Sex as negotiable action

When I went to pick up the boo, today, I was listening to the radio as usual. I was zapping around between 4-5 stations because my tolerance for music I don’t like is terribly low, and whenever a song I don’t like is on, I switch to a different station. As luck would have it, I ended up on a station just as they were asking today’s SMS survey question. It’s something they do every day, then they receive multitudes of text messages from listeners, and they pick the most interesting ones to talk about on air. Often the questions are quite interesting, often they are also about hilarious or even embarrassing subjects.

Today’s question was: “Since there’s been some talk about quid-pro-quo sex, that is sex granted by one partner to the other in return for another favour, we would like to know: Is it good or bad for a relationship that sex is used as currency in return for other things? Is it good or bad for a relationship that sex is traded like this?”

And before I go on with my musings: please note that it is specifically about trading sex and using it as currency WITHIN a relationship of the romantic kind, so this will not be a post about the more traditional kind of sex work.

It also reminded me of how the douchebag, whose post I quoted extensively the other day, considered sex a negotiable asset. And so I figured I may as well make my thoughts public here.

Now, the easy answer to the question posed on the radio is of course: That depends on the relationship and on the people in it.

Well, duh. But if that’s all I had to say there’d be no need for this post. (Another duh)

Even though I said this post would not be about sex work, I’m still going to mention it, because it is, after all, part of the framework. I don’t think I could do sex work myself, I’ve never felt the curiosity to try, nor have I ever had the need (thankfully). Not because I think it’s icky – it’s sex and it’s no different than any other sexual relation in that regard – but because I dislike the idea of engaging in sex for someone else’s sake rather than my own. That’s purely my own feelings, though, and I respect and understand that people are different and that others won’t mind this like I do.

But this does bring me to the essence of the posed question: For whose sake are we doing it? At the basics people engage in sex because they like it, because it feels good. In other words: people have sex for purely selfish reasons. I would certainly hope so, at least. People partner up based on physical attraction, and sometimes they conclude that it’d be mighty nice if some sheet gymnastics would ensue. Like I said: Purely selfish reasons, and with the underlying respect to only to do things both(or all) are cool with. But those selfish reasons are all sexual. People have sex with each other because their want for sex is mutual. It is sex they want, thus sex they have. Works for me, and as far a I can tell that’s how it works for most people.

Additionally, sometimes people partner up on emotional attraction, and due to an emotional bond being forged, a physical attraction also develops. This does not happen always, though.

In sex work (and I’m guessing here, ’cause I’ve obviously never done it myself) sex is split off from attraction. The sex worker need not be attracted to her(and sometimes his) client. The attraction is one-way, because the client pays for a service, and one would assume he would choose a sex worker he finds attractive. Sometimes the attraction and satisfaction might even go both ways, I’ve heard. And some sex workers have the privilege and opportunity to turn down clients they don’t find appealing. That’s not all of them, though, so speaking in general terms, sex workers must be able to have sex without attraction figuring in the picture at all. They don’t have sex because they want sex, they have sex because they want the pay. (And this clearly only takes into account the voluntary sex workers. Those who are forced into that line of work do not figure here at all, because they don’t themselves negotiate the business. But rest assured I have not forgotten about them.) Sex workers of the voluntary kind can have romantic and sexual relationships as well, because these relationships are based on their own attraction and not just that of their counterparts, be it emotional, physical, intellectual or any combination of the three.

I realise, I make it sound fairly easy when putting it like this. I’m aware that it’s not always so. It is my belief and clear impression that people are very different in this regard. Some people are able to split their attraction from the sex they have and some are not. I belong in the latter group. I do not need an emotional connection in order to have sex with people, but I do need to feel a spar of attraction, otherwise I can’t make myself go there. I need to want it. The sex that is.

Many people have argued that traditional marriage is just another form of sex work; a woman gets financial security in return for sex. Nowadays there is more to marriage than that most of the time, because we’ve made it so, and marriage is not necessary for a romantic partnership anymore. But because of the baggage that comes with the term marriage I’ll just stick with romantic partnerships, whether they’re with papers or without.

Now, unless you’re asexual and thus without needs in that department, being in a romantic partnership usually involves the having of sex. And this sex is usually based on mutual attraction of one kind or the other (or several). And now there’s the question of essentially mixing up sex work with your personal relationship. Can a relationship shoulder that? Good question.

I suppose it would depend on the person. If the person delivering the sex for favours can easily split up the negotiated sex from the rest of the relationship, then it is theoretically possible, but I have my doubts about how long it could go on. Because let’s face it: in a relationship anything that needs negotiation – not just sex – is most likely bad for that ’ship’.

All relationships take compromises of some sort. That’s a given. But while discussing such things as who does the dishes and takes out the trash and such doesn’t have an effect on the intimacy between partners, using sex as a bargaining chip turns the relationship from a mutually beneficial sexual relationship into a transaction between a sex worker and a client. And frankly, just like there’s a reason doctors shouldn’t have relationships with patients, teachers should stay away from students, and bosses should stay away from employees, turning your romantic relationship and its sexual content into a business relationship is hardly healthy for that ’ship’. Not because it’s impossible nor wrong to trade sex for favours/money/goods, but because it’s bad to mix business with invested emotions.

Using sex as a bargaining chip, a negotiable asset if you will, is most likely to mean that telling apart the times when sex IS a bargaining chip from the times when it’s not. Imagine that your sweetheart has sex with you and says that in return you should cook dinner. Next time zie has sex with you, you’ll be expecting hir to want something in return. You’ll suspect that zie’s not having sex with you because zie wants you, but because zie wants you to do something or buy something. Or the other way ’round. Imagine that you had sex with your sweetheart in order to get hir to do something. What happens when zie does that something again and comes to you expecting sex for it again? Do you owe hir?

There is a serious risk of twisting sex from being something to be had between consenting partners, to become a payment method that you owe whether you want to or not. And where does consent end in this mess? Well, hopefully most would correct their faltering ’ship’ or break it off before it goes too far, but there’s an all too real risk that consent flies right out the window. This seems logical to me, and it shouldn’t really need this many words to explain, but it apparently is, because this question was asked on the radio, and the hosts were clearly expecting many different answers.

I don’t doubt that there are couples out there for whom sex is a favour exchanged for other favours and that it works for some them. But I think the majority of people will have a very hard time having both a client/provider relationship as well as a sexually and emotionally equal relationship with the same person. They seem mutually exclusive to me. Splitting them up in different spheres of your life is, of course, possible. Sex workers are able to do this apparently. But having them overlap? They’ll unbalance each other.

If I go to my boyfriend and say, hey, wanna fuck? I fully expect him to say no if he doesn’t want to. Same goes the other way around. What kind of person would I be if I tried to lure/coax him into having sex with me by promising favours around the house or in our lives in general? It’d still be sex that he did not truly want. What would that make me? Ew. We’re talking about completely undermining consent between two people here. We’re talking about going back to the idea that a man cannot rape his wife, because she consented when she married him. That’s where it would lead. People would suddenly be having sex out of duty rather than because they want it, and that’s a seriously scary thought. It may not destroy the relationship, but that ’ship’ will hardly qualify for the term healthy either. If it comes to the point, where you expect sex from a romantic partner, because you did x and y for them, you seriously need to reassess your relationship – and possibly yourself as well.

