I couldn’t resist . . .

Saw this on a tumblr feed and I couldn’t resist posting it for everyone. I’m a huge someecards fan anyways.

If you haven’t already spent hours checking out their cards I highly recommend it! Love this!

. . . only if she swallows

Turning Women into Meat . . . Literally

I realize that this HUSTLER cover is really outdated (June 1978), but I think it’s important to talk about. This was the cover of a HUSTLER magazine form 32 years ago. Yet, I still feel like it’s relevant to how women are viewed in the gentleman’s magazines of today.

Yesterday started reading the book Pornland: How porn has hijacked our sexuality. So far I’m loving the book! I’ll be sure to post some updates about it!

Any thoughts on this image? 

Feminism Worth a Thousand Words

This is a new feature I’m starting where I’ll be posting pictures I found that are really powerful. This one is great! It was from the Toronto Slut Walk. They walked in protest of the police officer that suggested women avoid being raped by not dressing like a slut. I blogged about it here: My Clothes are Not an Invitation.

Click on the picture for more images from the walk. Photo Source.

Via: BuzzFeed.

My Uterus and I Have Something to Say

Every time I read another article about the proposed legislation against women’s rights, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Yesterday, I almost had a total meltdown out of frustration and sadness.

I’m sick of hearing the same illogical arguments from anti-choice people. I’m sick of hearing politicians try to force their religion down my throat by means of eliminating my reproductive rights. I’m sick and tired of it and I can’t take it any more with out saying something.

First, I’d like to point out that there are only two ways to categorize your thoughts about abortion. You are either “pro-choice” or “anti-choice.” There’s no such thing as pro-life. Give me a break – everyone is pro-life! However, based one your beliefs (wether they be personal or religious) we all have different opinions about when life begins. Considering that there are studies professing all sorts of facts about this topic – it remains a very personal decision based on what you choose to believe. Hence the term, “pro-choice” because it should be left up to the woman, her partner, and her doctor to make a decision that is best for them and their beliefs.

Second, if I hear one more person call Planned Parenthood the “nations largest abortion provider,” I’m gonna lose it. According to the Guttmacher Institute there were approximatly 1.3 million abortions performed throughout the USA in 2009. Planned Parenthood performed approximatly 300,000 abortion in 2009. Lets to the math together: 300,000 divided by 1.3 million = 0.2307. This means that Planned Parenthood is responsible for 23% of the abortions performed annually in the USA. HELLO?! Thats less than a quarter! This means that there are a lot of abortions happening in places other than Planned Parenthood. However, they can get away with calling them the “largest abortion provider” because, as an organization, they provide more abortions than any other single organization. Basically, these politicians are doing what they do best: manipulating the truth for their benefit. Do the math for yourself. Don’t believe their manipulative lies about the statistics.

What does planned parenthood do to make their money each year? Well, for starters, in 2009 they’ve provided cancer screening and prevention for over 1.8 million women, including pap tests, HPV vaccinations, breast exams, and colposcopy procedures. They’ve provided STI/STD testing and treatment for almost 4 million men and women. And they’ve made contraception services accessible for over 4 million men and women. Total, Planned Parenthood has made reproductive health care possible for over 11 million men and women, who may not have had this benefit otherwise because 75% of their clients have incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. (Example: According to the Health and Human Services, the federal poverty level for a single woman is $10,830 a year. This changes based on number of people in the family.)

Third, someone said to me the other day, “I don’t want my tax dollars paying for your abortion.” Planned Parenthood receives NO federal funding for abortions services.NONE! From Huffington Post,

“Although, Planned Parenthood receives zero federal dollars for abortion services and uses all government funding for preventative care, conservative rhetoric continues to portray the organization as a taxpayer-funded abortion factory.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself! For those of you who still think your tax dollars are paying for abortions, I’d like to introduce you to the Hyde Amendment. “Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has excluded abortion from the comprehensive health care services provided to low-income people by the federal government through Medicaid.” The federal exception for funding for abortion exists in cases of rape, incest, or when a pregnant woman’s life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness or injury. As Kristen Schaal, sarcastically points out on the Jon Stewart show, federal funds paid for a mere 191 abortions in 2006, for cases of rape, incest or where the woman’s life was in danger. This works out to be two tenths of a penny (.2) per tax payer. (Any one who would like a refund come see me. I’ll even refund it with interest and make it an entire penny.)

