Birth Control and Dignity

Birth control is one area of life where women in the U.S. and other Western countries often have little dignity.

Consider some questions. Why do you need to get a pap smear to get birth control? Why is it often difficult for a young woman to get an IUD? Why do doctors seldom, if ever, mention non-hormonal methods of birth control? Why is hormonal birth control only available by prescription in the first place?

The answers to these questions are not what you think. IUDs are not particularly dangerous; pap smears have no relation to birth control; non-hormonal birth control can be very effective; and doctors are not looking out for your health when they prescribe birth control, because they never conduct tests to see what type and level of hormone would work best for you and if they refuse you birth control, it is for political, not health, reasons.

There really are no tests to determine which pill (or patch, or ring) would work best for a particular woman. It’s plain old trial and error. The doctor just guesses, maybe throwing in a recommendation for what she likes best or has the most samples of or flyers for. Insurance companies, by and large, don’t reimburse doctors for writing a birth control prescription (and since it’s just a flying leap in the dark, I am not sure that I can blame them) and yet doctors do like to get paid for their time, so the mandatory pap smear came into being. Doctors justify it “for your health.” That’s nice, but if men couldn’t get birth control unless they were tested for a cancer that affects less than 1% of the population, it wouldn’t be so nice.

The whole system is not without its benefits. But it could be so much better.

Women, know your options. Research everything I have just said. Research non-hormonal birth control. Make an informed decision (because your doctor won’t). There is nothing elegant about a woman flat on her back “for her own good,” or a woman nodding uncomprehending “yes”s. You should have knowledge, because knowledge is both power and dignity.

Here are some starting points:

Toni Weschler, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. This book is one of the most informative and useful I’ve ever read. The accompanying website, tcoyf.com, lets you chart anywhere for free.

LadytoBaby.com. This is a Canadian website, where you can buy, among other things, the FemCap without a prescription.

Some interesting articles:

• “Let the Pill Go Free.”
• “Should the Birth Control Pill Be Sold Without a Prescription?”

The Hook-Up Culture

Independent Women’s Forum loves to talk about hook-up culture and how it damages women. The latest essay on this subject is a representative entry: Kylie Harrell, Duke student, argues that casual sex takes an emotional toll on women because women produce a hormone during sex called oxytocin. This hormone produces a sense of bonding, which is why women feel “heartbroken” when their male partner doesn’t want to turn a one-night stand into a relationship. Conclusion? “There is a biological explanation for the way you feel and the way he doesn’t feel,” writes Harrell, but this truth is being obscured by a “radical feminist agenda.”

Interesting, but oxytocin also is associated with reduced stress – so, if women are heartbroken the morning after he doesn’t call, they should by the same token recover that much more quickly. (Or, hell, maybe women should just become lesbians / woman-identified women — but something tells New Feminist that that logical extension of Harrell’s argument would be classified as “radical feminism,” so it must be stupid).

Furthermore, focusing on some hormone ignores other explanations for these women’s sadness. Maybe they feel used because they were used, not because they’re chicks.

Men implicitly get a free pass in this article for the highly scientific reason that they’re dudes and dudes do dude stuff. Evidently the conservative-leaning IWF doesn’t believe in free will.

In short, Harrell’s, and the IWF’s, insistence on biologizing everything is questionable and one-sided.

However, having said all that, New Feminist actually agrees – sort of – with Harrell’s conclusion, though not her premises. Casual sex isn’t a good idea. The very definition of casual sex is sex without emotional attachment – that is, using another’s body to pleasure oneself. In a responsible situation, the using is mutual, a bargain struck – I’ll let you use mine if you let me use yours. But it is still using.

New Feminist isn’t a fan of people using people. To NF, this comes under the heading of objectification, which doesn’t get any better just because more people do it, or because people agree to it. If consent were all that mattered, then every battered woman who says, “Well, I was asking for it,” would thereby make her own situation A-OK.

Consent is not enough – objectification is not good. It’s a moral and feminist issue and biology is frankly irrelevant. Is it easier for men to use women and treat them as objects? Interesting, but they still shouldn’t do it. Is it harder for women to use men and treat them as objects? That’s nice, and they shouldn’t do it either. They also shouldn’t give men a free pass and blame their failure to feel good after getting entangled in patriarchy on their lady-hormones.

Sworn Virgins – the Men in Women’s Bodies

(10-05) 08:00 PDT SHKODRA, Albania (AP) –

Drene Markgjoni spent 12 years in a hard-labor camp, punished for her fiance’s attempt to flee Albania’s regime, then one of the world’s most repressive and isolationist. She swore she would never suffer like that for somebody else again.

She pledged to forgo sex and marriage for the rest of her life, and declared herself a man.

That was six decades ago. Now 85, with close-cropped white hair, dressed in a man’s blue striped shirt and black trousers, she greets visitors with a manly handshake. The way she walks, her confident gestures, everything about her is masculine.

Only her voice — soft and feminine — reveals her to be one of the last sworn virgins in Albania: Women who dress, act and are treated as men.

“I am happier like this,” she says. “I don’t regret it at all. Not a hair on my head does.”

In this strongly patriarchal society where for centuries women had virtually no standing, sworn virgins enjoyed the same rights and respect as men. They could inherit property, work for a living and sit on the village council, although without the right to vote.

The privileges came at a price. They took an oath of celibacy and could never have sexual relations. And they could never go back to being women.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hate Feminists? You’re Gay.

A segment of the web-world loves to jabber about how dumb feminists are. Occasionally they decide to search for like-minded others, and then they somehow find this site, not realizing that the words “stupidity” and “feminism” can come up in more than one context.

These men hate women so much, and make such a point of talking about how ugly they are. Just admit it, fellas – it’s OK – you’re gay. You’re not comfortable with being gay. You can’t get a date with a woman. You’re not attracted to them. So you bitch constantly about how it’s all women’s fault and feminism’s fault instead of just admitting that women don’t do it for you. You’re gay.

Have an opinion? Leave a comment.

Well, thank God. Discounted lap dances for feminists!

England leads the way! Because it’s not exploitation if the product is sold to everybody.

The New Empowerment?

Empowerment – it’s the new attitude for women who reject being called skanks for doing what men do. Giving oral sex without receiving it? Empowering. Becoming popular because you give so many blow jobs? Empowering – as is dancing round the stripper pole at a frat party, naturally, and participating in wet t-shirt contests. And, of course, being a prostitute – excuse me, sex worker. And most empowering of all? Being a call girl.

Call girls, you see, get to choose their clients. They do what they do of their own free will. They have no abusive pimps; they don’t “work” on dirty mattresses. They make an unoppressed choice that satisfies them and pays them a lot of money.

So goes the reasoning – but here is the problem: choice only counts if you get to choose from among real options.

Here’s the flat truth: Women, including call girls, can make good money, but the one thing that they can’t buy with that money is sex with a prostitute of the opposite sex. Men can.

If a man’s attractive, he may be able to convince a woman to sleep with him for free. Old, fat, ugly, and/or balding men can try that, or just shell out. Old, fat, and/or ugly women who get horny have masturbation and, maybe, the hope that more men feel as did Benjamin Franklin.

Every woman’s option – even the call girl’s – is to wait for men to come to her and then choose the best of the lot. Every man’s option is to seek exactly what he wants and get it.