers were unaware, there are actual, real, live Pagans in this country.  PRACTICING A PAGAN SEXUALITY ALREADY.  So.  Shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted, and has already jumped the fence and is in its partner's paddock and they're getting it on, to stretch a metaphor uncomfortably far, is not particularly effective here.

I'm also not getting why the idea that "God's laws don't apply to us" is such a thing to be afraid of.  Shouldn't a particular deity's laws only apply to those who have chosen to follow that deity in some way?  One of my favorite fantasy novels** takes place in a culture in which there are four main sub-deities, and when a person comes of age, they choose which one of them to be a devotee of, and there are different codes of law that apply to followers of each.  Like, one character is struggling at one point with whether she should marry a guy from a different sect, because he wants her to marry him under the laws of his deity, which removes her right to divorce and makes her property his after they marry, while she wants to marry under the laws of her deity, which allow for free divorce and equitable division of property.  This makes sense to me.  I have never, and probably will never, understood why the laws of one religious tradition should apply to those not of that tradition.

Lastly, let me correct a misconception here.  Saying that pagan sexuality has no absolutes when it comes to sex is deeply incorrect.  This pagan, at least, has precisely one absolute when it comes to sex: consent.  Affirmative, explicit, overt consent (in whatever form that takes for a given partnering) must exist prior to and during all sexual activity.  That's it.  That's all.  And I even like to think this is an absolute we could agree on (although sadly I'm probably wrong)!  So I propose an experiment:  Let's try out this "pagan sexuality/pagan view of sexuality" that you're so afraid of.  Based on the single absolute I've put forth here.  Give it, say, ten years?  Of this as the sexual norm.  See if the Universe disintegrates or the Earth spins from its axis or anything catastrophic.  If so, I will personally buy billboards all over the nation proclaiming how right you were.  If not, you have to STFU and quit using my religion as a scare tactic to make people hate my sexuality.  Okay?  Okay.

Edited to add: Now that you've read the post, look at the title again.  Am I the only one who giggles and goes "Damn right, we are" at that? ^_^
*In the sense that "all people" meant at the time, which is to say, all white landowning males, more or less.
**Talyn, by Holly Lisle.  Trigger warnings for rape, sexual abuse, and torture.  It does, however, pass the Bechdel test, multiple times over, and while the main love pairing is hetero, it involves them as equals sharing their different skills to defeat the Big Bad, so.  Pretty awesome.  Magic and war and infiltration. 

San Francisco's Circumcision Ban

The City of San Francisco will have on its next ballot a measure that would ban circumcisions performed on minors in that jurisdiction.  There is nothing in the proposed language that would allow for religious exemptions for Jewish or Muslim families wishing to circumcise their sons for religious reasons. 

The legal blogs are all over this, discussing it in terms of both parental rights and religious rights.  (It's honestly pretty dense reading, I didn't get through all of it, and they reference quite a number of other cases.  But here's a good roundup for the curious.)  I had declared myself cautiously in favor of the ban in conversations with friends/family, but in the ensuing discussions, I discovered I actually felt far stronger about it than I'd thought.

It still bothers me a little that there's no religious exemption.  Being of a minority faith which is still struggling in many ways to be treated fairly under the law, I find the idea of laws that ban a practice originating in a particular religion to be troubling. 

On the other hand, the vast majority of circumcisions in the U.S. are not done for religious reasons, but for reasons like "not looking different," or "so he looks like his father," or "just because that's what's done."  Given that circumcision offers only minimal, mostly potential health benefits (the US Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine circumcision) and is generally a cosmetic procedure, why is it acceptable for parents to choose such an intimate bodily modification for an infant incapable of consent?  When a mother was featured on TV last week for having had her 8-year-old daughter given Botox injections, there was a righteously outraged wave of condemnation.  How can we logically condemn one parent for having a minimally-invasive, semi-permanent (Botox injections fade after about six months, IIRC) cosmetic procedure done on a child, while accepting a much more intimate and absolutely permanent *surgical* cosmetic procedure performed on days-old infants without comment?

And I even find it harder and harder to advocate for a religious exemption, the more I consider it.  Those who would have female "circumcision" - more accurately described as female genital mutilation - performed on their children are not permitted to do so (it's legally banned in California, at least), deep-held cultural values notwithstanding.  Which makes it logically inconsistent to advocate upholding the ban on FGM without exception, while wanting a religious exemption for a circumcision ban.

So I suppose in the end, it comes to this:  I don't believe parents should be making permanently-body-altering decisions for their children, period.  I don't care what religion the parents hew to, or what their cultural beliefs dictate they do to their kids.  It's unethical, to perform such procedures on those too young to independently decide for themselves.  If people choose to have body modifications made as adults, that's their prerogative.  If you want to get circumcised, go for it.  Have fun.  But something like that should require active, informed consent, and an infant is absolutely incapable of giving such.

What do you think?  I'd like to hear other perspectives on this.

