MPs have just voted against reducing the abortion time limit to 20 weeks by 332 votes to 190. They have also rejected plans to include consideration for the supposed need for a father when allowing women access to IVF treatment.
update forthcoming
How’s your week been?
From the smarties at Drexel University comes this little post on sexual limitations the Church placed on marital relations. I guess we forget how lucky we are today that the Church will basically let you do ANYTHING as long as it’s with your spouse…. hell, I’ve even come across websites that advocate the use of porn, and even pegging!!! in Christian marriages. (Please click that link, I promise, it will not disappoint.)
Here: an excerpt on punishments from our Holy Catholic church in the Middle Ages…. The numbers correspond to the length of time you were to abstain from any sexual impurity. I challenge you: think about your own sexual activity this week, self-induced or whatnot, and see what your score is.
Dorsal sex (woman on top): three years
Lateral, seated, standing: 40 days
Coitus retro — rear entry: 40 days
Mutual masturbation: 30 days
Inter-femural sex — ejaculation between the legs: 40 days
Coitus in terga — anal sex: three years (with an adult); two years (with a boy); seven years (habitual); 10 years (with a cleric)Theologians were divided on the punishment for coitus interruptus, the withdrawal method that frustrated procreation, arguing for a penance of between two and 10 years, while semenem in ore (semen in the mouth) could attract anywhere from three to 15 years. Pierre de La Padule added that sex during menstruation, sex in churches and sex preceded by kissing and fondling were almost as bad as the previously mentioned positions. Masturbation was so common that it only incurred a 10-day penalty for men and 30 days for monks, but women who used “erotic devices” did penance for one year.
I stopped counting when I had surpassed the 10 year mark…. In a way you could view this as the Middle Ages Abstinence Movement, and hey, what do you know?? The human race is somehow still here….Abstinence doesn’t work people.
Via The Smart Set
My first year in NYC
So, apparently, a year ago, I moved to the big city. A look back on some NYC firsts.
1. Ate my first Coney Island Nathan’s Dog.
2. Black bagged a beer for the subway.
3. Bitched out a parent at a Park Slope playground.
4. Verbally disrespected a NYPD officer.
5. Fell asleep on the F Train and woke up at Stillwell Ave.
6. Had a dude rub up on me on a crowded subway.
7. Had my karma shaken when someone genuinely wished me a nice day.
8. Had my karma shaken when a man peeled off a layer of his skin and offered it to me.
9. Had a dude masturbate within feet of me on the F Train.
10. Got my freak on, also on the F Train.
11. Witnessed my first subway fight.
12. Forgot and subsequently remembered what clean air smelled like.
13. Saw a subway tunnel on fire, and no one seemed to care.
14. Signed a petition for increased F Train service.
And since I’ve moved here:
15. Have not been directly affected by the price of gas per gallon, or ridonculous car insurance prices, nor have I sat in a drivers seat.
16. Can not fall asleep without the sound of loud Mexican music and garbage trucks
17. While home in my homestate: Gave the stank eye to a man who looked me in the eye, and smiled!! What an asshole!
18. Could map out the Subway System on a napkin if provided with 8 crayons (Jack would definitely help out,too.)
19. Have been obsessed with integration of all things Google. Coincidence?
20. Have stopped attending church, even when paid (NY is a godless city.)
21. Was labelled a NY’er (or the enemy) at a Mom & Pop coffee shop in NH.
22. Have become somewhat less idealistic, and definitely more cynical.
23. Can locate the nearest Starbucks location within half a block. Likewise, where the cheap bars are.
24. Could give two shits about fashion, unless I spend the day in Manhattan…. and then I just want to kill myself.
25. Have had my share of career uppers and downers.
26. Figured out (kind of) how to collaborate with a significant other.
27. Have never battled more with depression, addictions, poverty…. and have never felt more confident that I’m living/doing just what I’m supposed to be living/doing.
Are you fucking kidding me ?????
