Tuesday, June 19, 2012

That's what she said


After the Michigan Pee Pee Wee Wee fiasco, I feel it necessary to say something about the absurd level to which our politics have sunk. Which made me want very much to write intelligently about the Republican War on Women by highlighting the number of newly-enacted laws having to do with limiting reproductive rights and other anti-female legislation versus laws meant to spur job growth.

After a few moments of googling, I gave up the idea of something intelligent and fact-based. Instead, I would do a very short post on the theme "It's not a war on women, you silly creatures, it's a police action."

I wanted to title it Hey, laaaaady! and add a clip of Jerry Lewis doing his Hey, Laaaaadeeeeee bit. That's how I ended up watching this and snorting with laughter.


While I might not have said what Representative Lisa Brown (D) said on the floor of any state assembly, I think the Republican decision to silence her was more than an overreaction. It was, quite frankly, ridiculous.

 Let me clarify - I wouldn't say what she said for two reasons. First  - I don't trust myself to know when to engage my filter. It's the same reason I've never been violent with my children. What if, once I've started, I can't stop. What would happen if I were to begin with vagina and proceed through pussy, pink taco, twat and beyond to the C word of infamy and whatever comes after?

I'll tell you what. My mother would die of shame - right there in her chair, her Inspector Lynley novel clutched in her hand. Her last words would be a declaration of ignorance. She had no idea where I learned such filth. My father would stand around looking somewhat annoyed and confused. My children would be ostracized from civil society. People would unfriend me on Facebook. I'd lose Twitter followers. Publix would never take another check from me. My doctor would refer me to someone else. I'd have a wikipedia page where people scrawled hideous things about me. Of his own good judgment and at the behest of his family, MathMan would insist that I give him back his last name, and the remaining cats would ask to be dropped at the Humane Society as I'm run out of our little village on a splintery rail.

Georgia would slam the door at the state line and lock it behind me.

The other clarification is a quibble for sure, but it matters nonetheless. While we all know what Representative Brown meant, she would have been more accurate to have said "Finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you are all so interested in my vagina uterus, but 'no' means 'no.'" Because what these many pieces of legislation actually deal with isn't le vagin, but rather the uterus where the precious babies are grown.  The organ where, if the anti-choice crowd has its way, the sanctity of life will remain swaddled in the assurance that it will have a chance to grow and be born and become personally responsible for all its own actions and profitable for any and all who see a way to part it with its money forever and ever amen.

Aside from the technical inaccuracy, the problem with the word vagina is that it is too connected with s-e-x. It's one thing to refer to a vagina in the abstract. Most adults can deal with that, even if it makes the feel all squidgy and giggly. But when you put the possessive in front of it - my, her, their - well, now you're forcing people to make a further connection. It's no longer a sanitized cartoonish vagina like you see in an anatomy cross-section drawing.

Nope, now we're talking about a vagina  that belongs to someone. To her. Or her or her. To them. To me. (Not really! I'm like a Barbie doll. Ask MathMan.)

I know men. When it's a vagina in the possessive- it's labia and clitoris, hair and skin. It's a palette of pinks, reds, purples.

It's loaded with meaning. It's curiosity bound with shame. It's lover and mother. Chaste or not. Unreachable or inviting. It's both fantasy and very, very real. It's utterly female. It's power, possession, pleasure, pain, hatred, fear, worship, disgust, and reverence. It's scent and taste.

Representative Brown made them think of her vagina and the men in that room blanched. They reacted not because half of them haven't at least once pictured her naked, but because they refuse to admit it. It may have been a passing thought during a tedious discussion about some piece of doomed legislation, but for just a second,  it wasn't just a vagina, it was her vagina.

And that, according to the male Republican leadership of the Michigan State Assembly, is not up for public discussion.

Case and legs closed.

35 comments:

  1. Great post. But enough about her vagina, lets talk about my cunt!
    No, really, great post. This is the Politits I remember!
    Stupid men. Why are these men so fucking stupid?
    Why are we marching back in time? Why haven't their wives cut their balls off as they slept? Answer me that!

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    1. Those are all excellent questions. We definitely need more women in leadership positions.

      It feels good to write about the absurdities of sex and politics once in a while. Thanks for being here, Utah!

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  2. I've been married for a little while now. I don't even know what the word means.

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    1. Que! Google it. Be sure to put on your safe search. I don't want to be responsible for harming you in any way.

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  3. I seem to remember some pols in Florida getting bent out of shape by uterus as well...

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    1. Oh my word, D. Even Homer Simpson says "uterus." These guys need some gonad enhancement.

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  4. The vagina, it's in the Alamo, in the basement.

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    1. I'm sorry. Freida and I looked there. T'wasn't there.

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    2. I blame Pee Wee Herman. (But, we managed... ;)

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  5. People would unfriend me on Facebook.

    See, yet another reason to avoid Effbook.

    Excellent post. I suspect it isn't just about the uterus...it's about sex, as well. The war on contraception is a giveaway (can't be "right to life" in that case, can it).
    ~

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    1. Agreed, Thunder. We're looking at a rolling effort. First they came for the abortionist......then they came for the queers.....then they came for my IUD......and when they made me wear this chastity belt, there was no one left to oil the lock.

