February 10th, 2010
I’ve Been Annoyed with Feminists This Week
Perhaps you don’t follow a million feminists* on Twitter like I do, so you may not be aware that they/we are all pissed about the Tebow Super Bowl ad. If you’re like me and you weren’t watching Super Bowl 44 either, then you really have no idea what I’m talking about.
Let me set the stage:
The notoriously anti-choice organization calling themselves “Focus on the Family” paid umpteen millions of dollars to run an ad during the Super Bowl that depicted Pam Tebow (the football player’s mom) being faced with the choice to either abort Tim, or keep the pregnancy. Um, you can guess which she chose.
Now, the reason this is pissing feminists off is that CBS has never allowed this kind of controversial ad during the Super Bowl before, and we believe that a sporting event is no place for abortion politics. But CBS decided to scrap their previous anti-advocacy ad policy and took the paycheck from Focus on the Family — a paycheck, as so many feminists have already noted, that could have gone to HELP women faced with unwanted pregnancies. You don’t see Planned Parenthood generating Super Bowl ads because they use the money they get to help women. What a novel concept.
So, the feminists and the Women’s Media Center were all over this one — even sending in the President of WMC, Jehmu Greene, to make an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. Unfortunately, as much as I think O’Reilly is a jackass who never lets anyone talk, I also think Jehmu lost the argument. By the end of his stupid rant, he even had me thinking “Yeah, what’s the big fucking deal? It was her choice.”
Now wait, I still know what the big-fucking-deal is — I am a pro-choice feminist after all — but it got me thinking that we had a whole lot of other feminist fish to fry this week that the mainstream feminists, and the Women’s Media Center, seemed to flatly ignore.
Yeah, I get it. We’re pissed that some organization shelled out millions of dollars (making them poorer, btw) to put out some vague ad on the Super Bowl that probably didn’t influence anybody to do anything except go,
“Hey look — it’s Tebow. And his mom. That’s sweet. But I’d rather see Danica Patrick’s tits in another Go Daddy commercial. Now pass me the nachos.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the influential media last week…
There’s a woman strapped to an operating table, live on the Today Show, undergoing a cesarean delivery with no medical indication to warrant this major abdominal surgery, which the Today Show Talking Heads falsely touted as “medically necessary” for reasons that the ACOG do not even support.
And the feminists uneducated about cesarean awareness issues will say,
“Who cares if she had a cesarean! It’s her choice!”
To which those of us educated on cesarean awareness issues would respond,
“It’s not an informed choice when someone tricks you into it. Talking a woman into major abdominal surgery for your own convenience and without any true medical indication is deplorable. And selling your viewers that same snake oil is even worse. That surgery just compromised that woman’s uterine health and patient autonomy forever, and probably for no good reason. THAT is why we care.”
And then the woman’s doctor told her on national television that she was free to birth vaginally next time, and what he must have meant by that is that she’s “free” to have a VBAC as long as she can find one of the few doctors or hospitals left that will truly support her decision to birth vaginally after a cesarean. And if you’ve ever been a mother looking for a supportive VBAC provider, you know what an impossible task this can be. My OB also told me I could have a VBAC when I was strapped to that OR table. What he meant by that was,
“as long as you don’t try to birth vaginally during my daughter’s birthday party, because if that happens, I’m going to try to force you to have a cesarean, which you will spend 38 hours fighting off, and eventually you will birth vaginally, but I will have ruined your birth experience in the process — so yeah… birth vaginally on my terms, and on my schedule, or suffer the consequences, lady, because now that you have a nice uterine scar, all I have to do is say the words ‘uterine rupture’ and I can get you to do pretty much whatever I want.”
Oh, and then on Good Morning America, Giselle Bündche’s graceful, natural home birth in a tub has some talking heads over there spouting off all the “risks” associated with water birth — you know… the “risks” being that if you’re birthing comfortably in the water, then you might have a less painful childbirth, and the hospital then will not get to poke you with all their pharmaceuticals and non-evidence based, non-woman-friendly policies. Water birth is very bad for hospital business, you know.
So all the while that women’s reproductive choices are being trampled on in mainstream media outlets last week — where are all the feminists? Where’s the Women’s Media Center? Where, Where, Where?!?!
I’ll tell you where — they’re busy paying more lip service to a Super Bowl commercial than it deserved. They’re busy pretending that most women would elect a major abdominal surgery even if they truly knew the risks involved, and that abortion is the only reproductive justice battle we have to fight.
Well, I’m one feminist who will spend my fight on the women who are being cut into without informed consent, and on the women who want to give birth where ever they need to even if it won’t make the local hospital a nickle.
I just wish the Women’s Media Center would report on these crimes against reproductive rights. They can start by sending a letter to NBC.