Why Anti-Porn Feminists Annoy The Fuck Out Of Me

So I've really gotten into this tumblr thing lately.  It's like the ultimate in people-watching.  I get to see all these amazing conversations go by, commentary from half a dozen people on very big issues - things like language reclamation, labels, sex work, sex positivity, etc - and it's fascinating and while I don't say much, I like being able to see all this happen.  

One of my favorite tumblrs is fuckyeahfeminists.  Last week, there was a series of posts that was basically a conversation between fuckyeahfeminists and this other person on the merits of sex work, and the porn/prostitution industries as inherently degrading to women.  Well, I say a conversation on the merits, but basically it was this person sanctimoniously moralizing about how sex workers are only doing it because they've been abused and blah blah blah.  Here's the first post that caught my eye:

comicbooksandallthatjazz:  you didnt reply to my last post about the sex industry, for whatever reason, and thats fine - but do you not have any issue whatsoever with the fact that the sex industry IS opression? just because it looks as though the women are enjoying it doesnt mean its right, or that its healthy - its psychologically damaging and its wrong to sell a persons body and soul just to get money. Again, as i said in the last post i sent to you, i think because these women are humans above all, we need to respect them so much that we don't allow this industry to thrive. they deserve more than to have sex with random men for money, way more. to back this undustry up is to back up opression, and that is not true feminism. this blog cant claim to celebrate anti opression when you are celebrating it every time you post a sex inudustry positive post. a person is not a prude or anti woman for not supporting the sex industry, they are humanitarian, and it has nothing to do with 'to each his/her own'. once we start making excuses by saying that, nothing gets solved.

Let's go through this and pull out the most egregious fails, shall we?  I'll start with this one:

just because it looks as though the women are enjoying it doesnt mean its right, or that its healthy - its psychologically damaging and its wrong to sell a persons body and soul just to get money.

"Bodies and souls?" I must admit I've never heard of a line of sex work in which one sells one's immortal soul as well as sexual services.   Yeah, I would say that's a bit off, if I thought it actually happened.  But what's really going on here, is someone making moralistic judgments that selling sexual services is the same as selling one's soul.  Also the idea that a sex worker is "selling hir body".  I hate that phrase, I really do.  It's such bullshit.  A sex worker is not "selling hir body".  Zie may be selling sexual services, but that does not make one's body itself the item for sale, as if the body no longer belongs to hir anymore once zie has used it for sexual labor in exchange for money.  Just...ugh.  What a fucked-up approach to the issue.  Also, "just because it looks like they're enjoying it"?  So now you're psychic, and you can look past their apparent enjoyment and read the abject misery that is inherently a result of sex work, no matter how much they look like - or even think and profess and believe themselves! - they're enjoying what they do.  Damn, can I hire your psychic powers please?  It'd be really awesome to be able to look at total strangers and know for sure what they're really feeling accords with my worldview. 

 i think because these women are humans above all, we need to respect them so much that we don't allow this industry to thrive.

Why yes, let's respect these women so much that we take away their best or preferred or chosen or sometimes only means of making a living and supporting themselves and sometimes also their families!  I know when I really respect someone, I show it by overriding their decisions about how to run their lives because I know what's best for them.  It's a very respectful thing to do. 

they deserve more than to have sex with random men for money, way more.

If they are only doing it because they must, then yes, I wholeheartedly agree.  Everyone deserves better than to be stuck in a shitty job they don't want because they have to do what they have to do in order to survive.  I just don't think the way to make that happen is by sanctimoniously sneering at what they have to do in order to survive, and advocating forcing them out of business without offering a decent alternative. 

to back this industry up is to back up opression, and that is not true feminism. this blog cant claim to celebrate anti opression when you are celebrating it every time you post a sex inudustry positive post.

"Feminism: ur doin it rong, cuz u disagree with me."  The funny thing is, I kind of agree with the point that the industry itself is fucked up. Most parts of sex industry are oppressive and kyriarchal.  But I don't agree that they way to fix that is to shame women who take part in it.

fuckyeahfeminists responded, of course.  Short and sweet and to the point:

I don’t think that I am celebrating oppression by putting a post that recognizes the humanity of others. If you think that I am, that is your prerogative, but I totally disagree that you think I’m celebrating anything except human beings.

Well said.  Of course, comicbooksandallthatjazz couldn't just leave it there...

now, i agree that sex workers should be humanized - this is precisely what i am trying to do here, to humanize them so much that we are not seeing them as pieces of meat that just love to have sex so much that they cant wait to get payed for it. Every choice in life has a psychological root, and many take this choice in life because they have been conditioned to respect this action just as little girls have grown up wanting to be like disney princesses because it has been conditioned into us that this is what a REAL woman is like. Young women today are also being taught that if you do not agree with the sex industry or gratuitous sex in film and music videos, that you are anti sex or a prude. This is not the case, and i am getting pretty tired of this judgemental train of thought.