When people say stupid shit

Someone, whom I once regarded a friend, but haven’t had much contact with in recent years, wrote this to me:

Staying in an unhappy relationship because of money is dumb and you’re not dumb, so don’t do it. And don’t come back to me with all the financial excuses of why it’s not possible. If you’re not happy then leave.

It’s only a small part of the whole, but it pissed me off something fierce. I had just told her how the finances for me and the boo looked miserable, and that it was putting a strain on our relationship. I did not say that he was the one making me unhappy. What I did say was that even if I were to decide that the relationship was no longer for me, I do not have the money to move out. And I don’t. I have done the math a thousand times now, and fact is: with the needs and income that I currently have I cannot afford to live alone. End. Of. Story. The bank will not lend me more money. Understandable, of course. They need a guarantee that they’ll get them back at some point.

To this woman financial excuses are just excuses and not real reasons. She just exhibited such a shitload of class privilege that it took my breath away. She’s divorced and has married a new man. She’s been through the whole miserable break-up part and trouble-some divorce hassle. She knows it’s not easy. But since I’m not married to my boyfriend it must just be totally easy for me to leave, right? Wrong.

I. Cannot. Afford. A. Place. Alone.

My maths are simple. I have an income, which I get from the state until they figure out what sort of job I can handle with my disability. That income is all I have. Anything I might earn by teaching two hours a week (which I do) is subtracted from that income. That means that I cannot raise my income in any way. Unless, of course, I do so illegally, which would be pretty stupid considering the risk of discovery. My income is what it is and cannot be adjusted upwards. At all. Not until I get some help for my disability.

So, taking that income I subtract the cost of necessities. Phone and internet – no way I can do without them, considering my diagnosis. Food – el cheapo stuff, too. Cat food and vet bills – I cannot live without my cat, it has helped me immensely to have him. I could not do without. Power, heat and water – basics that I know the cost of pretty precisely since I’ve lived alone before, when my income was higher, before my life collapsed on me. Union membership – no good to skip that one. And finally assorted household stuff like cleaning agents, toothpaste, soap, bags for the dustbin and lightbulbs. Adding all this up I end with a finite amount, obviously.

My problem arises because the amount I end with cannot pay the rent for a two-room flat in the town in which I live. And I need two rooms. If I have only one room I will never meet other people, because I cannot bear to invite anyone (in whom I have no sexual interest) into what is essentially my bedroom. It feels wrong and awkward and far more intimate than I can stand. Besides, I couldn’t make myself confine a cat to just one room, even if I think my fat cat would be perfectly happy pretty much anywhere I am.

Of course, I could look for a flat outside of the city, but whatever I might save on the rent would just be used on transportation, so there’s really no point. And I’d seldom go anywhere, then, ’cause me and crowded buses? Eek.

Moving to a cheaper city/town? Theoretically it’s an option, but then I’d have to start all over with my treatment and stuff, both in the health-care system and the unemployment system. I’d need to switch to a new doctor, a new therapist, a new job consultant, a new case counselor and a new economic counselor. That’s a lot of new people for someone with people-phobia due to a diagnosis. That’d take more spoons than I have. In fact, just imagining that situation kills a few of my daily spoons.

But of course that’s just excuses. I guess that makes me dumb, yeah?

This woman, who told me this, calls herself a feminist, and yet she says that staying in a bad relationship for financial reasons is dumb. Does she even have a clue how many abused women are locked in place because they don’t have the social support network that they need? The amount of abused women who are killed because they didn’t have enough money/other resources to get far enough away from an abusive man who turned murderous? I’m not abused – not in any way, let me make that perfectly clear – all I said was that due to financial issues our relationship is strained, the same financial issues that make it impossible for me to afford a place of my own. So giving up on the relationship is not an option. Besides, to me, everything looks bleak right now due to depression, and I’d really hate to crawl out the other side of that depression and realize that the relationship was “the shit” and I should’ve stayed.

My focus is and should be on getting better at managing my disability. And I don’t need so-called friends telling me that I’m dumb for facing reality and making do with what I have. That’s so majorly offensive to me that I can’t even begin to express it.

Attention: Women are all the same

Once again due to my use of the Readomattic, I have come across genuine stupidity on the net. (Yes, really)

Sometimes I really must wonder where it all comes from. This time it is from a man, A. Guy Maligned, who according to his presentation of himself has been with his significant other for 54 years. That means he’s lived for about three times as long as I have. And yet some things have apparently not occured to him. He states plainly that all the ‘wisdom’ on his blog is based on all his years of observations in different fields of work, but also (I’m guessing primarily) on his partnership with Grace. After all these years, he has seemingly concluded that all women are the same. His latest post uses a term from psychiatry about a very real and very debilitating disorder and uses it flippantly to talk down – not to but – about women.

So with this introduction, I give you his post: “Her Affection Deficit Disorder”.

Let me just reiterate: ADD – that is Attention Deficit Disorder – is a serious strain on a person’s life, and if undiagnosed and therefore untreated it can cause severe problems with intellectual and social development among other things. I know a couple of people who suffer from this, and it really should not be joked about, as it can be severely debilitating. Nor should it be used as flippantly as Mr. Maligned does here. In fact, his use of this title shows pretty much exactly how empathic he is, but we’d probably have figured that out from reading the post anyway. Instead, consider the title a warning.

The female nature craves attention and affection at certain times, for specific reasons, and especially for confirming a woman’s self-love.

While I will not deny that female crave attention and affection at certain times, I would argue that so do the male nature. Otherwise we would not place male sports events on national (or even world wide) television, males would not boast and brag about this or that feat. And males would not show off to females as well as each other by doing deeds of a more or less sensible nature, if it wasn’t to be confirmed in their own belief about their appropriate and sufficient masculinity. Humans are pack animals, we all crave the nearness of other humans at certain times. And yes, we do crave attention to strengthen our self-love, but Mr. Maligned seem to completely disregard the need to be loved and the need to feel that one’s company is desired by others. For some reason this applies to both genders, but Mr. Maligned has completely overlooked this. Now, the genders may express these things differently, but that has more to do with how we’ve been raised and taught to express ourselves than with our ‘nature’.

His attentions add and his affection confirms worth to her, or so she feels.

Yes. This is exactly what the patriarchy wants us to believe. That male attention and affection defines our worth. On the other hand, patriarchy also teaches that if we want such attention too much we’re sluts and worth absolutely nothing. But notice how he adds that little “or so she feels”. This shows how much Mr. Maligned has really missed. It is not women who feel that male attention defines our worth. It is something we have been told for ages, and that we’ve been fighting against for mere decades (a century – give or take). Unfortunately, not all women have been able to resist the indoctrination – such stuff is notoriously hard to resist, that’ why it’s so effective, so some women will undoubtedly feel like he says they do. But this has absolutely nothing to do with female nature, and everything to do with patriarchy.

·  Compared to four or five decades ago, female self-esteem is lower.

Considering that the fashion ideal becomes harder and harder to live up to and that women are experiencing more and more harsh backlash for daring to work and be successful, that’s hardly surprising.

Self-image is twisted from having bought into feminist issues that contradict the female nature.

Oh yeah, so feminist assertions that women are individuals with individual personalities contradict female nature. Mr. Man here knows. Self-image is twisted, indeed, but mostly because the expectations and demands of women are becoming more and more twisted. And women are not the ones creating these ideals. Men are.

Consequently, females are hesitant, afraid, or ashamed to let their feminine nature shine through.