Tell me, if you’re a feminist, what have you done to help birthing women retain their legal rights to patient choice and informed consent? If all you’re fighting for is abortion access, think about moving a step beyond that every once in awhile, and helping the women who choose to continue the pregnancy. They need justice too.
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*oh, and don’t get all nit-picky with me, I know there are some wonderful feminists fighting for birth choice — you know who you are, and so do I, so I didn’t mean you.
February 1st, 2010
Sex is More Fun When It’s Funny
Tonight I learned some new things about the natural gender selection method we’re trying out. Instead of just the timing of intercourse, apparently the odds can be swayed by diet, and changing the pH in the woman’s vagina to make it more hospitable to either the XX or XY chromosome sperm — whichever you’re going for.
In my case, we’re trying to get the girl spermies to reach the egg before the boys do. This means I need to do some things to get my pH more on the acidic side, so the fragile male sperm can’t survive, which leaves the female sperm hanging around waiting for ovulation.
One of the things I have to do is cut out coffee (somebody kill me now) and bananas (they are one of my all-time favorite foods.) I don’t fully understand the extent of this diet yet, but if I find out that I have to stop eating chocolate, then I’m calling the whole damn thing off. THAT is a deal breaker, my friends.
Oh, and get this — I also found out that if you’re trying for a girl, the woman shouldn’t orgasm during intercourse. That’s right - they say having an orgasm during intercourse makes the vaginal environment more hospitable toward the male sperm.
So THAT is why I have two boys?!? Because I’m cursed with multiple orgasms? Son-of-a-Mother-Effing-Effer!
Okay, fine. I can skip a few orgasms if it means keeping my “environment” just right for conceiving a girl. So I tell the husband that I’m going to have to take a few for the team, and he’s (can you believe it?!?!) okay with that. He’s trying desperately to hide the excitement on his face as I’m standing over the stove, giving him permission to come without me for the first time in 5.5 years, so I say
“But listen pal! You’re paying me back BIG TIME later in the month!”
And of course, he’s fine with that too. The funny part is that sex has now become an act of simply depositing sperm where we needs it to be. This is quite comical to both of us, but alas, once our DVR’d shows were through, HH leans over to take off my pants so we can get the show on the road. This is a whole new feeling for us, and it’s hard not to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of having sex for the sole purpose of impregnation. We’ve spent most of our adult lives desperately NOT trying to make a baby.
So we’re getting into it, we’re already halfway laughing anyway, so I say to Hyphenated Husband,
“Hey, think GIRL when you spit it in there.”
And he starts howling with laughter. So now we’re both laughing — still doing it, and laughing. Then he says,
“Now I’m thinking of Kevin Smith”
And of course! I mean, who doesn’t think of Kevin Smith when they’re having sex with their hot wife?! Actually, I bet Kevin Smith would be thrilled to hear that we’re thinking of him during intercourse. He is one kinky motherfucker. Then husband says,
“You saying “Spit” made me remember Kevin Smith calling it a Dick Sneeze.”
And the words “Dick Sneeze” send me into hysterics. So now, we’re having what might be the loudest sex we’ve had in months, but not because both of us are calling to God, but because we’re both cracking up so hard that we (almost) lost our rhythm.
And it was fun. Sure, I had to sacrifice my orgasm, but it was still probably one of the more memorable sex sessions we’ve had in awhile. And I know my orgasm isn’t gone forever — it’s just waiting for a time when I don’t have to worry about my damn vaginal pH levels.
I swear, in all my life, I never thought I’d hear myself utter the words “vaginal pH.”
January 21st, 2010
Wordless Wednesday — Surgical Style
**taken from my stats book this semester:
Freedman, David, Robert Pisani, and Roger Purves. Statistics. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. Print.
December 17th, 2009
The Case of the Mysterious Necklace
Mystery solved. But the explanation might actually be stranger than the incident itself. So let’s back up…
Once, I had a BFF. This BFF and I were inseparable for awhile. Then, I introduced her to my freshly-Ex-Boyfriend (who had moved out of town for a couple months, and had just moved back.) This boyfriend basically made my life hell. He is THE ex-boyfriend. The Mother of All Ex-Boyfriends. I wrote an entire record about him. Suffice to say, BFFs shouldn’t start fucking him.
But She did.
She knew all the stories. She knew all the horror. But the night I introduced them, I went home with my new boyfriend (who became Hyphenated Husband) and she, apparently, went home with my Ex.
And then they kept seeing each other. And she hid it from me for a month. She became secretive, like an alcoholic. I’d call to ask her to hang out, and she’d say she was with family. In reality, she was busy getting a poke from my Ex-Douchebag.
I got a text from her one day out of the clear blue sky announcing that they were dating, in love, and “couldn’t hide it” from me anymore. Of course, I lost my mind a little; partly because I couldn’t believe how well she’d deceived me, and partly because I knew he was just using her to get back at me.