...

what i meant in fact was that many experience sexual abuse before going into the industry, which causes them to seek the industry out in the first place, as a kind of repetition compulsion. I personally don't think it's healthy, i think they need encouragement on how to get out of the industry, whether theyve had traumatic past experiences or not. The way forward isnt to encourage the trade, but to acknowledge that it is exploitative. I also know that people have differring experiences on this subject, and its kinda touchy - but coming from a humanitarian outlook i really cant stick by it as a positive choice for women..

Oh, dear.

this is precisely what i am trying to do here, to humanize them so much that we are not seeing them as pieces of meat that just love to have sex so much that they cant wait to get payed for it.

I, um...what?  I can't even make this make sense.  Has it ever occurred to comicbooksandallthatjazz to, I dunno, STFU and listen to sex workers assert their own humanity, instead of this weirdly coercive process of forcible "humanization", by which zie really means "push them to conform to my idea of appropriate sexual values and mores"?  Probably not, and I find that actually kind of scary and gross in addition to headdesk-inducing.  Also, whoever said that supporting sex workers who have chosen their trade means "seeing them as pieces of meat etc."?  Personally, I think it's far more humanizing to recognize that people who engage in sex work are people capable of making their own decisions, who do so for a variety of reasons.  Also why is it that we, as a culture, like to encourage people to "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" and all that crap, while treating people who enjoy sex and exchange those services for money like the lowest of the low?  What's wrong with loving sex so much you want to get paid for having it, if that aligns with your values and works for your life?  Why is this automatically a bad thing, a less-than-human thing?  Because when you posit "humanizing" as the process of "no longer thinking sex workers enjoy sex so much they want to get paid for it", you are automatically and inherently implying that "enjoying sex so much you want to get paid for it" is a less-than-human position which people need to be "humanized" away from.  Ick ick ick.  I seem to have gotten coercive imposition of individual moral values onto other people regardless of their own beliefs all over me.  Someone hand me a paper towel please.

Every choice in life has a psychological root ... what i meant in fact was that many experience sexual abuse before going into the industry, which causes them to seek the industry out in the first place, as a kind of repetition compulsion.

Oh. For. Fuck's. Sake.  And here we have the old chestnut of "You're only doing it because you were abused."  As if being a survivor/victim of abuse automatically invalidates any sexual choices you make thereafter - at least, any choices that the judging person disagrees with.  This kind of weird savior complex comicbooksandallthatjazz has going on is getting creepier and creepier. 

I personally don't think it's healthy,

How nice for you.  Do you even stop to consider what actual sex workers themselves feel is healthy in their lives?  Of course not...

i think they need encouragement on how to get out of the industry, whether theyve had traumatic past experiences or not.

Don't worry, sex workers!  comicbooksandallthatjazz is coming to save you from yourselves, whether you like it or not!  Zie doesn't care why you're doing what you do, it's not healthy and zie will make you stop for your own good!  Moar exclamation points!!!

coming from a humanitarian outlook i really cant stick by it as a positive choice for women.

Then don't.  But it's still not your fucking choice to make, so STFU.  Also please stop claiming it's somehow "humanitarian" to devalue sex workers and overlook/deny their individual agency and choices.  "Helping" people against their will is not actually helping.

Out of curiosity, as I reread through all of this bullshit, I wonder if this person has ever thought that there are, in fact, people involved in sex work other than women?  That there are sex workers who are women, and also sex workers who are men, and who are non-binary as well?  Given that, is it only women for whom sex work is badnastydangerouswrongunhuman?  Or is it everyone?  If it's everyone, then why the assumptive references to women throughout the conversation?  If it's not everyone, but specifically women, well, yeah, you sound like a sexist douchewad who's perpetuating a sexual double-standard.

Honestly, now.  Is it really that much to ask that we listen to and respect the voices of the people who actually do the work we're talking about, when we talk about sex work?  This kind of talking-over bullshit absolutely epitomizes one of the worst failings of white Western mainstream feminism, the savior complex that utterly denies the work and feminisms of everyone but the mainstream capital-F Feminists.  And it needs to fucking stop.  Yesterday.

National Coming Out Day: Because I Can

I have a hard time believing that someone could be reading this blog and not have yet noticed that I am Very Queer (And Talk About It A Lot).  But for those who haven't heard the formal announcement yet:


I am queer.  I am bisexual (mostly), although I've mostly dated men and mostly prefer women, which is kind of a weird combination.  I am polyamorous; although I am in a monogamous relationship right now, I still hope that someday we might find a third to join our relationship.  And I am very, very out about it.


Why?


Because I can be.  Because I live in a state that offers robust employment protections for LGBTs - I can't be fired for being openly queer, and if I suffer retaliations at work because of my outness, I have legal recourse.  Because I am the kind of person who is willing and able to handle intrusive questions and the curiosity of strangers, in service of normalizing non-hetero-monogamous sexuality to the wider public.  Because I believe that only with openness and talking about it will the wider culture ever come to be truly accepting of non-hetero-monogamous sexuality, to the point where we won't assume a married woman has a husband and not a wife, to the point where we ask people if they have a significant other, not a boyfriend (for women) or a girlfriend (for men).  I want nobody to bat an eyelash when a woman talks about her female ex, or when a man says he and his husband and their girlfriend are going away this weekend.  I have the kinds of privilege (stable employment in a state with good protections, supportive family to back me up, etc) that make it possible for me to be visible like that, and I'm damn well going to put that to good use.