Or perhaps women are just becoming less and less likely to project a kind of femininity that was never theirs, but was rather something men had defined for us and decided was est for us. And without asking, too. But sure, it’s all the fault of feminism.

It costs women, because the male’s Affection Delivery Disorder gets worse in the absence of femininity.

This man not only hates women, he hates men, too. He honestly thinks that men can only show affection when faced with femininity. He seems to completely disregard the male potential for bonding with equals. Oh… wait, that’s right. Only other men are equals. Nevermind then. It is rather telling, though, that if men truly did suffer from this ridiculous notion of Affection Delivery Disorder, then male homosexuality would be impossible, and yet, there we are. In fact, if Mr. Man here was right, then only a tiny percentage of women, namely those who have physiologies as well as demeanours that live up to the exacting standards would ever receive any sort of affection from men. And yet, the race is not only surviving, it is proliferating, so a lot more women than just the appropriately feminine ones must receive this affection in sufficient amounts. I wonder how that could be. Taking his interpretation of human nature to it’s appropriate extreme only relationships between women would be possible in the long run, and they would most definitely be the majority of relationships. Now why doesn’t reality look like that, I wonder. Perhaps because this guy is way out of left field?

·  Females adopt the idea that they can do anything and everything that men can do.

Yep. We all do this, because we’re all the same. Trufax.

It’s okay and in many cases true.

Indeed.

However, it contradicts their inherent female nature just enough that dodging femininity makes them phony to themselves.

Huh? So… doing what we’re naturally able to do is against our nature? What is this inherent female nature anyway? I’ve certanly never seen it, ’cause the women I know are all so different there’s a hardly anything we all have in common. Well, there is one thing. All the females I know have opinions, and that’s one of those things men have always thought is unfeminine in women. So what is this elusive femininity that we’re all apparently dodging? Oh yeah, and didn’t that just burn? He called us phony. Ohhhh, I must go and sob and eat chocolate now. Not. If phony means that I’m my own person and not attempting in vain to live up to impossible patriarchal standards, then I’m cool with being phony. But I doubt that’s what Mr. Man here meant.

Thus weakened, their self-image does not prevent them from doing things contrary to their best and especially female-specific interests.

So… our self-image ought to be preventing us from doing bad stuff. And who do we have to thank for that? Patriarchy, thank you very much. Our self-image is crap, because the image we’re supposed to live up to is, in fact, unnatural as all hell. But this apparently makes us do things contrary to our best interests. Like what? Work and make our own money? Live happy single lives? Live with partners we’re not married to? Have babies before we’re wed? Not have babies at all? Yeah, I can see how our self-image has really failed us there. And what are these female-specific interests? Like I said above: only thing I’ve noticed women to have in common is opinions. And that’s hardly a female-specific interest. But I’m guessing Mr. Man here is talking about having babies, cooking and cleaning. Possibly sewing as well. ‘Cause that’s what all women really want, donchaknow.

With a shortage of self-respect and self-confidence, they rely more on emotional than rational thought, and men have an advantage and usually take it.

What can I do but laugh? Women are actually growing more and more confident – especially on the job market. An while we’re far from equal pay still, we’re slowly moving in the right direction. Women don’t rely on emotional thought. It’s mostly that we’re human and therefore we have emotions. And in order to live happy lives, we have to take into account those emotions, since, you know, happy is an emotion. You can’t attain an emotional state without working with your emotions. Something men seem to have overlooked for ages. But he’s right that men have an advantage and that they take it. The advantage isn’t rational thought, though. The advantage is called male privilege. Making conscious use of the advantage makes you smart, of course. It also makes you an asshole.

·  The popularity of unmarried sex causes males to lose unconditional respect for the female gender.

Interestingly enough, most men seem to be enjoying the unmarried sex far too much to actually care. The men who have unconditional respect for others are generally naïve (same goes for women), but the men who lose respect for women based on their sex lives are generally not worth much in the humane department anyway. No great loss.

Among teens it’s atrocious.

Yes, because teenage sexuality is dangerous and unnatural! Wait… no, it’s perfectly natural, that’s kinda why it goes on. We do need to teach teenage boys to be less caveman-like, though, and stop pressuring girls to have sex with them. Perhaps we can prevent those teenage boys-will-be-boys from growing up to become rapists. That’d be awfully nice. But, see, it’s all feminists’ fault, ’cause they totally destroyed the nice patriarchal notion of the proper woman, and now women have become all uppity and non-conforming, and there’s really naught the men can do to behave themselves. They’re helpless against the allure that is the unfeminine woman. Wait… didn’t he just say men were the rational ones?

Males, as competing hunter-conquerors, see females as dumb for not guarding their negotiable assets.

And since males view women as stupid (mentally disadvantaged) for wanting to have sex with men, and they still use the opportunity to have sex with these women. What does that tell us about these men? I know. Assholes, apparently. Also, don’t you just love how Mr. Man here makes no secret of viewing women as possessing sex that men want to buy from us. Negotiable assets. Sheesh. Just because a woman has sex with a man, she doesn’t somehow lose the sex. She still has it. But for someone who thinks sex is something women give away that must be hard to fathom. Also, did you just notice how a woman’s sexual interaction is negotiable? Here’s news for you, douchebag, sex is not an asset. It’s an action; an optional action at that. And if she says yes, it means yes, and if she says no, it means no. It is not negotiable. This guy is turning out to be more and more creeptastic the further it goes.

But women need frequent and sometimes continual reaffirmation of their value to someone else to confirm their self-love.

For some reason this guy confuses personal worth with narcissism. Everybody – not just women – need reaffirmation of their vale to someone else. It’s called the need for human interaction, to be assured that you’re someone worth spending time with, to be assured that you’re a good person and is doing something right. But oh no, men don’t need that. In this guy’s world, men don’t need to be assured that they’re doing things right. My guess is: because in his world men can do no wrong, and therefore they need not be told that they’re right. Show me the man who – after a period of non-interaction – didn’t miss the pats on the back when he scored a goal, or did something difficult. I dare ya. Human interaction – it’s necessary for being human. If you do not need human interaction in some degree you seriously need your head checked. Even I, who have a diagnosis making me shun human interaction 90% of the time with 99% of the people around me, still need human interaction in the remaining time from the special few people I can stand to be around. It’s part of the human condition, the needing others bit. If you believe that men don’t need to be valued by others, then you’re fooling yourself.

This drives females toward this paradox: For reaffirmation they provide sex. Having given it, men lose unconditional respect for the female gender. With less respect for the gender, the love of men weakens for individual females. With less pronounced femininity, a man’s A.D.D. gets worse.

There is so much wrong here, but it explains patriarchy so well. Note how he thinks women seek affirmation through sex. Newsflash: mostly it’s release and sex we seek, when we decide to have sex. Note how he admits that after having had sex with one woman, a man will now think poorly of the entire gender, and he still claims men are the rational ones. Note how he admits that just because one woman had sex with a man, this man is now completely unable to respect and even LOVE all other women. And then to top it off: Apparently, when men, due to lack of respect for women, can no longer love them women lose their femininity. This totally disproves his entire point. It is not feminists who ruined femininity; it is the fact that men can’t respect women that steals women’s femininity away. He just said so himself. It is men making us all unfeminine with their lack of respect and love. Basically it’s just another way of saying that by making impossible standards for femininity, the majority of women have purposefully been defined as unfeminine. And they blame it on the feminists, ’cause we’re so convenient scapegoats. Bah!

