Posted on 10/13/2014 10:24:47 AM PDT by Morgana
The Cult of Contraception doesnt exactly enjoy an overabundance of brain power, but when it comes to truly insipid commentary, PolicyMic has always been in a league of its own. This weekend, Marcie Bianco wrote that the birth control market iswhat else?even more sexist than you think.
Opening with a comedy video from Buzzfeed (now theres a font of deep cultural analysis) that purports to illustrate that society places the burden of birth control on women rather than men, whose condoms just dont come with the cost and cultural stigmas of female birth-control options.
The justification process alone to parents, the medical establishment and to ones partner is exhausting and intimidating. It is also a costly process. As the medical assistant notes in the video, upon the guys admission that he doesnt have health insurance, That will be $150. I hope its worth it.
That women have to justify the need for birth control at all reveals the wild, sexist hypocrisy pervading American culture: On one hand, women are responsible for taking care of the situation, while simultaneously fighting all the legal and societal preventative measures from gawking comments about ones sexual habits to the increasingly limited and cost prohibitive access thanks to Congress and the courts in place that make it frustratingly difficult to procure said contraceptives.
[ ] Now, if buying female birth control was like buying condoms, there would be no need to buy at all. Women simply would go to any clinic or school nurses office or nightclub and reach her hand into a basket for a free tablet.
Where to begin? Probably with a warning to any Hunter College parents; they hired the author of this crap to teach your kids, so you should probably ask for a refund.
One Mic commenter put Dr. Biancos first glaring logical fallacy succinctly:
Do you really compare birth control pills- pills that change the hormonal balance of your body, that are body specific and can be seriously dangerous, with condoms, a piece of rubber meant for external usage?
Are we really at this stage of stupid?
Yes, S.R. Berr. Yes we are.
Second, theres the small matter of sex being a two-person activity. Talk of any given birth control method only being for one partner is silly, considering both of them are presumably trying to avoid pregnancy. Yes, because the resulting child develops in the womans body its easier for the man to abandon them, but you dont need birth control to understand that having sex with deadbeat slime is a really bad ideaand if you lack that common sense, no pill is going to give it to you.
Third, no contraceptive whine-fest is complete without swipes at Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke a slut and Hobby Lobby for asserting their basic freedom not to pay for products that kill embryonic human beings.
Yes, for the millionth time, Rush was wrong and apologized. But he was not simply gawking at her sexual habits but at her desire to legally force her sense of entitlement on everyone else. And if were to be endlessly browbeaten with one mean thing one commentator said about one liberal, then shouldnt we expect in return an apology or two for the countless personal attacks theyve levied against pro-life Americans and faith-based organizations? Like, for example, Biancos own suggestion that Hobby Lobby was limiting employees access to birth control as if they didnt already cover 80% of the methods ObamaCare wanted covered, and were somehow stopping workers from purchasing the rest rather than merely not paying for it themselves.
Also, while I have reservations about the details, its worth noting that Republicans are increasingly interested in making oral contraceptives over-the-counter, which would alleviate much of the cost and hassle the author lamentsyet its the pro-choice, pro-contraception establishment standing in their way.
But Biancos biggest fallacy? Its not the wild, sexist hypocrisy pervading American culture, but that pervading Americas casual-sex subculturea world created by her own ideological predecessors and deified by her own ideological contemporaries. The blame for its associated indignities lies squarely with them, not with those of us who have been advocating sexual responsibility all along.
Instead of looking for scapegoats for the fact that the reality of the Sexual Revolution doesnt match the dream, how about left-feminists start reassessing their priorities? They could start by acknowledging that those of us theyve spilled so much ink demonized as patriarchal, theocratic killjoys just might be on to something after all.
Yes, foregoing sex until marriage denies you lots of immediate gratification. But gratification is hardly a need, and treating sex with the mature, honest seriousness it deserves also spares you a litany of life-changing complications and hardshipsmedical, emotional, social, economic, and parental. Try as we might, society just cant seem to conquer sexs innate power to change an entire lifetime, so isnt it simple common sense to save it for someone you can trust to share a lifetime with? Isnt a little delayed satisfaction now a fair tradeoff for stability and peace of mind later?
Winston Churchill once said, The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. Thats the only sort of equality the lefts sexual ethos has any chance of bringing women.
[cultural stigmas] == [your conscience]
The pill has down down in price since the mid 1980s while the condom has gone up. making the differential even greater.
Of course, the left worships the condom because their people (the homos and promiscuous) can use it too.
That's what this is really all about.
As a woman, if I am going to use birth control I’d prefer to have it in my own control. I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise.
Although there are many forms of bc that I wouldn’t never have considered using.
And I was never going to totally freak out if I got pregnant, so I had that going for me too.
I’m wondering if feminists really understand that this empowers MEN more than women?
I guess you’d have to accept the idea that women actually do prefer to be in a committed relationship before rutting. They would like to reject that aspect of their makeup, but that only causes a cognitive rift leading to mental anguish.
Yes! You get it, exactly.
As (I note) you have before.
But since they believed in the blank slate/tabula rasa theory of human thought and actions, they firmly believed women could have the same fun with sex men seemed to have. When it turns out females react differently to sex than men, radical feminists were plunged further into misery and unhappiness.
The pill was supposed to change everything. Free sex with no nasty repercussions. It doesn't work that way, but the rad fems refuse to admit the obvious...males and females are very different.... especially concerning how they react to sex.
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