Fourth, quit using the under cover videos and phone calls from Live Action as proof of anything that happens in Planned Parenthood. From Huff Post, “Despite the questionable legitimacy of the Live Action reports, conservative lawmakers continue to use them in their arguments for defunding Planned Parenthood.” They have proven that these videos were highly edited to distort the health workers statements. Again, manipulate the truth (did you expect anything less?). Quit using them as proof of anything.

Fifth, I seem to remember something about a separation of Church and State. Republicans and Tea Baggers are opposed to abortion for one specific reason: religion. The problem is, I don’t believe what you believe. I don’t believe in your god or your religion and last time I checked we live in a country where we have freedom of religion. Which, as a friend pointed out, also means freedom from religion. I would never tell anyone they were wrong for believing what they choose to about abortion based on their religion. Thats why it’s called PRO-CHOICE! Because it’s your choice. When having a discussion with someone the other day they said to me, “I am pro-life because I believe god knits each one of us in our mothers womb. Psalm 139: god knew us before he laid the foundation of this world. I will not keep that to myself.” I would never ever tell this man that he was wrong for believing that. That’s his religion of choice and if he is ever faced with an unwanted pregnancy, he will obviously choose not to end it. However – don’t you dare try to inflict your religious beliefs on me when it comes to my reproductive rights. He finished his letter by saying he would pray for me. Seriously dude, spare me. Please do not pray for me because I do not want your god or your religion anywhere near my uterus.

Seems to me that this new wave of anti-choice legislation is more about punishing and shaming women than it is about saving babies. Jon Stewart says,

“They want to cut everything from family care to prenatal care to child nutrition. It’s like the Republican Congress is saying, “You can’t prevent an unwanted child. You can’t get care if you do get pregnant, and you can’t get any help after the baby is born. But — for those two minutes when the skull is crowning your baby is the most precious thing on Earth.”

I’m hesitant to post these videos cause it’s sad to me that it’s so outrageous that it’s becoming a joke, but I think they’re worth watching. Check them out here and here. They are pretty funny and informative at the same time.

So, now, lets talk about the fucking hypocrisy that is happening here. They are de-funding Planned Parenthood as part of the budget-cuts, because they don’t want their tax dollars paying for abortions (which we’ve established already that they aren’t and haven’t since 1976 and that these are really a back door way to express their religious views). Cause where else could we get that money from? Well lets see – General Electric make 10.3 Billion dollars last year and paid (ready for this) NOTHING in taxes. And this is only one example of one company. And for everyone who says, “I don’t want my taxes paying to kill innocent babies.” I’ve got news for you – your taxes (and lots of them) pay to make bombs and fund our military which kills THOUSANDS of innocent people in the war. Moms and Dads, children and babies, even pregnant women. So again, that argument is null and void unless you plan on defunding our military too. OH – and lets talk about how much BIG money is involved in the health care industry. Planned Parenthood makes nothing compared to the big pharmaceutical companies, who may I remind you, pay very little taxes.

Here you have these CEO’s making millions of dollars each year and there are men and women who can’t afford have basic health care services at high-end doctors, who can use Planned Parenthood as an alternative for low-cost care that they can afford, but we are going to cut their funding and propose all this legislation to make it almost impossible for them to function, leaving these low-income men and mostly women with no affordable health care. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

What pisses me off the most is that there are so many young women who either aren’t interested in these issues or don’t know anything about them. Well, it’s time to get involved! It’s time for every woman to realize that there are HUGE losses on the line right now. Your body is being legislated based on religious reasons, yet they aren’t allowed to say “uterus” on the house floor any more. Your reproductive rights are on the chopping block and you need to start standing up for them. Get involved. Learn about what’s going on and take a stand. Stop acting like it doesn’t effect you, because it does. I guarantee that someone you know has had an abortion and/or been a patient at a Planned Parenthood clinic.