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  6. Saw a cartoon that said, you can't say vagina in a room full of pussies.

    If the action of banning these women from speaking isn't a prime example of why we need drug testing of politicians, I don't know what is. They are either on drugs or bat-shit crazy. If they piss in a cup we can know whether or not drugs are the problem.

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    1. Ha! Good point, Kulkuri. If they're on drugs, that drug is perceived power.

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  7. Way to go, Lisa. This is the only possible explanation for the absurdity going on.... the embarrassment they felt at the personalization of the topic.

    It's always easier to oppress and hate a group of people in the abstract. When you actually identify individuals you KNOW in that group it is a lot harder to keep it up (as it were). She called them on their sh*t and people don't like when you do that.

    I get weary of it.
    NFH

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    1. Weary. That's the perfect word for it, NFH. WEARY.

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  8. I had Chachi watch the video of the "incident" (he thought that I was JOKING). After he watched it, he blurted, "What was she SUPPOSED to call it? Her HOO-HA?!" Then my beloved, quiet, conservative spouse proceeded to list utterly horrifying options that she could have said in place of "vagina". I think that my favorite was "The hairy beef curtain".

    Slowly but surely, my spouse is heading LEFT.

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    1. Oh my, Renn. I giggled insanely at this. I was so tempted to use "roast beef curtains" in this post, but stopped myself.

      As Chachi inches left, I want to make him feel welcome. There's room over here for many perspectives.

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  9. Great post - I'm back in blog land after another one of my hiatuses. One of my favorite posts on Facebook about this incident is the one that says "Why can't we say vagina in a room full of douchebags?"

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    1. Welcome back, Maui! You've been missed. I think the blogosphere ebbs and flows as each of us experience life changes. I know you've had much going on between your aunt, your mother, your retirement and the cabin (which seems a delightful retreat).

      The Vagina Incident certainly opens itself up to all sorts of humorous possibilities, doesn't it?

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  10. What I find truly creepy about the Republican attacks on women is how reminiscent they are of the policies put into practice in Nazi Germany.

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    1. Ick. I'm disgusted by the patronizing tone of much of this legislation. Silly women can't make proper decisions.

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  11. Susan, it does, doesn't it. It also reminds me of the Margaret Atwood novel,The Handmaid's Tale. It's getting freaky out here.

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    1. If you control reproduction, you control women. We've seen this movie before, haven't we, Utah?

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    2. You've reminded me of a favorite line written by Margaret Atwood: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

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  12. You've slit through the rhetoric and snatched the real issue right where it sits. For that, you deserve a great tongue-lashing from all those who find the vajayjay so threatening. I for one will stand erect and enter the discussion without fear of wilting limply in the face of such nonsense.

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    1. Cackling! That's how the person who walked by my desk as I read this described what they heard.

      "What are you cackling about?"

      I couldn't say.

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  13. The male legislators might well have been more comfortable if their female colleague had used the c--- word. After all, that's probably how they talk about women among themselves.

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    1. You are so right, Ciara. I'm sure those fellows don't take pains to speak respectfully of women when they're among their own kind.

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  14. We're far from perfect here in Europe (Germany, where I live), but I find myself regarding the USA with a kind of horrified bemusement. When it's a question of money/social benefits/health care, etc., America is soooo laissez-faire, everything else is godless communism. But when it's a question of SEX/cocks and cunts and tits, this becomes an area for government to become intimately, voyeuristically interfering.

    Yo, give birth to that kid, so that it can live a hopeless life in poverty, deprivation before dying young ... most probably as a result of violence. So pro-life!

    But that seems to be the way they do it in God's own country. I'm glad I live over here ...

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    1. It's really an odd thing about us, Francis. The very people who want to deregulate business want desperately to regulate the individual. I will never understand that.

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  15. The über-wealthy white men pulling the strings know exactly what they are doing. In any democracy that is sinking into a dictatorship they go after the women who have enjoyed a modicum of freedom. The douchebags who are their puppets (who frequently, but not always, also happen to be white men) are insanely desperate to imagine themselves like the puppeteers and they'll do or say anything no matter how STUPID it makes them look to the remaining sane people.

    The Taliban springs to mind. I also keep thinking about a scene in that superb movie "Missing" about the U.S. orchestrated overthrow in Chilé, where soldiers with bayonets accost a woman on the street who is wearing slacks, and slash them to make them into a long skirt.

    I keep wondering if we're foolish not to leave before the borders are sealed.

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  17. Looks like this is the place to come to if ya wanna talk dirty. Heh.

    Susan - the quote from Margaret Atwood packs a powerful punch. Thanks. :-)

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  18. As far as I am concerned, it is the penises that are the problem and we need to go on the attack against penises. If not for the penises we wouldn't be whores needing that evil birth control or killing babies with our abortions.

    Lisa - I think you should lead the anti-penis attack.

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  19. This is a very subtle and perceptive distinction you've made. I've heard Dan Savage suggest taking it to the personal to protest en masse, but I think you are on to something here.

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