·  When men show less respect, it reflects that women are somehow lacking something.

That’s what you’d think, yes. And at first most women will be very hurt and saddened by the lack of respect we get from men. And most of us have been through the poor self-esteem treadmill. But the truth is: The only thing women are lacking that causes men like this guy to not respect us is… *drumroll* … dicks. It is quite clear that this guy (and unfortunately many like him) cannot respect any woman, who does anything that he disapproves of ie. anything that she decides for herself. So let me amend the statement he made: When men show less respect, it reflects that they are somehow misogynist and unable to deal with the fact that women are individuals and have the capablity to make their own choices that may or may not include them(the men).

This does two things: It further lowers female self-image, which weakens their sense of control of their lives.

Of course it does. Because to tell women that are failures if they are unfeminine, and thereafter to set standards of femininity that are unattainable will do that. If it were a one-time event it wouldn’t be so bad, and we might be able to laugh it off. But the truth is that most women hear these messages all the fucking time from when they’re born till they go to their graves. It’d be a miracle if we weren’t affected by it. And it’s not just that it weakens our sense of control. It also weakens our actual control. In many places a job will go to the applicant who performs femininity better than the others. In most places more respect and leeway will be offered to the woman, who performs femininity better. This not only affects our emotions (which, to the manly men are, of course, unimportant) it also affect our very real lived lives. And this guy just doesn’t get that. To him it’s an abstract problem that women brought upon themselves, because they refused to leave their individuality at the door (ie. birth), and it will likely never be anything more than that, because he sees to be completely unable to empathise that WE ARE REAL PEOPLE. He sets the bar for respect so high that he will seldom, if ever, have to respect any woman – and that’s very convenient indeed. The real kicker is: it’s not even true respect. It’s an arbitrary scale of grading women, and that is terribly degrading. It was never about respect, because men who think like this, are not actually capable of respecting women.

Lack of a sense of control then pushes women easily into desperation and toward depression.

Actually a lack of real control does it even more efficiently. But all the while that he argues that women should have less control, he derides us for setting ourselves up to have a SENSE of lack of control. Isn’t that just sweet. By doing what he advocates, we would relinquish what little control we do have, but we would totally gain a sense of control and we’d feel better. Isn’t that so sweet and caring of him? Sounds like concern-trolling to me.

In the end, the more intense her affection deficit, the more intense becomes his disorder for showing attention and delivering affection.

Rephrase: In the end, the more intense his unwillingness to provide respect and human interaction, the more resolved she’ll be to dump him and find someone who can respect and love her, without all the conditions of ideologized hyper-femininity.

The rest of this guy’s blog is the same kind of misogynist drivel, and everything is based around the premise that women are not really people. We’re all the same, with the same wants and desires, and therefore a basic behaviour scheme will charm any woman. To that I can only say:

BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

What’s not so funny is his total disrespect for the ADD diagnosis and his flippant attitude to both that and depression. Not cool. Not okay.

And here I thought it was neurological

Over at HealthBase I did a search, knowing full well from Sady of Tiger Beatdown’s description that it was horribly flawed.

I searched in Asperger’s Syndrome. My own disability. Aside from not being treatable with drugs and HealthBase suggesting the first 5 pharmaceuticals to treat it with (symptoms and bonus diagnoses might be drug-treatable), and under causes of Asperger’s Syndrome only thing pops up. Not genetics, not neurology, not weird brain-wiring. Nope HealthBase found only one cause of Asperger’s Syndrome. It was Social Awkwardness.

Ah ha! It is all explained. I have Asperger’s because I am socially awkward. Wait… I thought I was socially awkward because I had Asperger’s. Whaddayaknow…

Dear NetBase, please utilize a second chance, ’cause this one didn’t work out too well.

Quote to Remember

“Using mainstream porn to teach yourself how to have sex is like the government using Die Hard as an anti-terrorism manual.”

Tiger Beatdown in Bathing Suit Areas and Sex-Positivity: A Post In Which I Talk To Your Children, Sort Of

 

Feminism: Explained for Ladybrains

I use the tag surfer and the Readomattic with great pleasure. Sometimes it brings me to awesome blogs the existence of which I didn’t know of. For instance it caused the recent addition of Feminist Whore to my blogroll. However, it also sometimes brings me to blogposts about feminism, written by people who have no clue. Sometimes these people are women, sometimes they are men. Mostly those posts are so inane and ignorant that I don’t waste my time on them. This time, however, I wasted my time with much amusement, because this post was simply SO ridiculously hilarious. Now, it seems to me that the blog it’s posted on deals mostly with conspiracy theories of the New World Order kind. And with “deals with” I mean, believes in them and fervently believe in the theories that most people consider codswallop. This should give you some idea of where the poster is coming from.

As for the poster himself: I know nothing about him other than that he is clearly male, and I think he may be black or at least non-white. This seems irrelevant right now, but in his arguments later on, the colour of his skin unfortunately does become relevant. I’ll explain when I get to it.

The reason I read his post was the title: Modern Feminism is not Feminism. It had me go: “Uhhhh, and here I thought the dictionary told me otherwise.” But anyway, his post was so incredibly off mark that I simply have to write about it, because rather than becoming annoyed with a gross misrepresentation of women and feminism, I was so amused and chuckly, because it reads more like a parody of anti-feminists. And with no further ado I shall now share with you the ridiculousness:

When women hear the term feminism they envision white males in board rooms making decisions that negatively impact their lives or being excluded from corporate America in general or construction workers cat-calling them as they walk by in a sexy outfit or even just being underpaid by their white male counterparts for the same job.

Now, for all his conspiracy theories in the rest of his blog, he sure is quick to admit that he, in fact, can read minds. Perhaps he’s working for the government himself? He certainly does believe that all women are the same, believe the same things, and envision the same tings with the same verbal triggers. His above description is not what I think of when hearing the word feminism, though, that’s more like when I hear the words patriarchy, kyriarchy, sexism, and misogyny. The white males in board rooms is right enough. He completely forgets, though, that women receive cat-calls even when wearing non-sexy outfits. He actually lines up pretty accurately some of the things feminism opposes. But then he adds in a parenthesis:

(Black men do NOT make those decisions!!!).

Uhh, what? I do realise that very few black men are in the board rooms in the big companies and that has to do with racism obviously. But don’t bloody well tell me, that no black male manager has ever been sexist (with regards to pay) towards a black female employee. This guy seriously just tried to absolve the men of his race from sexism. When, in fact, all races include men who are sexist towards women. And this upstanding gentlemen just completely ignored/forgot/diminished the sexism black men exercise against black women (or for that matter women of other colours). But oh no, black men are not sexist. This guy needs to read up on intersectionality, being a victim of racism doesn’t mean you can’t possibly be sexist, and entirely forgetting all the women of your own colour seems, well, rather sexist to me. Just like me being a victim of sexism doesn’t mean I can’t behave in racist ways at times. I try not to, but I’m pretty sure I fuck up at times. Anyway, he goes on:

Those are all valid concerns from a society supposedly based on equality. The problem with it is that men and women can never be equal because we are inherently different as beings.