So at work, I talk very matter-of-factly about my exes, male and female, as if there's nothing strange about that (because there isn't, and there shouldn't be).  So in my very personally-sharing psychology class last spring, I fielded questions from curious classmates about the difference between dating men and women, and how does that poly thing you talk about work, and where do you go to pick up women?  (It's hard to explain, it's *really* hard to explain briefly but here are some links, and I don't, respectively.)


This is something I can do for the community.  I can't donate much, and social anxiety makes it difficult to be part of meetings and organizations and direct actions...but I can be one more queer on the ground, so to speak, making a statement simply by openly and honestly being myself to other people.  


So I am out.  Because I can.

Bryan Fischer, Yet Again: Hetero Anal Sex, Lesbians Do Not Exist

Bryan Fischer, the one-man 3-ring circus of bigotry and fuckbaggery, is at it yet a-fucking-gain.  He, like so many anti-gay bigots, has huge hangups about teh buttsecks, and so focuses his bigotry on ass-sex to an embarrassing degree, a la Porno Pete LaBarbera.  Honestly, if you're this obsessive over other people's sexual proclivities, you need therapy, not your own radio show.


Here's the prize quote, from Fischer's anti-DADT rant-turned-blog-post (via Bryan Fischer Right Wing Watch):

Homosexual conduct is deviant sexual conduct. Homosexuals are defined by one characteristic and one characteristic only: they want to use the anal cavity for sex. This kind of sexual conduct is aberrant and carries enormous health risks.

Attention Bryan Fischer: straight couples do it up the butt, too.  This public service announcement brought to you by the reality-based sexual facts community.  Where have you been while the media has freakouts about teens who have (straight) anal sex to preserve their technical virginity?  And articles show up about whether or not men have come to *expect* anal from women they date?  For the love of all the gods, man, go browse a mainstream porn store for ten minutes.  I doubt it would even take that long to find "Ass Titans #4"*.  Also?  Not all male-homosexual couples have anal sex.  Some do, some don't.  Just like not all hetero couples have vaginal-penetrative sex.  And aren't you forgetting something?  Or rather, someone?  Very many someones?  Who are also categorized under the general term "homosexual", but who are not men?  Yes, them.  Lesbians.  Some of whom *also* enjoy anal sex, and some of whom do not.  


At any rate, this is a ludicrous level of Othering based on sexuality.  Male homosexuality is defined solely by buttsex?  As well to say that "heterosexuals are defined by one characteristic and one characteristic only: they want to stick their penises in vaginas/they want to have penises stuck in their vaginas."  See how stupidly reductive that is?  No one rational would claim that hetero relationships are based solely on wanting to have PIV sex.  Heterosexuals are defined by being attracted to and forming loving relationships with members of a different gender from their own.  Likewise, homosexuals are defined by being attracted to and forming loving relationships with members of their own gender.  And bisexuals are defined by being attracted to and forming loving relationships with members of multiple genders, and asexuals are defined by not being attracted sexually to other people, but forming loving relationships nonetheless.  See how that works?  


Bonus points to the metric fucknugget for these snippets, too...

We would be left with a military comprised of nothing but sexual deviants and those who celebrate sexual deviancy. That is a guaranteed path to a permanently and irreversibly emasculated military

and

The impact on readiness, retention, and recruitment would have been utterly catastrophic. Character-driven officers, gone. Character-driven service members, gone. Character-driven chaplains, gone. Character-driven recruits, gone.

So, masculinity is what defines our military and protects us (from what?  Aside from 9/11, which, terrorism is not the kind of thing you can effectively use a military against, we haven't been attacked by anything or anyone we could reliably need the military to defend against), and if we allow it to be "emasculated" it will become worthless.  I'm sure that's news to the many women serving in the military currently.  Nice little dose of misogyny and patriarchal framing there.  And apparently, LGBs and our allies have no character, and are in fact antithetical to retaining people of character.


Frankly, Fischer, given a choice between an all-rainbow-uniforms military composed entirely of buttsex-having gays and lesbians, and your "$MILITARY_TITLEs of character", I will happily welcome our new buttsexing overlords.  Now please, STFU.

*Why yes, I totally did go google "anal porn dvds" in order to give you an authentic anal sex porn DVD title.  See how dedicated I am to you? ;-)

Wednesday WTF is this I don't even...

Last week it was partial clitoridectomies on intersex children and/or girls deemed to have "abnormally large" clitorises, and doctors using a vibrator on them to "test sensitivity".  


This week?  Experimental, off-label use of a drug contraindicated for pregnant women, given to women pregnant with fetuses suspected of having congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) - an intersex condition whereby a female (XX chromosomes) fetus develops "masculinized" genitalia - *without* the oversight or approval of an IRB. They allege that this off-label usage will "...restore this baby to the normal female appearance...compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother."