“Little girls pledge their submission to the phallocentric ideals of Christianity by promising their pussies to Jesus. Bonus points on the swords!” Creepy Slideshow here
Oy, virginity and abstinence and purity – hot topics indeed. Purity Balls are the newest Christian Conservative form of cultivating moral aspects in young girls. In a nut shell, daughters get all dolled up, and attend a ball with their Daddies. Dancing and frivolities ensue, and then after a speech, the little girls “give” their virginities to their Daddies for safekeeping, and promise to remain pure. Some lucky little ladies are even given ‘lock’ pendants on a chain. Daddies hold the key, until the hand it off with the husband…. (And how does that transaction transpire?? “Ok son, here’s the key to my daughter’s hymen. Enjoy her! She’s a real beauty. She kicks a bit in reverse, but just remember to rotate those tires and change her oil every 10,000 miles!”)
Creepiness aside, doesn’t this Daddy/Daughter thing just reinforce the uncomfortable rift between Daddy’s and Daughters?? (I felt far more comfortable talking to my Mom about that stuff than my Dad, and I know I’m not alone there.) But my main beef with the abstinence campaign, besides the cold hard FACT that it just isn’t working, is that the campaign fails to put the same responsibilities on young boys, and in this case the mothers. Where are the Mom’s here? Are we trying to reinforce this women as fragile flowers idea? How does giving Mom an active role in the moral shaping of her own children hurt them? Well, it would certainly shake the submissive image of the dutiful wife that the Christian Conservative movement wants to breed and uphold! Choice quotes and snarky retorts below:
“Fathers, our daughters are waiting for us,” Mr. Wilson, 49, told the men. “They are desperately waiting for us in a culture that lures them into the murky waters of exploitation. They need to be rescued by you, their dad.”
Ah, yes, the rescuing. Women are weak, and in need of rescuing, by men. Not by themselves, heavens no! Let’s not teach autonomy, or the strengths of making good choices for yourself, especially because we want to perpetuate Daddy issues:
“Something I need from dad is affirmation, being told I’m beautiful,” said Jordyn Wilson, 19, another daughter of Randy and Lisa. “If we don’t get it from home, we will go out to the culture and get it from them.”
Honey, if you need your Daddy to affirm your beauty, you’re already buying into it. Get yourself a hand mirror, and go to town.
The dancing continued past the ball’s official end at midnight. Mr. Wilson had to tell people to go home. The fathers took their flushed and sometimes sleepy girls toward the exit. But one father took his two young daughters for a walk around the hotel’s dark, glassy lake.
Ummm, ew? Journalistic cliffhanger. But back to the moral double standard. Purity Balls for sons? Nope. And if you think I’m just jumping on my oh so comfy soap box, a quick Google Reader search for abstinence education brought up these hits:
“Your body is a wrapped lollipop. When you have sex with a man, he unwraps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may feel great at the time, but, unfortunately, when he’s done with you, all you have left for your next partner is a poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled sucker.” Darren Washington at the 8th Abstinence Clearinghouse Conference.
Or this image: 
“You are like a beautiful rose. Each time you engage in premarital sex, a precious petal is stripped away. Don’t leave your future husband holding a bare stem. Abstain.”
From the website- “Abstinence helps to ensure a more successful future, avoid STDs and to avoid possible life-long dependency on the welfare system.” And here I thought it was the lack of well-paid jobs that make women poor–turns out it’s just the absence of a hymen. (Does that mean if I get hymen restoration surgery that my income will magically increase? Sweet!)
This one could be my favorite: 
The thought of a diamond in my vag makes me laugh. If I had known my hymen was a diamond I would have made a kick ass floating necklace years ago.
Joking aside, abstinence does NOTHING to promote self-worth in a young girl. It reinforces the idea that the only intrinsic value a girl has, lies hidden between her legs, and when that is gone they are nothing but a “useless stem”, or a “saliva fouled sucker”. Not only is it misogynist, but it oppresses sexuality. All that emphasis on virginity and purity being EVERYTHING is very hard to recover from if you “stumble” with your promise, or if you are the victim of a rape or incest.
And as the oppositional defiant child I was/am, I would like to state that while I have unpure thoughts, I have my fair share of purely sexual thoughts as well. Sometimes they involve Patrick Dempsey. JK.
