Occupy Virginia

[Let me just start by saying there is language that may not be appropriate for congress persons, clergy, the faint of heart and anyone that refers to their privates as the “nether-regions”, or any odd assorted strange and otherwise non-anatomical nomenclature.  I will also add for clarification and personalization, my given name being Virginia, it has on occasion been misunderstood to be that other word for “down there”.  In the not too distant past I had an odd exchange with a young server at a local restaurant.  When presenting my credit card to pay for dinner out with friends, the young and mortified server was not able to utter my name because he was certain it was some sort of sin, a horrible joke that I would have such a name, or he might have been overcome with fear at the the possibility of saying that other word rather than my name.   Just as well, I have never been called Virginia for any good reason.]

99% of women use contraception.  1% don’t?  I just can’t help myself…..

Women, it might be time to set up camp.  Somewhere.  Somehow.  Maybe on Wall Street, or Easy Street.  Occupy Vaginas? Well, maybe not.  Maybe we need to fight the insertion of probes and predominantly male fundamentalist viewpoints into those vaginas.  Maybe we could go all out wild and try to stop permitting government occupation of our vaginas once and for all.

But let’s just have a little fun here.  A little tongue in cheek good humor is what’s needed, dontcha think?

Let’s just pretend for a moment that women are NOT all powerful and threatening to the extent that we somehow need to pretend that the insertion of a penis is not involved with conception. 

And then…

Let’s pretend the unwanted pregnancy that may result in the decision to have an abortion, that might lead to the insertion of the vaginal probe did not occur as a result of contact with a male-owned penis.  

And then…

Let’s pretend that forcing the all powerful woman to look closely at the fetus that she is aborting will cure all of the other societal ills that make it ever so slightly inconvenient or entirely life-changing to have a baby under any and all circumstances.  This probe idea will take all women down a peg or two.  Surely we must be collectively forgetting our place in the world.  Surely this probe idea will help us to remember where we belong.

The fact that this conversation is seriously being considered is sadly surreal, deeply disturbing and outrageously discriminatory.  How did we get here?  How can 51% of any given population be so blatantly marginalized?  Not withstanding which side of the abortion issue you place yourself, this issue is more to do with women’s rights and freedoms than religious rhetoric and fundamentalist viewpoints. It has more to do with contraception than abortion, and the reality that women do not have easy and/or affordable access to contraception based upon where they work and who provides their health insurance. Giving women access to insurance benefits that cover female related health care should not be any different than giving men access to male related health care.  (The fact that Viagra is covered says a great deal about this issue.  Perhaps Viagra could be laced with contraception to kill two birds with one stone. Except, the majority of women that are of child bearing age are not hanging out with the Viagra popping dudes.)  So, Viagra is covered and contraception is not. And this makes sense because?

I’ll go out on another limb here.  A fragile, delicate, limb that surely won’t support my weight, my head-strong disposition, or my feminine fancy, but let me go there just the same.  Just for kicks, let’s say we women go along with this vaginal probe idea.  I would like to propose that the vaginal probe be retro-fitted with paternity-identifying software.  The male half of the unwanted conception could be identified and located and brought in. He might also benefit from seeing the miracle of life that is being terminated.  Maybe he could be photographed and appear on tv or better yet tumbled, tweeted, texted and poked. Oh, I mean give consent.  Maybe instead, he can be given the opportunity to bring in a surrogate womb.  Surely most abortions are carried out by women against the wishes of men, right?  Men should certainly be given the chance to keep and raise their babies.  Forcing women to be vaginally probed, or stoned in the street, or shamed into keeping the baby, won’t allow men to keep all those babies that are being aborted and isn’t this really what those men in power are fighting for?  The right to raise and care for all those babies they have helped conceive?

Oh, wait, that’s not what the men in power want, is it?  Can it be?  Women and children statistically speaking, make up a disproportionate  amount of people living in poverty.   What with all that child support they are getting, or taking from those poor men, how is it that the women and children are so disproportionately trapped in poverty?  Maybe we need a different probe for that answer.   We already know women are 29% more likely to be poor than men.  Throw in single women raising children compared to single men raising children and the statistic jumps to 68%. Oh, those super powerful women probably want it that way.  They are probably trying to prove how much better they are. Or maybe we should consider how those single mothers in poverty were dressed when they were left with their children, tried to get jobs, or housing, or were offered salaries that are 77% of male salaries, (lower yet, the more educated you are).  Surely they must have been dressed provocatively basically asking to be treated unfairly.   Maybe those single mothers in poverty would also benefit from annual vaginal probes.  That will show them!  If we want to insert sperm-filled penises into our vaginas, then we ought to have probes inserted into us by the government as well. 

As this debate continues, and the government carefully attempts to “pull out” without impregnating outdated, discriminatory and pervasively harmful bills into law we might want to take a closer look at why the Republican Party wants government involvement in this specific part of health care but by and large are opposed to government involvement in health care.  We also need to understand why the Democratic Party is vaguely opposed but afraid to take a clear and firm stand on this and other civil rights related issues.   We may as well start to look at developing gender-related party lines.  Perhaps then women might begin to be represented fairly.  But no need to do anything extreme, or intrusive.    Apparently there is some backing down on the issue, there was some “confusion”.  Hey, it could happen.  Maybe they thought they were signing a bill about virginal probes or Virginia Pride or keeping government out of big business while keeping it in the bedroom of every individual.    

Is that what the slogan Virginia is For Lovers was all about?