So these doctors, and these parents-to-be, are willing to give/take potentially dangerous drugs that have *not* been approved for this activity, purely so that their daughters' bits will "look right" according to their definition of what women's bits should look like.  As if a child born with "ambiguous genitals" is incapable of growing up, having "normal sexual development" - and who defines "normal" for this, anyway? - and, if she chooses, getting married and having children, unless the doctors "fix" her with potentially dangerous medication before she's even fucking born.  Intersex people are not "broken", they do not need to be "fixed", and that's the assumption this non-clinical trial is working off of.  Truly worthy of a Wednesday WTF.

But wait!  It gets worse!

A few researchers in particular believe that this drug could not only prevent "ambiguous" genitalia...it could prevent lesbians and tomboys.  It seems that higher prenatal exposure to the androgens this drug suppresses correlates moderately with homo- or bi-sexuality in women - and also with insufficiently-womanly behavior, such as "...lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”  Oh noes!  How terrible!  Women who don't want to be housewives and girls who don't spend their childhoods fantasizing about having babies!  Get me to a fainting couch so I may clutch my pearls in safety!

But I think this is my favorite quote from this metric fuckton of FAIL:

“Gender-related behaviors, namely childhood play, peer association, career and leisure time preferences in adolescence and adulthood, maternalism, aggression, and sexual orientation become masculinized in 46,XX girls and women with 21OHD deficiency [CAH]. These abnormalities have been attributed to the effects of excessive prenatal androgen levels on the sexual differentiation of the brain and later on behavior...We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization . . .”

You've got to be fucking kidding me.  So low maternalism and "career and leisure time preferences" that have "become masculinized" are abnormalities to be cured?  This is, quite literally, doctors saying that they want to *medically treat* female fetuses in utero to be "more appropriately feminine".  And where is the line drawn?  How do we define "low maternalism" here?  I'm sure a woman like me, who doesn't even like children and is vehemently opposed to ever having any, would be considered insufficiently maternal.  But what about a woman who hasn't thought much about it beyond the "Eh, maybe someday" point?  Is that maternal enough?  What about a woman who knows she wants kids, but not until she's 30?  What about a woman who assumes she'll have kids someday, but who never thought about it as a child?  Remember, they were worried about childhood fantasies of pregnancy and babies as a marker of appropriate gender behavior. 

Talk about playing God.  These fuckers are literally trying to change future women's personalities, desires, and bodies before they are even born, in order to better enforce our society's vision of "appropriate" gendered behavior.  This is absolutely sickening.  I desperately hope our sense of ethics catches up to our sense of technology SOON, for all our sakes.

The State of California Is Willing To Maintain Its Uteri.

So I needed a checkup of the ladybits recently, and being the broke, uninsured college student that I am, where did I turn?  Yes, that haven of baby-murdering, Planned Parenthood, to partake of the reproductive health services that are NOT abortion and which comprise the VAST majority of their operations.  So I called them up first, to see how much it would cost.


It turns out I, by virtue of being able to reproduce, am eligible for a California Health Access card.  Now don't get me wrong, I am *all* in favor of making reproductive health care and family planning services available to all people, regardless of financial status.  But I have to say, the questions I was asked to determine eligibility made it quite plain what the state cares about, and it's not me as a person.  It's me as a walking uterus, a potential incubator.  I was asked, firstly, if I was still getting a monthly period (which I'm not, but it's by virtue of having an IUD rather than by virtue of menopause, which I was told is what they need to know when I asked for clarification) and secondly if I'd had my tubes tied.  When I answered "eh, sorta?" and "no", I was told that because I was uninsured and capable of getting pregnant, I qualified for this card that means the state pays for 80% and PP eats the other 20%.  


And what did I get, with my state-funding card?  A pap smear and basic well-woman exam.  Forgive me my ignorance, but don't women who've had their tubes tied still need those services?  Don't post-menopausal women need these things?  So why am I covered, when they wouldn't be?  Because the state's interest is not in taking care of its female citizens, it's in taking care of the hypothetical occupants of those citizen's uteri.  


So while I appreciate the state's help in getting me this health care, I very much do *not* appreciate that it has a prerequisite of my avowedly-never-to-be-used fertility.  Because that, apparently, is more important than my needs as a person.

Guest Post at The Deviated Norm

I've written my first guest post this week, for a series over at The Deviated Norm called "Today in Meet A Poly Person".  The blogger, DeviantE, is looking to present the variety of lived poly experiences in the voices of those who have lived them, in order to combat stereotypes and straw-relationships that are so easily knocked down.  So wander on over, take a read, check out the rest of the series (still in its infancy, with only DeviantE's and my posts up yet), and if you're poly, consider asking if you can write a guest post yourself!

I Am One In Three

[Family TMI warning re: my reproductive history]

One in three women will have an abortion in her lifetime, in America.

I am one of them.