Disregarding the jumbled language in the first sentence (I think his meaning is clear enough), he now goes on to completely misuse the word equal. This guy clearly hasn’t grasped that equal does not mean identical. Yes, we are inherently different beings, he’s completely right about that, but just like Tracy and Sean are different beings, Rory and Martin are inherently different as well. In fact, as far as I’m aware, researchers have found greater genetic variety within a gender than between them. What does this mean? It means that we should all be equal before the law, and that we should all be awarded equal respect and acceptance of our personal choices.

Men and women are designed to complement each other other by our very nature, not be replacements and substitutes for each other. It takes a man and a woman to reproduce. It doesn’t matter how science can take an egg and a sperm and artificially fertilize it. The premise remains the same. Science and technology are destroying our basic humanity and turning everything into for profit business.

And here he just goes and gets confusing. From a reproductive point of view, yes, males and females complement each other. But, you know, ever since humankind achieved sentience, our doings have involved so much more than just reproduction. Our basic humanity is the same for all humans no matter their gender and sex, because out basic humanity is just that: human. Our basic humanity is not gendered (nor is it coloured for that matter – all those distinctions are all applied AFTER basic humanity is established). It doesn’t matter what science can do at all, he’s kinda right about that, we are all still human, and should all be afforded the same decency and treatment.

Since women have this built-in defensiveness when feminism is brought up [...]

No, that would be feminists who have a built-in defensiveness about their worldview. Not all women are feminists, in fact, due to feminism’s unfortunate and completely unacceptable history of racism (some of us are doing what we can to move away from that branch) a lot of black women (and other women of colour, obviously, but to my knowledge primarily black women) are not feminists, but declare themselves womanists instead. Way to go forgetting women of colour again. And not all women believe in equality for women either, there are female traditionalists out there, and while I disagree with their views, they certainly should not be disappeared like this. Way to go lumping us all into the same stew.

[...]it often precludes discussion of the real issues.

There you go, little ladies. Let the man tell you what the real issues are. Certainly not such silly little things as equal pay, equal respect and such.But he’ll spell it out for our insipid little ladybrains:

Feminism is not feminism.

See here, this is the issue. Y’all just think you know what you’re doing and that you know what you believe, when he knows way better that you believe something else.

When modern feminists say feminism they mean that women should be the complete equal of men in every way: on the job, at home with the kids, socially, sexually, emotionally, etc.

Yes, please. We’d certainly like that yes. And we’d also like for men like you to realize that we can think for ourselves, and that we know, what we’re saying, and what our words mean. But no, this here is a Man Who Explains Things, and because he is a man, he doesn’t need such silly things as definitions of words. He’ll make his own definitions, because he’s a Man Who Knows Things, and what he says goes.

That is not true feminism. It is gender neutrality aimed at creating more drones for corporate profit and consumption.

See, little ladies. All you want to be are drones for the megacorporatocracy. Nevermind that feminists clamour for the right to be the way we see fit – as in be individuals – no, we’re all just mindless drones. Seriously. Can’t this guy see that if he were right about what feminism is, feminism couldn’t even exist. It’s a paradox. No, he’ll tell us what true feminism is.

True feminism recognizes and embraces the differences between the sexes.

Feminism recognizes and embraces the differences between PEOPLE. No matter their sex, gender, race, ability, etc. But otherwise, yes.

It only seeks to provide equal rights for women in a society of white male patriarchy.

Wait… are you telling us that we really OUGHT to promote the white male patriarchy, ’cause that’s totally not what we’re going for here. Especially not those of us, who are of colour. (and since people tend to think I’m black, because I advocate against racism, I feel I must reiterate that I am white, but I acknowledge that there are a lot of women of colour in women’s movements, be they feminists, womanists or another label of their choice)

It seeks equal pay for women for the same work.

Check. That is exactly what we’re doing, you schmuck, only you’re apparently too obtuse to see what’s in front of your nose.

It does not seek to destroy the family by turning women into unfeeling, objectified automatons like gender neutrality does.

Check. I know of no feminist (or other women’s rights advocate) who seeks to turn women into robots. Rather the opposite. All the feminists I know are quite annoyed that women are continuously told that we’re too emotional even while people walk all over our emotions, and that we’re constantly objectified, not by ourselves, but by males like this bloke, who clearly do not view us as anything but objects with no individual thoughts of our own.

It does not deny our basic nature.

And check. Since basic nature differs from person to person (it’s called personality – fancy that) feminism is all about the freedom to be individuals. Something this guy is clearly not too cool with.

And then comes his screed against false feminism, some of which doesn’t even make sense to me. Even when I’m being charitable and really trying to understand what he meant:

False feminism is social engineering designed to undermine the family, which is the basic unit of societal stability and morality.

Yes, ’cause all those upright members of society, who have settled into families surely never cheat, lie, steal, murder or anything else. Remember, kids, as long as you have a family, you’re good. No murderer ever had a wife. No father (or mother) ever stole anything. No parents ever beat/raped/murdered their spouse and children. Nope. Never. Families are the new Jesus, and feminists hate families. That’s why feminists have partners, spouses and children whom they love just like everyone else… uh… wait a minute. I don’t think, I’ve ever seen such a logicFAIL. In which universe does this guy live?

It is also the one mechanism through which humanity can take back what the elite and their corporations have taken from us.

The family… Sure. The family is a mechanism through which we can get back at the megacorporatocracy. And that’s why married women have lower pay than single women. That’s why mothers have lower pay than women with no children. That’s why fathers get more pay than men with no children, and that’s why married men earn more than bachelors. Wait…  think I see what he’s doing. Of course, as a man, he wants a family, because families are actually an investment for men. Whereas for women it’s a risk, jobwise as well as healthwise, men with families are also healthier than those without, and for women it’s the opposite. Having families all around would exclusively benefit men in all financial ways – wages as well as amount of sick days. Since he’s (presumably – I still don’t know for sure) black, I can completely understand that he’d want some of what could help him rise up against the white-run corporations, but damn if he should do it at the expense of women of any colour. And let’s face it, due to racism and in many cases ableism and classism: whatever affects white women negatively will affect women of colour all the more because of the added effect of those other isms. But to this guy, that’s okay, because he’s not a woman.

They know this so they had to attack it. The family had to be destroyed.

Hold on there. Feminists know that the family unit, as it is perceived and valued in this society, is detrimental to women and therefore we question how it is viewed and valued. None of us (that I know of) are denying that a family can have great emotional value to the individual. We are, however, demanding the right to choose our own families ie. who (if) we partner with and whether or not we have kids, and the right to choose when we do it. Oh but that means that some men cannot get the family they want, when they want. And it seems our friend here is totally upset about that.

Women had to be confused, misled and objectified because without women, men are nothing.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. But the way I read it, if I were a man, I’d be very offended. Come on, dude. Men are people just like everyone else. Women have realised that they don’t have to be wed and live in marital misery if they don’t want to. Women have realised that if they exercise their right to choose their own partner and have a say with regards to time and place they might actually have marital bliss rather than misery. But I can see, how this is a bad thing to our male counterparts, because men without families make less money. But seriously, dude, just because men without families make less money, it doesn’t mean they’re lesser beings – not to mention nothing. Women and men are all full individual persons, whether or not they believe women and men should be equal, and whether or not they have significant others.

Now what do we have in America? a plague of angry, lonely, bitter women. Why? Because feminism has convinced them to ignore and suppress their natural instincts as child bearers, caregivers and nurturers.