Via NY Times
Schlafly footage on CNN
I read up a little more on Schafly this weekend at a B&N. In addition to her ERA opposition, she was vehemently against government funded/discounted child care centers for families because it was the woman’s place to remain inside the home (Unless you were a welfare Mom, in which case you better get a job!!!) She also campaigned for some sort of stay at home Mommy tax break, in which women who remained at home, earned less than $500 a year, and took their husbands last names would receive a little kick back from the government. Ironically, she was a mother to six children, a lawyer and editor of her own monthly political magazine, political activist, and lecturer at anti-liberal rallies, and was able to “have it all” as we feminists like to say, only because her husband John Schlafly Jr, also an attorney, worked side by side with her.
I leave you with a few choice quotes:
Non-criminal sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman except in the rarest of cases. United States Senate (1981). Sex Discrimination in the Workplace, 1981: Hearings Before the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 400, GPO.
The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God. Topics; Invocations; The Godly Nuke”, The New York Times, 1982-07-09.
ERA means abortion funding, means homosexual privileges, means whatever else. A new version of the ERA”, CNN.com, 1999-08-25.
And the first commandment of feminism is: I am woman; thou shalt not tolerate strange gods who assert that women have capabilities or often choose roles that are different from men’s… Men should stop treating feminists like ladies, and instead treat them like the men they say they want to be.Feminists On The Warpath Get Their Man. Phyllis Schlafly Columns, 2005-02-16.
By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape. Sun Journal, 2007-03-29.
Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions (Unsourced, but that one’s a beauty.
YouTube – Sweetie
In my hasty post this morning, I neglected to link to the Detroit power plant video that generated all the sweetie-ness…..Obama called the reporter within hours of the incident, and apologized, and the reporter admits that she’s been called way worse. As you can see from the video, he’s a busy man, being pulled in a million directions, but sometimes when we respond in moments where we have no time to think about what the appropriate response may be, it offers insight into those uninhibited parts of our brain…..Either way, it’s been a great dialogue starter on something that a lot of men and women feel passionate about.
On Sweetie, why names CAN sometimes hurt you
I knew the other day that I needed to post on the "Sweetie" issue because the use of simple everyday words that diminish and oppress women is something I'm quite passionate about. While I enjoy being called Sweetie by my grandfather, and other loved ones, I do not enjoy being called Sweetie, or Beautiful, or Honey by the guy making my sandwich at Subway, or the Metro North train conductor, or especially, an old school exec at Time Warner.
You can argue that words are words, and especially in the case of the old school Time Warner guy that the generational gap here is definitely in play. I might not be as upset if a waitress called me Sweetie when she dropped my check at my table, or the older guy at the corner store where I buy cigarettes and beer when it's been a rough night.
When a term of endearment is used to create an environment of familiarity when that intimacy isn't there, it's wrong. I don't mind my cigarette guy calling me Sweetie, because we talk about baseball, and the weather and my son whenever I stop in. I'm cool with it because I feel a sense of community with him, and similarly with the waitress at the diner down the street. I have definitely been that uppity woman who has said, I'm not your sweetie to random shopkeepers, because I'm not YOUR sweetie. In that moment, that intimacy that is built up over time in a real relationship, or through familial bonds, or through gradual friendship is being forced.
It's also quite dismissive. It's a passive way of unruffling feathers when there's a crisis at hand, such as a mistake in an order, or when a cashier is talking on their cell phone instead of taking your order. To assume that to compliment a woman on her beauty or demeanor will keep her in a submissive state is foolish. I'd also like to point out that Sweetie and Honey are diminishing terms, they don't help edify ones of self, they attempt to stun it into a state of submission and that's bullshit.
While I won't deny that I've witnessed my male friends being called Sweetie at restaurants, I'd like to also point out that that instance occurs so rarely to them that it may in fact not register as something that over time, compounded with the daily weight of walking down sidewalks knowing that most males view you as merely a sex object, could get a little tiring. And remember, when men are labeled with temporary intimate labels they are called EDIFYING terms, like Champ, Chief, Big Guy, and Tough Guy….