It's not like I've really been terribly secretive about the fact that I've had an abortion. I've posted in threads on abortion at Shakesville, discussing the procedure and helping to allay a fellow Shaker's nerves pre-procedure. My immediate family all knows about it; hell, my mom made the two-hour drive to where I lived at the time so she could go to the clinic with me, and I spent the weekend afterward at her house so she could keep an eye on and take care of me. But I've also never publicly "come out" here, in my space.

I am inspired by Angie Jackson, aka @antitheistangie, who is live-tweeting and blogging her abortion this past week. She's a mother of one, whose birth control failed and who has health complications that would make carrying a second pregnancy to term quite dangerous for her. So she chose to have an abortion, and has chosen to share the experience with the world to combat the stigma, shame, and lies anti-choicers have surrounded the procedure with.

Those of us who work for social justice, who work to dismantle kyriarchy and raise the status of marginalized groups to true equality with the white-cis-currently abled-straight-Christian-man who stands at the top of the hierarchy, we know that visibility works wonders. It's easy to talk about "those people" when you don't know those people, have never met one of those people, and can believe the lies about them because you've never seen for yourself the real truth. But studies have shown that straight people who have openly-gay neighbors and coworkers and family members tend to be more supportive of equality for the LGBT community. The same goes for various racial and ethnic groups, for transpeople, for people with disabilities...and in this case, it will hopefully have the same effect of humanizing women who have had abortions, from the nasty stereotypes of selfishness and baby-hating.

So. This is what a woman who's had an abortion looks like (pic is of myself, Myspace-style, to show off some pretty purple eyeshadow):

It happened almost four years ago. I had been on the Pill at the time; my then-boyfriend and I were long-distance and saw each other two to three times a year, so I tended to go off the Pill when we were apart, and then about 6 weeks ahead of a visit, go back on it, to give it time to be fully effective when we saw each other again. That visit had been shorter-notice, so I'd only been on it for about three weeks. Knowing that, we also used a spermicide, as an extra precaution. It failed. I found out about a week after he'd gone home. We had talked about the situation in hypothetical terms before, so when I called him, it was mostly to let him know, rather than discuss our options.

See, I've long known I don't want kids. Not now, not ever. I'm not a kid person. And I know myself well enough to know I'd resent having to constantly be putting this other person first, denying my own desires where they conflicted with the needs of my child. No child deserves that. I'd be a lousy mother. So instead, I won't be one at all. Which makes the question of what to do with an unintended pregnancy pretty damn simple, for me. (Yes, I'm aware adoption is an option. Three problems with that. 1: I'm terrified of pregnancy and childbirth and the toll it would take on my body, and I'm not willing to go through that only to give the child away anyway, 2: There is NO way in hell I can afford the costs of pregnancy and birth, cause that shit is expensive, and 3: emotionally, I couldn't stand to live the rest of my life knowing I had a child out there somewhere, but never knowing what was happening to it. See, I know I'd make a lousy mother cause I'm too selfish for it, but it's not that I wouldn't *care* about the kid at all. I would care, and it would compound my already-not-insignificant depression a hundred times over to care about a child of my blood and body and not know where ve was, if ve was loved and having a good life, all that.)

Thus, abortion was a decision I'd already made in the hypothetical, and as soon as the test confirmed I was pregnant, I knew what I was going to do. My first call was to my boyfriend, my second to my mother, and my third to the local Planned Parenthood, to find out if they provided abortions, or if they didn't, if they could refer me to someone who did.

Because I'd found out so early in the pregnancy, at only 4 weeks along, I was within the window of eligibility to have a chemical or medical abortion, as opposed to a surgical abortion. The nurse at PP (which did, in fact, provide abortion services) explained that it would be a set of two pills, spaced 48 hours apart, the first of which would stop fetal development, and the second of which would provoke the expulsion of the pregnancy tissue. I could take the second set at home, and spend a weekend basically having an induced miscarriage in private, instead of having the whole thing take place at the clinic. It sounded better than the alternative, so I picked that option, and that Thursday, I took the first pill at the clinic. They gave me the second set, along with some anti-nausea meds, because one of the side effects of the second drug can be severe nausea, and told me to take them Saturday morning.

I finished out the week's classes, packed up, and drove to my mom's for the weekend. I spent the weekend relaxing on her couch, watching movies together and just chilling while the drugs did their thing. It was remarkably easy, for me; I've heard of women who had terrible cramps and threw up all the time, but I basically felt like I was having a heavier-than-usual period. I went back to school on Monday, and by the end of that week, it was all over and done with. I had a follow-up appointment to make sure the pregnancy tissue had been fully expelled; it had, and that was all.

Maybe this is overshare. Maybe this is TMI. Maybe the world didn't need to hear about my abortion. But for now, when abortion is stigmatized and secretive and something to be hidden and ashamed of, the visibility is needed to combat anti-choice lies and misinformation. I look forward to the day when the culture war is won and women aren't demonized for exercising their reproductive rights in this way, and when that day comes, I will happily keep my abortion to myself, just like I would keep the details of any other medical or surgical procedure to myself, because they're personal and private and mine. Until then, though, I will stand up and say it.

