Monday, February 13, 2012

Natural Rights, Natural Sex, and Politics
OR
Sex and Windex

( - cross posted from an old Penigma post of mine)

As the culture wars against women waged by the right accelerate in this election cycle, I think it is worthwhile to recycle an old post of mine from 2010 that I think pertains to our current events in 2012.

The figure that 98% of women have used artificial contraception has been in the news. I wanted to know where that number came from; I also like fact checking. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a good challenge that substantially approved those numbers at politifact.com, along with the study itself that was mentioned - which saved me further checking on my own. I personally have always found the Guttmacher Institute to be an excellent research organization in the past, and have read other studies as well as this one.

I'm not the only one who finds the Guttmacher Institute to be reliable. The politifact.com article noted that the Catholic Medical Association has found the source credible in earlier studies of the same question, and found a pretty consistent percentage of use of contraception among Roman Catholics over time. This is not a new development or trend. While the Roman Catholic bishops may oppose the Obama administration, not all of the Roman Catholic hierarchy does so. The Catholic Hospitals Association, the Catholic Health Association, and Catholic Charities all support the Obama accommodation, including a petition signed by 600 doctors and medical students doctors, including 70 doctors who specifically identify themselves as Roman Catholic, who support the Obama administration's position on contraception.

So as I watch the GOP presidential candidates trying to exploit for their own political advantage the very real health and family planning concerns of Catholic Hospitals, Catholic health care providers, and the overwhelming rank and file of those who are the Roman Catholic church in this country as congregants, I am appalled that a few bishops and some prudish antiquated out-of-step politicians are trying to make this an issue about religious freedom. It is entirely about religious conscience, including following one's conscience to differ with their church hierarchy's dictates, as clearly a huge number of Catholics actually do.

I would argue that the right to religious freedom is a right of the individual, not institutions. Institutions are not people any more than corporations or other organizations are people.

I would argue that Obama should not have caved in to the minority position of the Bishops at all, but that he did so in a way that embraces tolerance for a spectrum of religious belief and practice, including the ACTUAL spectrum of belief and practice among Roman Catholics. The representations made by the right are false, misleading, and their usual bullshit misrepresentation, not an honest engagement over the role of religion in our society or government. Shame on them, and shame on the Bishops, and for that matter, shame on the Roman Catholic church which is promoting a policy that is not founded in either the Bible, or any real traditional teaching. For example, the Roman Catholic church didn't make masturbation - relating to the issue of sex must be for reproduction - a sin until the 6th century.

The legitimate argument that the Roman Catholic church is interested not in the status of their follower's souls as much as in maintaining their numbers regardless of the personal harm to their coreligionists in contending with hardships due to an inability to exercise effective control over their reproductive choices. I find that the right, particularly the religious right, as personified especially in this election cycle by Rick Santorum, are waging a war not only against women, but apparently against people enjoying sex.

I personally am strongly opposed to the imposition of the views on sex of hypocrites like Gingrich or apparent prudes and sexually uneducated asses like Santorum trying to dictate to men and women that they must conform to religious views of when and how and with whom to engage in sex. Rather I would argue that my sex life is my own, and so long as no one who is vulnerable or unable properly and fully to give consent is involved, everyone else but particularly the right and the religious right should BUTT OUT of sexual matters and reproductive matters. Get the hell out of my body and out of my bedroom and quit violating my right to follow my conscience in these matters. The right is all about dictating to others a conformity to their ideas and conscience, denying those who differ with them the right to their own choices.

So, without further ado - here is Sex and Windex:

Sex and Windex

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness."
2nd century Hebrew proverb
Rabbi Phineas ben-Yair
(per Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 14th ed.)

"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
Motto, English chivalric Order of the Garter,
founded 1344
King Edward III of England

I have been following the Simon-Simpleminded-Simon-purity statements that are enjoying a new resurgence in the right-wing culture wars of the current season of political campaigns with alternating amusement and distaste.

While I bless and thank my parents often in my heart for having insisted that an attention span and ability to concentrate is like a muscle which must be exercised to remain strong, a premise I bring to many tasks..........there are certain activities which produce for me a tedium which is almost physically painful to endure. It is just one of the reasons, I - along with many people - dislike the necessary task of washing windows. Unlike other domestic tasks, there is no 'domestic godess' gratification in it; it is an annoying necessity to be reluctantly endured and gotten over with as quickly as possible.