The ‘funny’ thing is: Last I heard, the lonely, bitter and unhappy women were by a much larger percentage those who do not believe in equality. Those who have bought into the idea of child-bearing, care-giving, and nurturing being their only value are far more likely to be unhappy. Feminists, on the other hand, whether they have chosen to be SAHMs or working mothers or singles or partnered with no children or whatever are much more likely to be happy, because feminists are more likely to make the choices that are right for them, rather than the choices that look nice to prats like this bloke. Feminism does the opposite of what he says. Feminism tries to instill in women the knowledge and acceptance that what is right for them is not determined by their gender, but by their personality and preferences. And whether this is child-rearing or a high-powered career or something else, women should feel free to make the choice that feels right.

Also. Really awesome to see a male, who will never by any degree have natural female instincts (whatever they are) himself expound upon what women feel, and should feel and have always felt. Look, cupcake, you don’t know what women are like, not because you don’t know any women, but because you don’t know all women, and even if you did know all women you still wouldn’t know, because women are not all alike. But this seems to be the major problem with your grasp of reality. PEOPLE are different. Not just men and women as groups. All of us. Individuals. Do take notes.

Men are also unhappy because women do not need us as providers and protectors so we have been emasculated.

I was just waiting for this one. Speak for yourself, mate. I know plenty of men, who are perfectly happy that they don’t have to provide for the women in their lives. From personal experience I can say that both my boyfriend and I are quite stressed out and unhappy, because of the fact that currently he’s supporting me, due to a disability I have yet to find a way to deal with well enough that I can hold down a job. I’ll get there, because damn if I’ll sit on my arse for the rest of my life. (I’ll make an exception if I’ll be sitting on my arse working and making money – like, in an office – then I’ll be cool with the sitting-biz ). But let me just get back to the point here: This is just one more insult against men. So, dudes, feminists in general do not consider you lesser men or less manly just because women can make money of their own these days. That’s just conservative traditionalists like this bloke, who insist that a man’s only value is in his wallet. That’s not what feminists are saying, we’re saying the opposite, spite of what this guy would have you believe.

That was the true intention of the feminist movement in America, not to liberate women from oppression but to liberate them from their womanhood.

He’s almost right. He just kinda forgets that the womanhood he refers to is womanhood-as-defined-by-men. Feminists demanded the right for women to define their own womanhood, rather than being forced to bow to an artificial womanhood defined by and for men.

The natural instincts of women are not inferior to those of men.

Of course not. He actually says some sensible things – he should just leave them at these short sensible sentences, because when he begins explaining them he gets it all wrong.

They are just different and complementary. Men are the hunters and women are the gatherers. Men are the providers and women are the nurturers.

Which is why no woman would ever want a well-paid job or to go on a hunting trip and no man would ever want to hold his child affectionately. Yup. Case is proven clear. Yep.

We are barely out of the jungle as a species on this planet and no one knows where evolution may take us one day but this technocracy that seeks to neutralize gender for control and profit is stunting the process of evolution.

Wait, I thought he just said feminists were the ones trying to neutralize gender. Now it’s the technocracy? Can he make up his mind? Interesting how he’s totally considering all of us stone age folks as if evolution never applied to our species, but he’s at the same time worried that the process is being stunted. Is the human species evolving or is it not? Sheesh.

We are fighting everything that makes us human in an effort to conform to the propaganda from the media that is overwhelming our innate sense of self.

Actually, we feminists are fighting propaganda from the media as well as from idiots like him, who seek to make us into uniform little woman-bots, who are all the same and all have the same purpose in life. Sorry, dude, sometimes a woman’s innate sense of self (what the heck is that, anyway?) directs her to become someone not approved by him or any other Dudely Dude of Dude Nation. This guy really needs to learn to live with it for his own sake, because women are not going to stop being people just because he tells us to. That’ll probably be hard for him to swallow.

Yes, there are some women that want to work right along side men in cutthroat corporate careers where they can pursue money and validation. That is fine for them as long as it is what they really want

Yes, exactly, but what kind of short circuit happened in his head, when he figured that all women are at heart child-bearers and nurturers all the while some of them prefer to be competitive career people and don’t want children at all? This goes against everything he’s said so far. Which is it? Do women have the ability to wish something outside nurturing or do they not? And if they do, then doesn’t that speak against his argument that all women are nurturers? It does, in fact. I hope he can see how much he’s contradicting himself. Of course, if he’s like other anti-feminists, who come here, he won’t have read as far into the post as this anyway.

That is fine for them as long as it is what they really want and they are not trying to live up to the myth of false feminism as real feminism.

Aside from the fact that he’s completely botched his understanding of feminism as well as what he thought was “the real” (his own) definition thereof, I still don’t see what the problem is. Of course, since I believe that women are full adults who can (and should therefore have the right to) make their own decisions, even if they turn out to be mistakes, I don’t give a flying fuck as to whether a woman “really wants” what she’s choosing to do, or whether she’s just sorta doing that for lack of a more attractive option. It’s HER CHOICE, and choice and freedom cannot be limited by a clause saying “You must only choose what you really want”, mostly because it’s actually quite often that people don’t quite know what they really want, and if that was the clause to our freedom, well, now that wouldn’t be freedom at all, now would it? And here I thought this was basic knowledge.

Perhaps tomboys are naturally inclined to such behavior.

See, he’s willing to test the waters of this one, but he still claims to know what women envision when hearing a given word, and he also claims to know how our natural instincts work – for all of us is the implication in this post. I’m less and less sure this guy even knows what he himself means and thinks.

Either way, sexism is still a huge problem in this country that needs to be addressed

See? One more of those instances when he says something true and factually correct. And then he goes and messes it up again:

but what has happened is that women have become distracted

Yes, our poor little one-track easily distracted ladybrains…

by trying to become the equal of men

Equal. Yes. Identical. No. Learn the bloody difference

which in effect is more sexist to themselves than anything men could ever do.

Huh? We’re being sexist against ourselves be demanding equal rights and equal treatment? Something tells me this guy doesn’t know what equal means. I don’t think he knows what sexist means either. He certainly proved he hadn’t a clue what feminism means.

Women are objectifying themselves now as strippers. Girls Gone Wild, pornography and the like.

Uhhh no, men are doing the objectifying aplenty. Some women have merely decided to make them pay for it. Women can’t be objectifying themselves unless we were the ones to look at and pay for these female strippers, which I’m sure some women do, mainly individuals who are of the lesbian persuasion. He also handily ignores the existence of male strippers – a phenomenon that some bi and straight women fancy quite much. Same goes for the rest. Way to go disappearing all non-het persons out there.

It’s not just those glaring examples either.

Hold your breath! On second thought, don’t. It’s not worth it. Use it to laugh instead.

Women approach men as if the only thing they have to offer men is a nice rack and a tight ass.

And why would that be I wonder? Surely not because men have spent a lifetime or more telling us that T&A is all we’re worth. What about those of us who approach men as people? Where are we in this equation? We’re not women or something? We can’t be, because this guy KNOWS women. Trufax.

Women have almost completely stopped cultivating nurturing, caring, loving personalities and environments that men need to make long term commitments to them.

Yes, because it’s the women’s responsibility to create “environments” that men want. How about men create the environments they want themselves and the women do the same. Then some people will decide that their “environmental politics” match and they’ll shack up (or not), and others will be happy where they are. It’s not even all women who want or even need long-term commitments. If a man doesn’t like a woman’s natural personality, how about he not date nor marry her? How’s that for a solution. Asking women to cultivate the personalities men prefer is like taking a moonlight stroll at day and asking the sun to be less bright or at least more like the moon. How about you seek out the moon if that’s what you want? There are plenty women with “caring, loving personalities” out there, but since one man only needs one woman, why should all the rest of us be what he wants as well? Obvious: He wants his free pick.

