According to a republican white guy in Alaska, anyway. You see, his current thing is to try to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome by putting free pregnancy tests in bars. Apparently the logic is that if women know they're pregnant they won't drink. (And then there's also something about plexiglass bowls in bar restrooms that have something to do with the pregnancy tests and I didn't get that part at all and felt a little skeeved out by it.) Anyway, when asked if he would also put free birth control in bar restrooms, this republican white guy replied:
No. Because the thinking is a little opposite. This assumes that if you know (you are pregnant) you’ll act responsibly. Birth control is for people who don’t necessarily want to act responsibly.Did you get that? Birth control is for people who don’t want to act responsibly. And here I've been thinking that using birth control is a mature, responsible choice. But it's not. It's irresponsible.
I’m not going to tell them what to do. Or help them do it. That’s their business. But if we have a pregnancy because someone just doesn’t know, that’s probably a way we can help.
Slutty, I expect. But irresponsible - it's hard to make sense of that. What exactly is irresponsible here? Is it the having sex part or the not getting pregnant part? Because if it's the latter, then all the sturm und drang in our culture surrounding teen pregnancy doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. We wring our hands about teen pregnancy because teens aren't financially and emotionally prepared to raise kids, right? So then isn't avoiding pregnancy when you're not in a good position to parent a child a responsible course of action? I suspect this republican white guy is wanting to say that the having sex part is the irresponsible part. Leaving aside the fact that he doesn't know whether these possibly pregnant bar patrons are married or single...
No, it seems to me lately that every time a republican white guy opens his mouth about women and reproduction, what's really behind it is a firm but implicit belief that women ought not be having sex unless they're married and wanting to get pregnant.* Which makes me think maybe these republican white guys have failed to think the thought whole, as Kierkegaard would say. Because if straight women aren't having fun sexy times then it would seem that straight men won't be having fun sexy times either. If straight gals all resort to clutching an aspirin between their knees (as Foster Friess, who appears to have been named after an ice cream dessert, suggests we should do), then who will the straight men be fucking? It's something to think about, republican white guys. This might not just be a "women's issue." Maybe it's a men's issue too.___________________________________
*Which still doesn't make much sense of the "irresponsible" label. I'm hip to the fact that conservative white guys think the ladies should stop with all the fucking already, but I always thought this was an issue of morality. It's a matter of female virtue. Purity. Chastity. Pure milky white skin on the back of her neck over which a single Victorian curl dangles as she tends to her needlework in front of the fire and all that. But irresponsibility - that doesn't quite fit here.
Do we know this guy's religious affiliation? It could be from his religious perspective any contraception is irresponsible because it's separating sex from reproduction and denying a gift from god. So his judgement of this situation would include the immorality of the sexual liaisons (outside of marriage) that you mention but also the separation of sex from reproduction that's problematic in certain conservative religious circles.
ReplyDeleteI don't know his religious affiliation, but that's an excellent point. Maybe at some point I'll get better at fact checking, as my MRA commenters suggest. :-)
DeleteI always though maybe these guys have this reaction to female sexuality because they're not getting laid, so they think nobody should be.
ReplyDeleteI always think that when Mike Huckabee opens his mouth on any topic related to reproduction.
DeleteIf you could be bothered to do some fact checking you would find that Foster Friess was born well before Foster's Freeze was established. So classy to take a cheap shot at someone's name in order to discredit his words.
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe this is what our favorite little feminist here refers to as an add hominem attack. Tad bit hypocritical.
Delete"add hominem" ... I love it.
Delete:-)
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