Until recently, I just cringed when thinking of the smirking, leering pseudo-purity promoted by professional right wing political parasites like Christine O'Donnell who make a living off of saying any dreck the right wants to hear. Instead, in response to a news item about her anti-masturbation crusade on the news in the background, I played an old CD while washing windows, selecting the most lust-inducing music available in my collection. In this case it was from 1991, a local group, Mick Sterling and the Stud Brothers. My friend Sara introduced me to their music a few years ago (thank you Sara!) simply describing Sterling's vocal quality as 'beefy', but said with an edginess in her expression which implied much more. I would describe the mixture of rough and smooth in his delivery as the auditory equivalent of a caress followed by the feel of a lover's fingernails lightly but firmly dragged across one's skin, making it tingle.

The mixture of Sterling and the instrumental accompaniment of 'Squib Cakes' built nicely through 'Turn Me Loose'; but it was the lyrics and energy of of 'Bump and Grind' which carried me through cleaning the big living room window. It was "I want to bump and grind and get on down, hold your body next to mine" that generated the knot of energy just forward of the small of my back, taking me into the moment and away from my usual attempts to distract myself from boredom. I conjugate irregular french verbs while standing in grocery store check out lines waiting for overflowing carts of necessities to be processed through, in order to block out screaming toddlers having temper tantrums, for example. But that doesn't do much to get the blood pounding or the libido blazing. It doesn't have that pounding, elemental power of human sexuality that centers you in the moment, in the wonderful feeling of moving your body it takes to carry you through washing windows.

So, as I look up from the computer at the morning sun shining through the oh-so-clean windows, unmarred by even the tiniest streak, I can smile, and raise my cup of black coffee in a toast to Sterling and sexuality. Because the better lessons of sex is not that we are evil for having sexual urges, or that God will frown or punish us for them, but to exalt in the humanity of it, in the energy of it, the JOY of it, because we all share it, so long as we control and direct it positively, and do not lose that control of it.

Sex, and even lust is not dirty, especially not if you use it with a little Windex. Because, in the wise words of a religious man from the second century, cleanliness is next to godliness, in mind and body. It is the attitude that sex and sexual impulses are evil except for the narrowest possible expression which makes it dirty and sin-foul. If I may be allowed a somewhat loose translation that conveys the meaning more than the precise equivalent word for word, the motto of the order of the garter is that the evil is in the mind of the person who seeks to find evil, in things, in actions; an example would be the pseudo-purity espoused by people like O'Donnell that equates auto-eroticism with adultery.

I hope you enjoyed 'Sex and Windex'; other titles I considered were 'Lust and Dusting', and ............well, I will leave it to readers to come up with their own, because my list is too long to share here, and in any case was probably deficient in masculine chores that were analogous. Have your own fun with it, and try to be aware of all the ways in which sexuality enriches our lives and mundane experience.

Or, if you are having trouble putting down your beverage and walking away from the computer, if you are procrastinating your own tedious tasks, you might want to check out the youtube video of Mick Sterling, performing "You Don't Know What Dirty Is".

17 comments:

  1. I notice that LegalEagle45 and Greg are enjoying their pre-existing right to make fools of themselves by repeating revisionist history.

    They haven't read any of the serious material material on US Military history which is what the real root of the Second Amendment is.

    Otherwise, why is there all the talk about militias, standing armies, religious exemption, compelling military service and so on?

    As LegalEagle pointed out the Madison Resolution, June 8, 1789.

    Resolved, that the following amendments ought to be proposed by Congress to the legislatures of the states, to become, if ratified by three fourths thereof, part of the constitution of the United States... The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person...

    That seems to be a nonsensical statement if the topic is private arms.

    For more of the debates where they talk a lot about this stuff, but rarely mention private arms see:
    http://constitution.org/mil/militia_debate_1789.htm

    As I said, these discussions are nonsensical if the real issue is private arms outside of the militia context.

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  2. Laci, do you even read the article before commenting? What does what you just said have to do with sex?

