Female Sexuality

[purejuice]

The longer I live, the less I know about it, and the more disinclined I am to judge. I still do judge people who sleep with too many people, and people who have, or make, let me put it that way, more than two children, but I have nothing but empathy and fear even for them. (Hmmm, those Duggar people make me sick, actually.)

Which brings us first to Nadya Suleman, octomom; second, the most amazing sex dream I ever had, which was last Wednesday night; and third, the two 60s groupies bios I'm just finishing up.

I'm not sure I'll be able to get out everything I think about all these things at one sitdown, so I'll probably be editing this post all day. I just wanted to get the forest down. I can fill the trees in later.

1.
Nadya Suleman, octomom.

In a locked entry niyabinghi picks up on what's missing from the Suleman discussion. Apparently she's huge with all the right-wing pundits, who are slashing her. This is the sign of something big and bad.

Binghi wishes there were such a thing as a mandatory high school course in something like "Biological Counselling" -- just the facts on how powerfully girls' hormones want to make babies, what the hormones of pregnancy and post-partum and sex make you think, and do. And how there is a possibility that compulsions, obsessions, addictions can result from what you think are "God-given" ideas -- they could even throw something in there about the hormone which makes you think God is present.

Over at Jezebel, they're feeling very bad for Suleman, going through the stages of grief, even as they document apparent scamming on her part, and the possibly racist backlash. Best coverage of all the issues on the net -- the Suleman intvu on Dateline secured its highest ratings -- 11 mill -- since Lauer intvued Prince William and Prince Harry -- so our obsession with her is a genuine fad.

I think the Suleman story is a story about female sexuality and the fear and anger unleashed when it is untrammelled, when a woman alone makes decisions about her sexuality, when there is no man making these decisions with her and she is independent of men. The anti-abortion bloviators are the same ones excoriating Suleman.

Suleman could be the wacked out saint of femme secession, and the rage over her being a welfare queen -- seven in vitro pregnancies and 14 children is the 21st century version of Reagan's bogey, a big black woman picking up her welfare checks in a Rolls Royce -- is, for the wangnuts, disapproval of her independence of men. This is what bitches be like with no man to punch them upside the head.

Well, yes.

I think there's also a racist -- in addition to the sexist -- thing happening. Her married name was apparently Gutierrrez (I think she's delusional, so all this info I think I have to take with a grain of progesterone) and so a number of California commenters on the octomom intarnet discussions have fastened on the falsehood that she's an Hispanic illegal. Once they get over that, they're going to start with the Iraqi stuff (her father is reportedly Iraqi, and she was reportedly born here). They're already theorizing that her father is the sperm donor, based on runic readings of some Hebrew translations of ....who knows.

Unleashed female sexuality. Frankensteinian tots, cerebral palsy the mark of Cain. Scamming plastic surgery, $100,000 worth of in vitro treatments, a house and all the bills her mother is paying. Recession. Global warming through overpopulation. Iraqi terrorists. That whole Israeli eugenic bullshit about how one Palestine would be overrun by a huge Islamic baby boom. Suleman is the poster girl for all of this. The rage, I would wager, is based on the female sexuality aspect.

Comments

[oneroom.livejournal.com]

"a story about female sexuality and the fear and anger unleashed when it is untrammelled, when a woman alone makes decisions about her sexuality, when there is no man making these decisions with her and she is independent of men."

The fear and anger you talk about is enormous. I don't know what to do with it.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

one word. feminism.

[oneroom.livejournal.com]

Okay. But practically speaking, how does it help when a dad starts yelling at me in a coffee shop about being a single mother? I really want to know.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

that's awful.
i've just been reading about the prepared ripostes that the mothers of large families have for the several recurring unsolicited comments they get. i think a list of 10 ripostes would help.
i think writing down what they say and how you feel about it would help too.
praying for your enemies is much more difficult, but it really works. as somebody once explained it to me, you don't have to believe in god, but you do have to pray.
i started by reading the 23rd psalm and replacing the first person with the second person pronoun. i freaked when i got to "thou preparest a table before that fucking bitch in the presence of her enemies". but i did get through.
xxx

[garrity.livejournal.com]

This is genius stuff, truly.

[oneroom.livejournal.com]

Given my knee-jerk aversion to the Bible, I think I might try this.

Although I do like Esther. Very much. My ex's granny learned Greek in order to read the Bible properly. The first time I read Esther, I read granny's Bible, with her extensive accompanying notes. It really made all the difference.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

the key is not character reform on your part, but active and specific prayer for your enemy.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

I guaran-damn-tee you I'll be watching for such transgressions in public places from now on, and come up with a few ripostes of my own to stand in solidarity with any mother I see being attacked. Unbelievable.

[oneroom.livejournal.com]

My daughter is nearly seven, so I'm always amazed that the vehemence still surprises me - but it still surprises me!