I have had an abortion. I do not feel shame, or guilt, or regret. I don't think wistfully about how old "my baby" would have been now. In fact, I have to think hard to figure out how many years ago it was now. I am not sorry. I made the best decision for me, my boyfriend, my family, and my life. That's what matters.

I am one in three.

My Consent Means Nothing

(For my family who stops by, a TMI warning. I talk frankly about my sexual exploits in this post. If you don't want to know, don't read it.)

Here is some Grade-AAA, pure uncut slut-shaming: A woman meets a man she's talked to online, and with whom she had intended to have sex. At his house are four friends of his. She alleges that they proceeded to gang-rape her. At the trial, the lawers FOR THE PROSECUTION - not the defense, not the ones trying to defend a group of gang-raping rapists, the lawyers who are supposed to be on HER side, convincing the judge and jury that the men did in fact rape her - HER LAWYERS brought forth "evidence" in the form of a transcript from an MSN chat in which the woman mentioned having fantasized about group sex.

The judge's response? He ordered the jury to return a not-guilty verdict with no further evidence or trial, saying her "credibility was shot to hell". Yes, that is a direct quote. No, I am not making this shit up. I couldn't if I tried.

So be warned, women of the world: If you have ever in your life fantasized about a sex act, you have automatically consented to it forever and for always, with any and all partners. ESPECIALLY if it was a dirty, naughty, good-girls-don't kind of sex act. Because if it really was ANY sex act, we'd see this kind of defense all the time in rape cases, right alongside the usual short-skirt-means-she-wanted-it, she-let-me-kiss-her, why-was-she-drinking-then? bullshit. We'd see defense lawyers (or, hell, prosecution ones apparently) entering rape victims' porn collections or erotic novels or old AIM sex chats with ex-boyfriends as "evidence" that what happened couldn't have been rape. So why don't we? And why did it count in this case?

Because she fantasized about the wrong thing. She didn't fantasize about nice, missionary, one-man-one-woman-one-penis-one-vagina sex. She fantasized about something forbidden, something terribly dirty and slutty. She dared to have desires that defy our cultural standard of appropriate female sexuality. And for that sin, she has no credibility left, no ability to not consent. Her mind is dirtied, therefore her body is dirtied with it. She is unrapeable, because she is no longer one of the Good Girls. She is one of Those Girls, the ones you can fuck but not marry, the ones it's ok to never call again. The sluts. And everyone knows sluts can't be raped.

And here's where it gets personal, for me. If she has lost her credibility and her right to withhold consent, by merely having a fantasy...then my consent means even less. I've had polyamorous relationships. Those have, multiple times over the past year or two of my life, involved more-than-two-player situations. I have not only fantasized about group sex. I've actually had it. Does my having had a threesome now mean that, if I am ever raped by two men at once, I will be told that my consent or lack thereof meant nothing, because my credibility is shot to hell for the sin of having not only fantasized about, but actually had the Wrong Kind Of Sex?

Fantasy is not consent. Not even the Wrong Kind Of Fantasy. End of story.

Confronting My Privilege, Accidentally: Part 1 (Het'ro)

This past week I signed my name onto the National Marriage Boycott: "We won't, until we all can." I spent $10 to support the cause by buying a Marriage Boycott ring, a black band with silver lettering reading "EQUALITY" around it, to be worn on the left ring finger in place of (or if you're already married, in addition to) a wedding band. The idea is that, by signing on and wearing the ring, we pledge to not take advantage of the privilege of marriage until it is truly a right accessible to all Americans.

Anyone who knows me well, knows I'm not the marrying sort anyway. I laugh when people ask when TNBF and I (together for five years now) are getting married, and if they persist, I start to lay out all my issues with the institution of marriage - patriarchal tradition of property rights and inheritance, none of which is really relevant to me - until they back off. When Lieutenant would introduce me to his friends as "My buddy's wife", I would always stop the conversation and correct him. (And isn't it fun, how a vehemently anti-marriage stance goes over in military company...) So it's not like I was planning to get married, now or ever.

But I *could*. If I chose to marry one of my male Others, that is. As a bisexual cis woman, dating two hetero cis men and one bisexual cis woman, I could marry either of my boyfriends but not my girlfriend (considerations of polyamory and who's already engaged to who aside). I *could* benefit from an extension of hetero privilege. It's never occurred to me to do so, but the possibility exists. Until I signed the boycott, that is.

And when I did...I was startled by how much that affected me. I hadn't realized how deeply the option of marriage was ingrained into my psyche, as a woman who dates men, until I voluntarily removed myself from that option. Until now, I didn't want to wed, but if I changed my mind the option was always there. But there have been several times over the past few days that I would be letting my mind wander, think something about "If I got married..." and suddenly stop myself, mentally noting that until marriage equality is achieved that isn't an option for me anymore.