The love birds dated for another WEEK before breaking up and hating each other. As you can see, their relationship was so worthy of stabbing me squarely in the back. I hated her so much. But somehow, months later, I forgave her. Everyone told me not to, but I’m a chump. We were like sisters, and since I don’t have a sister, losing a surrogate sister hurt me pretty badly. I was with John then, and Ex-Douchebag didn’t matter anyway. So I brought her back into my life, and she stayed there for another 2 years.
She was the only person who cared about me through my first pregnancy. While all my other Good-Time-Friends dropped me like a hot, pregnant potato, she stuck around — mainly, because she was 30 and wanted a baby and a husband of her own so badly she could practically taste it. It’s all she talked about. She lived vicariously through me, and I was okay with that because she was there for me.
The Christmas after Jonas was born, she finally got her wish. Her much-younger boyfriend proposed, and I was thrilled for her. Jumping out of my skin, thrilled for her. But then things got a little insane. She told me she was taking the $30,000 her parents had just given her to buy a house, and basically using it as a down payment on a $100,000 wedding. I should explain that this girl and her young fiancé had NO money, lived in a dumpy shoe box where the water was broken much of the time, and could barely house their cat, let alone a marriage. She fixated on buying a $5,000 dress, and being her only friend who had actually been through a wedding, I decided to try to talk some sense into her.
Oh. The Dress. The Dress will go down in history as a category 5 hurricane, for it inflicted more damage on more people than any other piece of fabric ever sewn. While her young friends told her “Yes, get the dress! It’s your wedding! You’ll remember this day forever!” – I was saying “Dude, you will only wear this once, please rethink this, you cannot live in this dress. You will literally be the old lady who lived in her dress!”
Well, she told me I was raining on her parade, and that I was just “jealous” of her because my shotgun wedding sucked, etc, etc, etc. I tried to explain that I was just afraid for her; afraid she was putting her new family into a mountain of debt by getting wrapped up in this dress she couldn’t afford. I may also have brought up her ridiculous-to-me adult Hello Kitty obsession, as an example to her of how she might be spending money a bit irresponsibly. It was all very ugly. She said things. I said things. My husband said things. Her fiancé said things. And the BFF-ship ended on a sour, sour note. That was 3 years ago this Christmas.
I didn’t talk to her again for another year when she accidentally copied me on an email (meaning to select a different “Gina.”) We had some more words, and both told each other to fuck off. That was 2 years ago this month.
So today, I get a Facebook message from her. I almost threw up on my shirt. She wants me to call her. No way, Jose. I’m not calling her. So I tell her to email me if she’s got something so important to say, and here is what she writes:
Hi Gina,
Please don’t get mad at me for writing you, as I know it’s a little weird. Occasionally I read your blog to see what’s going on with you, regardless of what you think of me, I still care about you and wish you well, regardless of the past.
So, basically, you don’t have a stalker. That necklace you got in the mail was ordered by me off ebay, and for some reason it was sent to your work address. Do you remember like, 4 years ago or something, you ordered something for John and we used my ebay account? Yeah, well, Paypal messed up and the necklace was sent to you. I can show you the receipt that I paid for it, and for some reason Paypal used that address. I think it’s because [husband] and I are getting a divorce, and I had to switch accounts and move everything around, and ugh, what a mess.
Anyway, it was meant as a gift for someone, and I don’t know what to do from here. I know it’s weird, like some sort of Buffy/Angel crossover event.
I’m sorry if this bothers or upsets you. I don’t want any hard feelings or anything. I’m really going through a lot right now. If you want to keep the necklace that’s fine. I just don’t want any harsh words right now. I’m kind of a mess.
Hope you are well, Gina.
The craziest part of this whole thing is that she was the very first person I thought of when HH called me to tell me about the necklace arriving. When he said it was by Tarina Tarantino, I replied, “Oh, she makes that Hello Kitty shit.” HH asked me how I knew that and I said “Don’t you remember? [BFF] was obsessed with her?” I even wrote a whole song about her called “Goodbye Kitty” after our falling out. It went something like this –
Can’t look away
She’s such a waste
Keeps gettin’ high to keep from feeling lowShe’s got her clothes
Her pantyhose
I wanna love her but Goodbye KittyI never used to be a breeder
was a party girl and a meet & greeter
but I’d never trade this for that.oh what a mess
her designer dress
silver spoons couldn’t dig her out of thisso comical
so hypocritical
you try to love her but Goodbye KittyShe always was a cyber cheater
Ex-Boyfriend stealer
I can’t compete her
but I do thank Goodness for thatso goooooodbyyyeee.
You were so entertaining
Je’taime mais au revoir chatton
So there it is. The mystery is solved. No stalker. Just an Ex-BFF who hangs around my blog. I’m not sure that’s any better.
November 11th, 2009
Who Says Romance is Dead?
…If this conversation doesn’t end up on Lamebook, I don’t know what will.
