07-21-07

Barefoot, Pregnant, and Stupid
I'm in a good mood, today.  I got my car back from the shop and it only cost me $3500, including the rental car.  Technically, it was only about $1100 out of pocket, and the rest covered by insurance.  Of course, insurance companies don't just conjure money out of the ether, and I haven't had an accident in 20 years, so, yeah, it was my money, no matter how much the insurance companies like to pretend they're doing us a favor when they payoff on claims.  "Insurance" is not a magic bullet to get rich off of, nor is it the property of a nameless corporation; insurance is essentially a savings account that you can only access under special and specific circumstances.  Think about it, you'll see I'm right.

But I'm not here to rant about insurance or even insurance companies.  As I said, I'm in a good mood.  I'm in such a good mood, that I'll give you a little warning:  If you think this is going to be one of the usual Casual Rants about the latest bonehead liberal cause celebre you have another think coming.  Nope, I'm going to give liberals and Democrats a pass, today, and lay into a few thousand of my fellow conservatives.  Don't worry, someday soon, I'll start on the new Democratic mandate and how, so far, all they've managed to do is question the Attorney General about the way he does his job, and whine about the USA Patriot Act (even though, it's in their power to repeal all or part of it, which they should have started doing on January whenever-the-hell-they-get-signed-in).

But for today, I've got my sights on fellow conservatives (some of them, anyway), starting with the proponents of

Boneheaducation
Okay, I'm going to try to make this as simple as possible, so those of you who can't comprehend anything more complicated than a Chick Tract don't get confused.  Sex Education is not a class where former hippies and prostitutes teach your children to have sex.  At least it wasn't when I was a kid.  I wish it was; at least then I'd have known that jamming my hands down Sage Parson's* pants and fumbling around randomly wasn't doing her a bit of good.  They probably also would have taught me that manipulating a woman's breasts for her benefit is nothing like checking tomatoes for freshness, no matter what my brother said.  Also, if that was the case, they would probably use a book like 1972's The Joy of Sex as a text book, and that would put kids right off of sex until they were well into the 70's.  I was lucky I discovered porn long before I first read Dr. Comfort's groundbreaking treatment:  the main thing it taught me was that sex is way less attractive when normal people (by which I mean non-pornstars) do it.

But what I'm getting at is that they are not teaching sexual methods, or trying to, or considering it.  

I seriously doubt that sex education has changed since I was a kid.  Back then it was part of the physical education program, which meant whichever coaches (one for the boys and one for the girls) were too junior to be able to say, "No," got stuck trying to be ridiculously clinical while explaining basic human reproductive anatomy.  The coach would try to maintain order while he walked us through the essential function of the plumbing while showing us cutaway diagrams of the male anatomy (which bore an unfortunate resemblance to editorial-cartoon caricatures of former President Richard Nixon) and the female anatomy (which was, frankly, baffling and resembled nothing so much as a musical instrument designed by Dr. Seuss (Can you play a Uterus?  I can play one-erous or two-terous!)).  We'd spend a little time trying to comprehend the enigma of the menstrual cycle (I gathered it was a lot like the erosion cycle, only instead of silt, it produced bloating and murderous rage), then we'd spend some time with pregnancy and fetal development, culminating in a very graphic film depicting an actual live birth (this is also much less attractive in real life than it is in movies).  The rest of the class was spent on how to avoid disease (don't have sex, but if you do, wear a condom, because any girl that would have sex with you probably has a disease from having sex with someone a whole lot more attractive than you).  I once asked a girl what her classes were like, but she tittered a little and would only mention that their teacher filled the class with hygiene factoids, like, "If you bite your nails, you will get hookworm."  (This is true, but only if you do a lot of swimming in amazingly filthy rivers.)

But, of course, you nimrods don't want kids to learn how their bodies work.  Nope, if teachers will be doing any education of the sex, it should be abstinence-only.  Whatever the hell that means.  That's a mighty short class:  Don't fuck, kids.  There will be a test on Friday.  Here's a quick review...when the test asks you "Should I fuck?" you should answer, "No."  Alrighty!  See you Friday!  There are a bunch of people with PhD's and loads of street cred who are armed with studies and statistics that show what a bullshit idea abstinence-only Sex-Ed is.  All I have is a metaphor:  Telling kids not to fuck and calling it sex education is as stupid and effective as telling kids not to play in the mud and calling it hygiene.  Try it, and see what happens.

I have safe money you end up with a lot of pregnant kids who smell like a New York Taxicab.

The Right Not to Choose
The other moronic conservative agenda has to do with abortion.  Okay, before I start into it, let me point out that my daughter was conceived out of wedlock and raised by a pair of dumbass kids who couldn't even manage to stay married to each other for more than 20 months.  That she turned out as amazing as she did, is a testament to her own inner strength.  And her amazing luck.  For all of our individual and cooperative faults, my ex-wife and I at least put an effort into giving Lauren a good life and a worthy education.  Some kids born in that situation just grow up to make the same bonehead mistakes as their parents.  Others grow up to live the lives of victims.  Others don't get to grow up at allbecause they're killed by abuse or neglect.

So, when I say, "I love my daughter, but I'm glad there was a choice," I mean it.  I'm glad my daughter has a choice.  I'm glad every American woman has a choice, even those who later regret their decision.  Because that's what this little rant is about.  It's about the new movement that is growing in intensity, that maintains that because some women later regretted the choice they made to have an abortion, that no woman should be afforded that choice.

These people throw around affidavits by "victims" of abortion who found themselves wreaked with guilt and depression, some who attempted suicide, others who became addicted to drugs and alcohol.  They'll wave these frightening tales at you and tell you how horrible abortion is, not for the fetus, but for the mother.  They don't mention how many of these women became depressed or suicidal in the face of "support" from family and friends who disapproved of their choice.  They don't mention how many of them had emotional issues walking in.  No, they wave anecdotal evidence in your face and claim it is proof that all women who choose an elective surgery immediately suffer crippling psychological harm.

Give me a fucking break.  First off pregnancy itself is a brain-boiling hormonal stew that makes some women crazy.  Other women thrive when they're pregnant, but the termination of the pregnancy (either by abortion or by childbirth) gives them issues (I believe the clinical term is post-partem depression).  All women need love and support during these time, and any person who undergoes more or less major surgery needs love and support in their recovery.

What they don't need is judgement from a bunch of church hens.  And they really don't need doom and gloom predictions tossed into their faces.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you people?  You don't want kids to be properly educated about sex and pregnancy, and you don't want women to be afforded the option of terminating an unwanted pregnancy.  What the hell do you want?  Do you want America's women to spend their days barefoot and stupid, pausing from their chores just long enough to squirt out a baby until they die young and wasted?  I thought we left that idiotic vision of America back in the 19th century slums.

Not a real person.  If there is a real person named Sage Parson, I don't know her, and I'm very sorry I used her name.  It was entirely accidental.(go back)