    But on the article itself, I've found that Windex or similar is good for cutting through black powder fouling. The Catholic Church's doctrine against sex comes from a variety of sources, including Plato's Symposium, but it also has a lot to do with not having church property passed to the descendants of priests.

    Now, Dog Gone wants me to stay out of her sex life. No problem. How about this: You don't try to regulate what's on my ankle, in my pocket, or on my belt (holstered or not), and I'll not regulate what happens between consenting adults. Deal?

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  3. DG, I'm guessing that where you went to school they graded on word count, not being brief and to the point.
    orlin sellers ;)))))

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  4. Laci the Stalker. Lulz....

    dog gone, this is a curious position you take on women's reproductive choices. Apparently you support a woman's right to not partake in the creation of life by using birth control. If I'm not mistaken, you support a woman's right to end the beginning stages of life by supporting abortion, but you don't support an individual's choice to end one's own life by suicide. Curious indeed.

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    1. Bill, I don't know about Dog Gone, but you just described me pretty well. I believe women should have complete control over their bodies, period. And I believe most people, like 90%, who attempt suicide are not thinking straight and should be stopped.

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    2. Women should have control over their bodies, except when they want to make their own decisions about them--that's what you just said.

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    3. "I believe women should have complete control over their bodies, period."
      I understand now, pro-choice is not about a life, but about a woman gaining weight and stretch marks.

      "And I believe most people, like 90%, who attempt suicide are not thinking straight and should be stopped."
      But 100% of women having abortions are thinking clearly? BTW, I haven't read that study yet, could you point me in the general direction of your source?

      Something else just occurred to me. You support a woman snuffing out the life of a soon-to-be-baby (that of course has no choice in the matter), but disparage homeowners from snuffing out the life of a violent criminal? So, you're pro-choice for woman with little more than a coat-hanger, but pro-life for violent felons? (who, incidentally, make the choice to be a violent felon)

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    4. Hey, Baldwin, care to back up your statement about me being a stalker?

      Do you want to retract it?

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    5. B3 wrote Something else just occurred to me. You support a woman snuffing out the life of a soon-to-be-baby (that of course has no choice in the matter),

      No. I don't support snuffing out a BABY, I support terminating tissue before it becomes a human being.

      We have a common definition already established. We declare a human being - like Terri Shiavo - as brain dead, as not existing any longer, when there is an absence of brain activity, when there is no sentience, no awareness, no consciousness, no 'person' inhabiting the flesh.

      Ending a pregnancy prior to that awareness, to the existence of a personality, a sentience, a neurological existence is consistent with how we define brain death and life, as a separate and distinct viable person.

      The ancient greeks used the same word for alive and for 'ensouled' or possessing a soul. Even the ancient great minds recognized that there was a distinct difference, that the amputation of a man's foot did not change who that person was, or that they were alive, but that what happened to a person's head, to their brain, was essential to personality, awareness, and life itself.

      I agree with the premise of Roe V Wade, that both a certain level of development as they define it, and viablity, especially separate and outside of the mother, is essential to defining a living person as a separate person rather than simply tissue.
      I have a hangnail that has DNA, is alive, and is tissue, and will grow; under the right circumstances, it could even become an embryo and a fetus. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13198-first-cloned-human-embryo-created-from-skin-cell.html

      And before you try to assert that another human being with the same DNA wouldn't be a separate person, you better consider that identical twins have the exact same DNA, because they developed from the same single zygote.
      That doesn't make my hang nail a separate human being; it is tissue. I can choose to get rid of it.

      Further, we do not ever force one person to provide their body or parts of their body - not their organs, not their blood, not ANY part - for the survival of another. No court will force a person to provide that to another human being, it is always a matter of choice. In that regard, it is then wrong to force a woman to provide her body against her will so that a non-person cluster of cells can mature into a separate person as defined by science, and Roe V. Wade. That forcing of one person to submit his or her body for another's life is immoral, and it is illegal in any other circumstance, and should be illegal in pregnancy.

      But hey, B3, science is developing a procedure for male pregnancy: http://www.malepregnancy.com/science/

      So if you're so gung ho, instead of gun'ho, YOU DO IT, instead of coercing unwilling women.