I guarantee you, if that had been a male reporter, Obama would not have called her sweetie. He would have stopped to learn his name, which I'm NOT saying he should have done or most likely, adressed the man with an unfamiliar label of respect, probably "sir"…..and you have to agree that the difference between sweetie and sir is pretty extensive.
At the end of the day, being called Sweetie is not the biggest issue I will face as a feminist, but just because there are bigger issues, and this particular one does not mean everything, does not mean that it does not mean anything.
STLtoday – Hundreds turn back on Schlafly at ceremony
The masses speak at Washington University St. Louis!! Hundreds of students and faculty turned their backs as Phyllis Schlafly who does not believe in marital rape, is a proclaimed anti-feminist and a firm leader of the conservative movement, received an Honorary Doctorate. Despite extensive protesting, WU faculty went ahead with the plan to honor Schlafly and six other candidates. I haven’t heard any info on whether the students degrees were threatened for their brave show of activism, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything. From what I’ve deduced, Schlafly has built a career out of arguing against the rights of women…..honoring her at commencement is a pretty fucked up parting gift for a female graduate, no?
My favorite part: school chancellor Mark Wrighton apologized for the anguish caused to the school’s community in choosing Schlafly as a doctoral candidate, and reiterated that the school does not in any way endorse her opinions….you know, they’re just kind of honoring her life’s work…. pretty lame.
Melly’s Music Geek vid of the day
Rob Paranovian and I share a common hatred. Canon in D. He laments his cello playing days, and I reminisce of the time my brass quintet played a benefit at my undergrad. Melly clad in a slinky black slipdress, forgot to hike up the middle of said dress to create some slack for the weight of my tuba. Yes, my tuba….. didn’t know that about Melly, did ya??
Anywhoo, halfway through Pachelbel, I felt a pop. It seems both straps of my dress had buckled under the weight of my tuba. And when we finished the concert of typically Baroque flashy numbers and stood for our bows, I clung to that tuba like it was a lifevest, as it was the only thing holding up my dress, and preventing me from exposing my titties to some very important Alumni.
(And the musicologist in me is reminding me that Pachelbel was an organist, hence the “boring” ground line, intended to be played by the foot…..)
Enjoy…..
Rape case dismissed in GA because of sexual history- plaintiff ordered to pay defendants legal fees, and WTF?
So let's get this straight: Girl likes guy, girl agrees to go out with guy. Guy and girl engage in sex, which gets rough, and girl asks guy to stop and he doesn't. Girl breaks up with guy and stays the hell away from him. One month later boy rapes girl. Girl gets rape kit and presses charges. Girl is ordered to list by name, date and contact info any person she has ever had sexual relations with. (Objection: Relevance??)
Case is dismissed because Girl had at one time engaged in consensual sex with the Boy, and Girl is obviously not a virgin. Girl's evidence collected from rape kit is thrown out because lacerations and bruising could have occurred during shaving.(??) And moreover, since Girl can not remember the crime, most likely due to her theory of being drugged, there can be no witness to the crime. Judge dismisses case, but not before ordering the Girl to pay 150,000 for the Boy's court fees, and thanks Girl for wasting everyone's time.
The judge found that since Ross and Day had previously had a sexual relationship, Ross should have known her claims were “frivolous… there was no reasonable belief that a court would accept Plaintiff’s claims…”
The nightmare of this case, for Melanie Ross and for all future rape victims in Georgia, is that she was forced to discuss in elaborate detail her sexual past, and then she had her claims dismissed in part because she wasn’t a virgin. Moreover, not only did Ross lose her case, the judge fined her $150,000 for bringing it in the first place – a fee sure to dissuade other victims from coming forward with their own claims. This case is currently being appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which can choose to hear it or not – let’s hope they right this wrong before it hurts more victims.
So, if you intend to pursue a rape case in Georgia, prepare to have your sexual history paraded and scrutinized on the stand, despite the fact that it violates BOTH state and federal law…. And remember that if you have engaged in consensual sex at one point in your life, the state of Georgia, who I can only guess is taking their logic from the School of Phyllis Schlafly, will only see you as a ho.
Via Feministing
Mellissa Hughes - Soprano 