Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll exclaims and inquires: HARRIDANS ON SEX STRIKE! Can the Republic survive? Close analysis and a sense of humor combine to produce an AG classic.
She writes:

Many current actresses and has-been harridans in Hollywood are registering their shock and fury at losing the sacred and unrestricted right to kill unborn babies in Georgia and Alabama by threatening to withhold sexual favors until the fetal heartbeat law is repealed.

Never mind that for several of them – Bette Midler and the unhinged Rosanna Arquette come to mind – getting pregnant is a ship that has sailed some time ago. Ah yes, but what about their grown daughters’ “reproductive rights”? Yeah, what about that? “Reproductive rights” is a repulsive, Orwellian euphemism for something which involves no reproduction whatsoever, only death. How can any woman advocate for the “right” of her daughter to terminate with extreme prejudice her own grandchildren? Beats me.

But back to the big sex strike. You’re not exactly the Teamsters or Sanitation Workers, actress ladies. Striking works when it inconveniences your fellow citizens enough that they pressure management to cave. A Personal Sex Strike is even stupider than if boiler-room phone solicitors struck (please, God) or the IRS Audit Division decided to picket until they got higher wages. See, those examples would be work stoppages that every sane person would be hoping would go on forever. Similarly, no one on earth cares whether any of you ever have sex again.

Some questions to the mighty strikers and their spokes-twits:

Whom, exactly, do you believe the withdrawal of your sexual favors will affect? Do you honestly believe that the lawmakers in Georgia or Alabama are going to learn that you plan not to have sex and say, “Well, dadgum it, I’m convinced! Terminate all the pregnancies you want as late as you want, if it means that I can sleep again at night knowing that your third husbands, tennis instructors, casting directors, co-stars, or pool boys will no longer be denied the pleasure of your company!”

You’ve already made perfectly clear that your interest in sex is not to make babies. Okay, fair enough. Mine either, anymore. And if you are willing to use sex as a bargaining chip, you must not consider it one of the great joys of life. You obviously think of sex not as a way to express love or even just to have a good time, but as a weapon to wield as suits you. An angry feminist acquaintance used to call that “applying the vaginal wrench.” It works equally well to get parts in movies or to punish men. With that attitude, who will miss it if it is withdrawn? My guess is that some of your husbands won’t even notice the difference.

And finally, Irony is completely lost on these women. Ladies! Your form of protest is also a definitive way to eliminate the need for abortion! Can you imagine the gnashing of teeth, the rending of garments, the profanity-laced rants, if Pro-Life people suggested that one way to avoid getting pregnant is to refrain from having sex? Oh my. One of so many things you can’t say aloud without calling down the Wrath of Hades in a Twitter Storm.

Be that as it may, one way to HAVE sex and yet avoid abortion is to confine yourself to birth control PLUS protected sex and then only with men who would be husband and father material instead of soul-deadening drunken hookups. Then, in the unlikely event that the condom broke AND your birth control failed simultaneously, the man involved would not be someone you just met at a party whose last name you don’t know. He could even be eager to be a husband and father! Ah, I know – crazy talk. I blush to state such old-fashioned ideas.

Last week, John Hinderaker discussed exhibitionist young activist/model Emily Rat-something, disrobing (again) to protest stricter abortion laws in a couple of states. (Funny, isn’t it, how “sanctuary” only works one way…) Now, in previous naked protests, the blimps of Code Pink (which should be renamed “EYE BLEACH – STAT”) have protested stuff they disapprove of — like Supreme Court nominees or fighting back against terrorism — by lumbering around in the altogether brandishing signs. Sadly, this has not caused pacifism so much as a measurable uptick in commitment to either homosexuality or celibacy by any men unlucky enough to have caught sight of them.

This was not the case with Miss Emily, which is why I suspect Mr. Hinderaker, with his unblemished track record of appreciation for feminine beauty, featured her. If I looked like that, I might never wear clothes again. But, seriously, what the heck? A beautiful young thing getting naked would not automatically spring to mind as a tool for promoting a sex strike.

So I’m going to speculate that she just likes to be naked and especially likes to be looked at appreciatively. Fine. Miss Emily, you don’t need to invent a reason to do that. Just spare us the accompanying incoherent drivel. Here is the gist of but one of her pearls of wisdom: “The right-wing hates abortion because it needs bodies for the prison-industrial complex.”

That exactly sums up what motivated MY Mama when she had a high-risk, nearly-fatal pregnancy with me and refused a medically-advised “termination.” How I avoided prison is anyone’s guess. My mother would not consent to what legitimately fell under that vanishingly small percentage of abortions “to save the life of the mother.” She refused it and rolled the dice. They did the C-section at just over six months. In 1946, in a small rural hospital with no neonatal nothin’. She spent six weeks in hospital and I spent three months in incubator. Basically, she gave me life – twice. We were as close as a mother and daughter could be for 70 years.

However moronic the patriarchy-prison crap sounds, I also guarantee that Miss Emily did NOT think it up by all by her naked lonesome. That has to be straight out of some indigestible word salad on Intersectionality. So, Emily, please, just disrobe as the spirit moves you, and I promise if you stop with the gibberish, that I will leave my clothes ON. Well, at least in public.