I like thinking of a friendly stranger watching out for others. Thank you. :) If you come up with anything good, lemme know.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

I'll certainly let you know. Brain is dealing with a cold/flu right now, so nothing is coming to mind.

We gotta have each others' backs, I do believe that.

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about the female sexuality - that's why the anger cuts across political lines on this. "Liberals" seem just as infuriated with her as "conservatives" - I've even read the comments of "pro-choice" people who say things like, "A woman's right to choose ends when the government has to help take care of her kids," which is an odd way to interpret Roe v. Wade.

Class, another unspoken American neurosis, also seems to be present here. California taxpayers sure seem angry at the prospect of paying to raise children, in a way they don't seem angry at the prospect of paying to redecorate the executive suite at Merrill Lynch.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i didn't mean to pick on the pro life wangnuts. i think the pro-choice wangnuts, and/or the argument that your right to chose ends where the government picks up the tab, is the welfare queen argument. i agree that the state -- or you and i -- shouldn't have to pick up the tab (i think; actually i think child care should be nationalized from infant daycare to graduating your phd., as in france, but i'm not going there). i think however that this welfare queen argument is fraught with code for how we mustn't have too many babies of color. not the Yellow Peril, but the Beige Jihadi peril. as well as, we can't have women bearing children on their own. there seems something especially sinful in suleman's doing it the manless way -- it's all entailed on you can't have a baby that isn't bought and paid for by a man with a job. i think i kind of agree with that. which is why i have no children.

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

think however that this welfare queen argument is fraught with code for how we mustn't have too many babies of color. not the Yellow Peril, but the Beige Jihadi peril.

Oh yeah. Definitely. A lot of that zero population growth advocacy stuff has an uncomfortable edge of racism at least hinted at, and I think that's happening here. But your point about female autonomy is also really worth considering; if she were married, white and a member of some weird religious sect, I'm guessing the outrage would be considerably less than what it is.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

the duggar woman, mother of 18, isn't getting this kind of backlash -- because there's a duggar daddy, and they seem to be sane and are bringing the million minions up in a loving and reasonably prosperous way.

[niyabinghi.livejournal.com]

I read somewhere that the Duggars were smart enough to have created their own built in baby-sitters.

Still, it peeves me off that the married parents got heaps of gifts and help, and people aren't thinking of the children and babies in their great rush to punish Suleman.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

it is odd, isn't it. if she's crazy, we should feel sorry for her.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

and her kids.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

actually i think child care should be nationalized from infant daycare to graduating your phd., as in france

I could kiss you. Figuratively, since we're on opposite coasts, of course. I am in complete agreement, but like you, I'm not going there, at least not yet.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

in contemplating the life of my expat french crunchy mami, who is living with a toddler on $20K a year, i realized that she can only do it because france pays women to have babies, a one time fee of like $800, plus all hospital, midwife, meds, pediatrician, prenatal, OB evrything -- plus then you can put the baby into really good day care, well regulated and supervised, the nourice system -- and go back to work if you must. crunchy mami works foraging, and doing the masonry on their house, and stuff like that, which i understand and approve, but she wouldn't have the peace of mind to do that if all her health needs, and the baby's, weren't taken care of.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Sounds positively humane. What's the catch?

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

no concept of service economy. rudeness and inefficiency in every transaction.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

So, the US is becoming more and more like France -- ass-end first. When do we get the good stuff?

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

on class and cali tax payers -- its race, and mike davis explains in City of Quartz, persuasively if pinkishly, how the peculiar system of cali city incorporation meshed with prop whatever it was whereby they voted not to pay taxes, back in the reagan era.

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

California was the birthplace of the "tax revolt," right? That sounds familiar - all those proposition whatevers springing up all over the country in the 1970s. They passed one in Massachusetts of all places, and it's still the law there.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

yeah, here we go, prop 13, howard jarvis, tax revolt.
http://www.hjta.org/node/382

[filmstills.livejournal.com]

i think this is all very perceptive. i also think she's totally psychotic or at least very borderline. sometimes i think, how can you have any real critical discourse when its center is a psychotic human being? that person's actions are beyond rationality, so imposing "rational" frameworks...smart idea? discourse around the discourse, though, i'm all for.

and this all makes me feel very old-fashioned because i think that children should not be brought into the world unless they can reasonably be cared for by people of sound mind and body.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i have a bad feeling about her sanity -- and my heart just sank when i saw that terrible plastic surgery. that was my first clue that -- we're not in kansas any more.

[niyabinghi.livejournal.com]

I'm really disturbed by the fact that she's gotten death threats.

At least her church is going to be having people come to help her out

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_11682708

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i saw that and am considering sending money to them, if it's true. rather than to her.

[niyabinghi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a good idea actually.