Men want to protect women and take care of their families.

And all those nasty feminists won’t let the men do what they want with no regard for what the women in their lives want. How evil of us. Also, note how he completely forgets that some men are gay and couldn’t care less about having female partners. But, I suppose, in his worldview, those men don’t count as men, even though according to biology, which he seems so oddly fond of, they are, in fact, men. That goes for cis men, at least. I suspect trans men and women don’t show up on this guy’s radar at all. It’d just make him all the more confused, and then we wouldn’t have such insightful posts as this one.

That doesn’t make women weak or dependent.

No, it makes men seem neurotically disordered control-freaks. Having such a need to be the bread-winner and protector that you cannot possibly be happy in any other situation is in fact frighteningly close to a disorder that the rest of us would seek treatment of therapy for. But men? Nope, they just demand that the rest of the world cater to their preferences. It’s much easier for them, as it doesn’t actually require any work except that of their surroundings.

It makes a family and that is what the elite fear.

So, a bunch of blood relatives are only a family if the MAN is allowed to protect and take care of the rest? Damn, there are a lot of families, I mean, groups of related people, who think they’re families even when they’re not. Whooey, glad someone told them.

It is the only weapon we have against them and they know it.

Yes, for all of those anti-feminist guys to set up families in which they can treat women and children like chattel and possessions, that will surely bring down feminists all across the world. Wait, he didn’t say feminists, he said elite. Now it’s the elite, that’s the problem? Huh? First feminists, then false feminists, then the technocracy, then the elite. Seriously… this guy seems to have it in for a lot of different groups.

It’s such a shame, though, ’cause the only one who seems to think the family unit is a threat against anything is him (and possibly people like him), everyone else knows that there are feminists (true and false ones both), members of the technocracy and the elite that have families. Quite many do, in fact. And tat doesn’t seem to bring them down any. I wonder if family is some secret code word for some hitherto unknown weapon of mass destruction.

Begone, foul creep, I have a family, and I’m not afraid to use it!

…

That sounds kinda wrong, no?

Anyway, I should really thank this bloke, because despite his complete disappearing of women of colour, feminists of colour, feminists with families etc etc those offenses fade into insignificance in face of his not making an ounce of sense in his entire blogpost. Only for a moment, though, because a brief glance at the rest of the blog will show you frightening levels of hatred against Jews, women’s rights, President Obama and other groups that I didn’t identify because the drivel and hatred was simply too saddening. In good proper spirit of blogging I shall link to this unwillingly hilarious post, and I shall shudder to think what sorts of commenters it will bring here. Hooray for the eternal moderation queue. Here’s the link, read at your own peril, absolutely none of the content is suitable for kind-hearted persons.

Minister shows restraint

Recently there’s been a lot of concern about the use of force in psychiatric wards here in Denmark. Many stories of patients being restrained to their beds for weeks on end have rolled over the headlines, and the Council of Europe have expressed concern that there seems to be an overuse of patient restraints in Danish psychiatry.

Apparently our minister of health care has been thinking. Apparently he isn’t very good at it. He has now suggested, that the psychiatric wards start using restraints on mobile patients, that is, securing their hands to prevent them from hitting and preventing them from kicking by placing restraints between their legs. He says this will minimize patient violence. He also suggests, we allow the wards to use padded cells. Because in his mind this will be an alternative to restraining the patients.

…

Get that… now think about it. How is it not restraining patients to keep them locked up in a cell with no furniture?

Ever since the issue of restraints in psychiatry surfaced in mainstream media, experts have suggested that more resources be channeled to the area. See, in the past 8 years the health care system has received much attention. Politicians have been elected based on how they’d work to minimize queue-lines for different kinds of surgery. They’ve been harping on about how waiting time from first appointment to diagnosis to treatment should be shortened. And all the time those of us, who have read up on it, have known that this goes for everything – except psychiatry. Psychiatry is the only area in Danish health care that has not been improved. Rather the opposite, it has had several budget cuts. Several in-patient clinics have been closed. Whole departments have been changed from in-patient to out-patient wards. Staff has been reduced, and the staff that is still left receives little to no post-education courses to update their knowledge to new advances in the field.

And now the politicians are surprised that staff more and more often arrive at their wits’ end (not to mention they haven’t time to talk to all the patients), and see no other solution than restraint. Where did that come from? Well, maybe from the continuous budget-cuts.

And according to Jacob Axel Nielsen, our health care minister, the best way to avoid restraining patients by force is… restraining them by force. Only in a different way. It makes me sick. How about we instead give staff the time and money to find out what it is that triggers psychotic episodes with the individual patients? No? No, see that would actually cost money, which we’re not willing to spend on those insane weirdos. Money should be spent on normal people with physical illnesses.

Also, the method of restraining patients’ hands and feet is illegal, but has already been used. And therefore the minister will attempt to make it legal. Yes, well, murder is illegal, and it happens anyway, so why don’t we just make it legal? Totally awesome argument right there.

The social issues spokesperson from the Social-Democrats, Mette Fredriksen, have called the minister’s suggestion old-fashioned, and she says that in the rest of Europe it is discussed, how forcible restraint can be avoided, and all the while the Danish minister tells the Danish psychiatry that more force is the future. She states that this is not the decent way to greet our psychiatric patients.

And boy, is she right. A few places in the country we have psych ERs. They are basically places people can go if they need emergency psych help, like if they’re heading into a psychotic episode or if they’re suicidal. But who really wants to go there if you risk being locked away as a result? I certainly don’t. I have thoughts of death and suicide often enough, but I don’t dare go there. Because what if nobody has time to talk to me, and they just tie me up to a bed instead – you know – just to make sure I don’t actually harm myself. I don’t know if that would happen, but for an Aspie, who needs to be in control of herself at all times and can’t stand the touch of other humans it would mean descent into insanity. So while I might need their help once in a while, I’m too friggin scared of going there. A friend of mine told me of a friend of hers, who went to the psych ER because she was suicidal. The people there sent her home, told her to light a candle and things would look a little brighter. Two days later she tried to off herself. So yeah…

The Socialist People’s Party’s social issues and psychiatry spokesperson, Özlem Sara Cekic, says that the minister’s suggestion is grotesque, and she too points out that it is ridiculous to replace force with more force. Hardly an improvement.

And at the same time another bit of news breaks: New research proves what most of us had already figured out, namely that there is a clear correlation between fewer beds for in-patients in the psych wards and the amount of homicides, attempted murders and arson committed by people with mental disorders increasing. Fancy that. When fewer patients who need 24-hour care can actually get that care, they are at a greater risk of hurting their surroundings. I’d be curious to see if they also checked the correlation between fewer beds for in-patients and the amount of suicides. My guess is that the correlation will look rather the same as the other. But the point is, now that we know this for sure, I would hope that the politicians would stop closing in-patient wards. But unfortunately I expect that they will not. I expect that once again this right-wing government will prove that they have only concern for ‘normal’ people; that they can cure and get to pay taxes from a full-time jobs. The sad truth is that most psych patients in need of 24-hour care will never get so well that they can provide for themselves. This means that helping them will not land the government a profit at the end, and I suspect that this is why the psych area has been cut, diminished and further short-staffed during the past 8 years with the right-wing parties at the wheel.