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    6. continued:

      So long as there is also no religious agreement on when cells become a separate person, the current efforts to define a person at conception, or at an earlier stage than Roe V. Wade is nothing more than the tyranny of imposing the views of part of one religion -Christianity - on others. It is belief, not fact, and it is a belief that is not agreed to by those who are being coerced by the right wing anti-abortionists. THEY are the tyrants, the fascists, the authoritarians, the religious bullies, the American equivalent of the Taliban.

      So no, I do not accept your false definition of human life. Nor do I accept home owners snuffing out the life of another person where a court would not do so. Given the bumper stickers and t-shirts and buttons and all the other evidence to the contrary, the pro-gunners are all too eager to do that, and not nearly enough interested in less lethal means of defense.

      The issue really isn't life. It is control over women.
      "The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities. ~Ursula K. Le Guin"


      but disparage homeowners from snuffing out the life of a violent criminal?
      Yup. Killing another person, if it can possibly be avoided, is immoral and illegal. Tissue that may or may not at some future poit become a person is not the same, much less more important, than a woman.


      So, you're pro-choice for woman with little more than a coat-hanger, but pro-life for violent felons? (who, incidentally, make the choice to be a violent felon)

      I'm in favor of a woman exercising her own freedom of choice, freedom of conscience, and freedom to receive medical care without the interference of bigots, poorly educated religious zealots, or anyone else like those on the right who erode our freedom.

      I'm in favor of as little violence as possible between people we all recognize as existing, not potential, but EXISTING human beings.

      So I am consistent. You however, B3, make a false argument.

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    7. "No. I don't support snuffing out a BABY, I support terminating tissue before it becomes a human being."
      So, you support a woman terminating what would become a life, but she can't terminate her own life. I got it.

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    8. Closer, but still falsely stating my position.

      1. A woman is under no obligation to anyone else to make her body available to them, including for them to live, unless she is willing to do so. This applies to a forced rather than totally voluntary organ transplant, blood donation, bone marrow, or pregnancy. You haven't addressed that in your cherrypicked comment. Both parts are essential to my position.

      2. A woman may terminate tissue that has not yet become defined as a separate person up until that tissue has achieved sufficient neural activity to warrant being considered to have an awareness or consciousness. This is on a par with pulling the plug on Terri Schiavo when she was effectively grotesquely and inhumanely having her body minimally kept alive by the intervention of machines after her brain was effectively dead, and therefore she was for all important intents and purposes dead. What was done keeping Schiavo's organs alive after she was for all pertinent determinants dead was cruel, verging on torture.

      After viability, after the roughly 6 month mark, a woman has taken sufficient time without action to terminate the pregnancy that she has effectively given her consent to the pregnancy, and she should be obligated to follow through with it.

      In both cases, once a person has passed that same benchmark metric we would apply to Schiavo, whether it is a woman, or a fetus in utero, it is wrong to terminate that life. Before that, before 'brain life' it is not a living human being; after brain death it is no longer a living human being.

      In between.....suicide is wrong, homicide is wrong.

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    9. Dog Gone,

      Suicide is a right. My body is my own, not yours and not the state's.

      Laci,

      Second try:

      You've tossed a number of veiled accusations of crime and naughty behavior at me, and you've made hints about threatening my safety. You also once told me to shoot myself. Do you wish to retract those?

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  5. I'm not sure how we can have a two way dialog if my comments are deleted, moderated and/or not published. I understand this is mikeb's blog (anti-guns and all) but apparently you wish to engage the gun-rights crowd because you anti-rights commentators rarely comment to each other's posts. You seem to mostly comment on the gun-rights comments. mikeb has commented extensively on pro-gun blogs, and I viewed that as an invitation to comment here. If I'm trespassing, please let me know.

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    1. Bill, I don't think your voice has been quieted around here. Also as "sameguy" your comments are all over the threads. No one is deleting, editing or doing anything else to your comments except publishing them.

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    2. Mikeb, my experience is the same as Bill's on this. My comments many times don't get posted. That's why I put "second try" on them repeatedly. A more open policy would show the flow of the conversation.

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    3. mikeb302000, It must be a glitch somewhere, then. I've replied to Laci here and posted a comment on another post that wasn't published just in the past day. Thanks for your quick reply.

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