The sky is high. The Czar is far.
…No wonder so many people are caught in miserable and destructive affairs of the heart: it’s taken for granted that it must be better than lying on the sofa with a film or a good book and a nice sparkling Rheinhessen. People are idiots. – Squa
Indeed.
…Because part of living a full life is getting drunk in bars, and when you’re drunk, the fresh night air and the silence of the streets is the best fucking thing. Walking home drunk is not an unfortunate expediency, carelessness or irresponsible behavior. It’s a pleasurable experience. It’s a liberating experience. And women should be able to do these things for their own sake, not just when we’re stuck without a ride, or “made a mistake,” or didn’t realize how late it had gotten, but because while we’re here, we’d like to live a little. And fuck the consequences. – Apostate.
I’ve always had a contentious relationship with Apostate’s blog, but it’s stuff like this that ensures that I can’t stay away. I’d like to put this on a t-shirt – a silk one that ties with little strings at the back, so you can feel the air on your skin.
Mandy is not the real name of the individual who inspired this post. Our conversation was conducted in private, hence the change.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I am perfectly cool and open to long-time readers and lurkers friending me on Facebook. A few requests popped up. All were nice and courteous. All were friended back. A person named Mandy, however, friended me with a caveat attached: she didn’t want to be friends per se, she just wanted to clear up a few things she thought I had gotten wrong about radical feminism, but didn’t feel comfortable doing it in the commenting section of this site.
I said “shoot.”
I’m not exactly sure why I did that. Was it a slow day? Not likely. Am I a masochist who enjoys having the same pointless arguments with people, in which my selfhood is devalued and my autonomy is brought into question as a matter of course? Possibly. I think I find myself a frequent target for people like Mandy, because some people can’t pass up the chance to educate a wayward Slavic woman on the error of her ways. Women like me are commonly understood as “wanton,” “slutty,” “irresponsible,” “invested in their own subjugation,” “patriarchal-patriarchal-patriarchal-say-it-three-times-and-turn-and-look-into-the-mirror” types. And I don’t always do a good job of resisting that, because my morbid journalistic curiosity takes over at moments like that and I desperately want to see just how deep the rabbit hole really goes.
And the photographic evidence is as follows:
It’s nice to be able to see Jordan through a teenage boy’s eyes. It gives you a completely different sense of the place. Everything, from the Virgin store at City Mall to ordering Kebab Express, becomes an adventure. The skies look bluer, the shopkeepers seem friendlier, the cats feel fluffier in your hand.
Here you go, Jill.
This op-ed by Ross Douthat basically concludes that if only the pro-choice crowd weren’t so gosh-darn uppity, Tiller would be alive today. Or something.
Peoples, if you’re wondering why some elective abortions are performed later than others, go ahead and thank those among us who make access to abortion harder and harder while simultaneously demonizing comprehensive sex education and contraception. Thank those who make women so terrified of being labeled monsters and whores that they agonize for weeks and weeks over something they want to do. Thank Ross Douthat, he of the “women who use birth control are fat bitches out to steal my precious bodily fluids” fame.
The Bible, which is specific on a great deal of issues (everything from the craziness of Leviticus to committing adultery in your mind), is oddly silent on the subject of elective abortion. But the misogynist religious institutions which inform Douthat’s opinions couldn’t possibly lay low on the subject, not now, not with abortion procedures being even safer than actual childbirth. They can’t let the ladies make up their own minds on the subject. Unsatisfied with their own personal right not to have an aboriton, they encourage the faithful to stand and scream outside clinics. When the faithful shoot people, writers like Douthat support them with rhetoric that basically amounts to “well, we don’t support that, but…”
I agree with Lisa that a holistic approach to women’s health will always and forever be necessary. I remember thinking I was pregnant last year, and reflecting on how unfortunate it would be if this was indeed the case – because I think I’d want to have children eventually and being introduced to pregnancy via an uhappy accident is certainly not what I had dreamed of. The holistic approach takes that into account, it also takes into account those of us who are forced to abort wanted pregnancies due to the lack of good prenatal care (odd, that many people who are against abortion are also not in favour of bettering healthcare, and scream “OMG OMG SOCIALISM!!!11!!” every time the subject is mentioned), those of us who abort wanted pregnancies because we can’t face the ugly stigma of single motherhood, those of us who are ambivalent toward pregnancy but can’t make an honest decision in light of the polarizing hoopla surrounding these issues, and so on.
The holistic approach views women as more than mere life support systems for wombs. Ross Douthat, on the other hand? Well, he justifies himself in all sorts of creative ways, even throwing “democracy” into the mix, but I honestly believe that this issue is just a personal squick for him, and it is these personal squicks that other people, apparently, need to contend with when making reproductive decisions.
No thank you.
Oh, and nice use of Kansans for Life to support your argument, Mr. Douthat. Personally, if I wanted to prove that little green men are using the shawerma stand down the road as their outpost to launch a battle for world domination, I’d look no further than the Collected Works of the Lone Gunmen, myself.
Natalia A. 