I hadn't realized how much I still relied on hetero privilege until then. I self-identify as queer, as more-or-less bisexual, and have my entire adult life. But the way my life has worked out, there has been no point in my dating that I have not been dating a man. I have dated women as well, but not exclusively. So I have, at all times, had access to hetero privilege. I have always had the option of drawing on that, if I wanted to, and that has shaped my entire way of approaching the world.

Confronting privilege is never easy, never fun, but I'm glad I backed myself into this corner and made myself acknowledge that particular privilege, no matter how accidentally.

Wednesday WTF: The Sex Gym

Sorry I'm a bit late with the Wednesday WTF this week, it's been a busy day. Also for the dry week this past; got a bunch of new stuff to put up starting tomorrow, be patient!

So it's been all over the progressive blogosphere how Faux News had some anal-chapeau on, wearing a "no chubbies" t-shirt no less, to talk shit about Dr. Regina Benjamin, Obama's pick for Surgeon General, cause OMGZ SHE'S FATZ! And gods know fat people are all stupid and lazy and do nothing but eat cupcakes all day long. There's no way an overweight person could also be a qualified doctor, amirite?

Anyway. So this rectal-haberdasher, named Michael Karolchyk, owns a gym, called "The Anti-Gym" (NSFW), originally in Denver but now in Southern California because the IRS raided his Denver gym after he welshed on six figures worth of back-taxes so he ran off to a new state. Anywho! This charming Anti-Gym is all! about! sex! Tagline: Have Sex With The Lights On. Which, naturally, is only for skinny people. We all know fat people don't have sex, and gods know they don't have sex with the lights on. The only way they can get any is by keeping in the dark so as not to offend their partners' delicate sensibilities.

The website is full of graphically suggestive, NSFW images of Very Thin And Beautiful people gettin' it on as a reward for their thinness. Like, for example, the two hot chicks lapping at one lollipop - seriously? That's just not even trying for creativity. Might as well add a flashing sign that says "Substitute Your Penis Here!"- or the guy with his tongue in one woman's mouth while another bites his neck, or the guy with a woman's panties in his teeth. Apparently, gods forbid you be gay, or at least gay and male. Gay and female is okay, as the image of two women with orgasmic expressions gasping at each other shows, so long as you're doing it for the viewing pleasure of teh menz.

Motivational tactics at the Anti-Gym include throwing baked goods at members on the treadmill, and if you don't measure up at their weekly assessments, you're kicked out of the gym. For atmosphere, you've got a live DJ, cage dancers, and the "Ravish Room", a sauna reserved for those members below a certain BMI.

Are you fucking kidding me? This thing is like the bastard love-child of a shady nightclub, a 70's swingers club, and one of those weight-loss boot camps. Who the fuck goes to something like this?

I think I'll just look at this gym-cum-sex-club like I look at swastika t-shirts: it's a warning label. If you're a member, I know to steer well clear of you.

Also, a tip o' the fedora to wondrous wordsmith CaitieCat for all the asshat euphemisms!

Wednesday WTF (Part I): There's an app for that!

Today's Wednesday WTF will be in two parts. I just couldn't narrow my wtf-ery down to one topic. Look for the second part later today.

Today's Wednesday WTF comes to you courtesy of the iPhone apps store. (via & via) There is, apparently, really an app for everything these days. New to the iPhone apps store, a purity pledge app, complete with a purity ring graphic you can display on your phone after agreeing to the app's purity pledge. WTF?

There are two ways to look at this: either it's intended for people who wouldn't have taken a purity pledge otherwise, only now it's delivered to them in this new and convenient format! or it's intended as an extension on the physical purity pledge/ring for the type of person who is already into the whole abstinence thing. Either way, it makes no sense.

If you're the type who has already chosen to remain abstinent until marriage, and you've already perhaps taken a "purity" pledge (and that's not even touching the plethora of issues surrounding the notion of "purity" as the absence of sexuality, but I digress) and would wear or already do wear a purity ring...why bother with the app? So you get an image of a purity ring to display on your phone. Whooo, how exciting. Also, isn't part of the point of the purity ring to A: "warn off" strangers or acquaintances that they won't be getting any with you, and B: remind yourself in the heat of the moment, when you see your ring, what you've pledged? How does this app do either of those things? Unless you walk around flashing your iPhone at everyone you talk to, or have a habit of constantly picking up and looking at your phone during potentially sexual situations. And if that's the case, you have a problem that goes deeper than meaningless apps and you should probably seek help for your iPhone dependency.

So what about those who have never been exposed to the opportunity to take an abstinence pledge? Do you really think that some random person, probably with fairly healthy sexual appetites as most adults have, is going to see a purity ring app and suddenly decide, "Hey, this sounds meaningful! I'm going to sign my name on the virtual dotted line and get a nifty ring graphic to show for it!" And if they do...how long do you think that'll last? Given that purity pledges fail to be effective even when promised by fervent believers¹, do you really think Random Person is going to be swayed to celibacy by a freaking iPhone app?

And if you really do believe that...there's an app for that, too.


1. "Among those youngsters, 61 percent of the consistent pledgers and 79 percent of the inconsistent pledgers reported having intercourse before marrying", from linked article.