So please, for all of us, if you love your body and you cherish it as your own, don’t let these politicians regulate it with their religious beliefs. Start speaking out and tell them to keep their god out of your uterus!

My Vagina is Perfect!

This post was inspired by an essay I wrote for a class after reading an article titled Vulvas with a Difference by Faith Wilding. I’ve always been slightly disgusted by the recent popularity of vaginal rejuvenation surgeries. In fact, I find the whole concept appalling.

I remember the exact day I learned my vagina was different. I was at one of those trashy, fluorescently lit, sex-shops with my boyfriend. We were looking at all the fun toys and at the end of an aisle we came to the fake vaginas. I asked my boyfriend, “Why do they make them look like that?”

“Like what?” he said.

“Like that,” I pointed to the plastic vulva lips, “all weird and stuff.”

He looked at me confused and said with a smile, “That’s what some vaginas look like.”

I was shocked! I thought to myself, “Wait . . . my vagina does not look like that.” This was the first time, in my entire life, that I felt a slight insecurity about my vagina. I realized that I had never actually seen anyone’s vagina other than my own.

There may be something we can learn from this. I didn’t know what other vaginas looked like, so I didn’t know what mine was “supposed” to look like. I’m not bombarded on an hourly basis with images of beautiful, skinny, blonde, vaginas. It’s the only part of my body that no one was shoving images of in my face telling me what it was “supposed” to look like. And as a result, I thought it was perfect. I’d heard about vaginal rejuvenation and pink dyes to make your vagina a more “preferable” color, but I always thought that was for old ladies who’d had kids or were just dealing with the inescapable effects of aging. I had no clue that my vagina wasn’t pink enough, or now maybe it’s too pink. Fortunately for me, I was at a place in my life where I could realize the absurdity of my new-found vaginal insecurity, and get over it fast. But what if I had been 16 and seen that fake vagina? I might have gone into my adolescent years with a crushing worry about the appearance of my most treasured body part.

In the article Vulvas With a Difference, Faith Wilding says, “The new vulvar and vaginal surgical technologies would be put to much better use in helping women seeking reconstruction and healing of sexual organs mutilated and damaged by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practices, than in making unnecessary “aesthetic” interventions on perfectly healthy women.” (3) I totally agree with her. It makes me so sad to think that there are women who are so unhappy with the appearance of their vagina that they’re resorting to surgery to “fix” it. We are fighting the gruesome and terrible practice of FGM, and yet there are women voluntarily submitting themselves to the same kind of practice. Just because an anesthetic is used, and you are given pain pills after doesn’t make it any different.

Here are some of the ridiculous products I found that are for “fixing” or making your vagina “better”. News flash – I like my vagina just the way it is. These are a few products we could do without. (I swear I didn’t make some of these up.)

Betty Beauty Pubic Hair Dye
Don’t like the color of your pubic hair? Don’t worry! You can dye it!

 

 

 

Alpha Betty Vagina Bling
This is not an area for glue and reinstones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My New Pink Button
Not only do we have to shave our vagina’s, but now we hate to tell you, the soft sensitive skin underneath that hair . . . it’s definitely not pink enough.  So if your vagina is actually skin colored . . . you need to fix that.

 

 

 

Vaginal Scented Film Deodorant
Just in case your vagina actually smells like say . . . vagina . . . there’s a solution for that! Just use one of these little films and your vagina will instantly smell like baby power, fresh flowers, or get this – island breeze! FINALLY! I’ve always wanted a vagina that smelled like island breeze! Taking a note from the Vagina Monologues “My vagina is supposed to smell like pussy!”

 

 

 

 

 

The Cuchini!
Just incase everyone thought you actually had vulva lips down there, now they’ll think you just look like barbie with a smooth hard crotch.

I Have Sex!