The right-wing normalcy supremacists clearly are of the opinion that they should only ever help those who’ll eventually have a chance of helping themselves (and thus paying back). Those, who can never hope to help themselves, should be left to the wolves or hidden away, where they won’t be a nuisance. There’s a reason I vote left.

I’d just like for the minister Jacob Axel Nielsen to spend a week with hands and feet restrained or in a rubber/padded cell and then tell us he didn’t feel restrained.

Or he might have been a tourist

Yesterday with all the whoopla about the IOC congress there was wall-to-wall coverage of the whole damn thing. It wasn’t possible to get any decent news from anywhere else in the country (or outside it for that matter) for several hours. All cams were focused on President Obama just like they were focused on Michelle Obama, when she arrived three days ago. It’s cool they’re, it’s god advertising for our nation, but seriously, half the time the cam is looking at  an immobile plane where nothing happens, and the reporters are talking out of their asses to pass the time. Such golden words were said. A man in military uniform exited the plane, the journalist says: “And here we have a man from the army.” I think I had that figured out myself, ya know.

And later on it went downhill. After President Obama had had a meeting with Prime Minister Lykke Rasmussen, they did a double-interview in which Obama said he’d been to Copenhagen before, and he loves this city. That’s cool. But then the reporter says: “Oh, he’s been here before, he says. As a basketballer perhaps…”

…

Hold that thought…

‘Cause you know all black men play basketball professionally – even those who have publicly stated that they’re no good at it. ARGH! How about maybe he was in Copenhagen as a tourist, before he became a President or maybe even a Senator? Maybe? Since that’s the most common reason people come to Copenhagen – as tourists. That couldn’t be it, could it?

Sheesh. And I’m pretty sure the reporter didn’t even realize how racist his ‘funny’ remark really was. So sad.

It’s only Parkinson’s

I’ve been wanting to take a picture of something for a while. But since I seldom carry my camera with me I haven’t yet had the opportunity. If I do get a pic, I’ll post it, but for now I’ll just tell you about a man I’ve seen downtown many times. Or, rather it’s not so much the man, it’s his bike. It’s an old bike, it’s seen some wear and tear, but it’s functioning and clearly kept in prime working condition. It has bags attached to it, for ease of storing groceries, I assume. But most notable of all are the signs. Two sheets of paper with a brief text, laminated and pinned on the bags.

I’d seen the bike several times before I actually caught a glimpse of its owner. But the bike told me what to expect, or the signs did. See, those pieces of laminated paper had two very telling texts.

I’m neither drunk nor crazy, I just have Parkinson’s. If I look like I need help, feel free to offer it.

And

I’m neither stupid nor dangerous, I just have Parkinson’s. Feel free to talk to me, I can talk back, if you give me time.

I’m not entirely sure I remember the latter correctly. But it was something to that effect. The man is not always around his bike, hence my not actually seeing him the first several times I spotted it. I’ve seen it parked outside several different stores, so he’s obviously able to take care of himself to a great extent. I haven’t seen people interact with him, so I haven’t seen any of those things the signs are obviously an attempt at preventing, but my, they’re telling.

From reading those two signs of his, it is so plain that people must have expected him to be from the worst dregs of society on so many occasions. The Danish versions of those signs reflect a good amount of humour, too, (I’m not sure I conveyed that in my translations) and I’m so impressed he can take all that and still be humourous about it.

I’m somewhat familiar with Parkinson’s because the father of an ex-boyfriend of mine has it, and I’ve witnessed it growing gradually worse, but be that as it may, it really shouldn’t be so hard to treat people decently. I still don’t understand why so many people are so quick to conclude that the man must be drunk, stoned or crazy, when Parkinson’s (and other diseases that attack the central nervous system) are so common in our society. Perhaps because we tend to think that disabled people should be stuffed away and therefore we assume it surely can’t be they, whom we meet on the streets.

It’s just sad that this man, who is obviously capable of taking care of himself, feels a need to defend himself and his behavioural patterns before an interaction has even taken place.

For shame, society!

No Thanks, America

I’m all for receiving exports from you in terms of science, inventions, good books, music and actors. That’s cool. But there’s one thing I would’ve appreciated you’d have kept for yourselves:

40 Days For Life

This despicable anti-abortion propaganda group has now begun their first serious campaign. On the road leading to Holbæk hospital they have placed posters depicting aborted foetuses – as they are wont to do. Disgusting images that do not even have relevance in our nation.

See, here in Denmark abortion has been legal for many years. Since 1973 abortion has been free and legal until the 12th week of the pregnancy. And it really is free, due to our socialised health care. You don’t have to pay a single dime to have an abortion.

Until the 8th week the abortion will be done by medicine, Mifepriston. About a third of all abortions in Denmark are done this way.

From 8th to 12th week it will be a surgical abortion. About two thirds of all abortions in Denmark are of this kind.

Sounds terrible, no?

After the 12th week, they use what I think is what Americans call partial-birth abortion due to the size of the foetus. This is why abortion after the 12th week must be reviewed by a team of doctors before being granted. Partial-birth does have more significant risks for the mother, than the other two less invasive procedures do. But generally, due to abortion being free and legal, rarely is partial-birth abortion necessary in cases that do not involve foetal or maternal distress, because if it’s ‘only’ a matter of wanting a baby or not, the decision is free to be made before the 12th week. As a result, only 4% of abortions in Denmark are of the partial-birth kind. And none of them happen after the 22nd week, which is the limit of legal abortion.

Since ‘89 it has been illegal to force doctors, nurses, midwives and other carers to assist at abortion if they do not wish to do so. Other medical professionals will take over. It’s fairly simple around here, because most of our hospitals are public and therefore duty-bound to offer the service that is guaranteed us by law.

Admittedly, the amount of late abortions have gone up slightly the past few years. Most likely because of a combination of more detailed foetal diagnostics and poorer average health among the population, resulting in slightly more women not being able to survive a pregnancy. And this even though the overall number of abortions have gone down.

When applying for a late abortion one MUST have good reason for not continuing the pregnancy. Defects or hereditary conditions not diagnosed till after the 12th week are always granted permission as far as I know, as are abortions that are necessary due to rape or incest (basically criminally caused pregnancies). For the same reason girls under the age of 15 (the age of consent) will always be granted an abortion unless they’re beyond the 22 week limit where the foetus is considered viable. If the mother’s life is in danger abortion will always be granted, though after 22 weeks it will be an induced birth (or if necessary c-section) to attempt to save the viable foetus as well.

The Danish branch of Right to Life had their plans for an abortion memorial foiled by the Supreme Court a couple of years ago due to a technicality. I certainly hope that these groups which fundamentalist Americans have so kindly exported to us do not gain much of a foothold here. But I do think their chances are small, considering that the Christian-Democrats lost all their seats in parliament for lack of votes not so long ago. We have a strong tradition for not mixing religion and politics, so I think we’ll be okay.

Now I just wish the 40 Days For Life bigots would leave well enough alone and not attempt to trigger the women, who had to abort a wanted child late in order to save their lives. The only people they’ll hit with this campaign, namely those women who had late abortions due to complications (or rape/incest), are the ones who need it least of all.

Why is this so? Because most abortions are early abortions, where not much of a foetus is seen anyway, so all those scary pictures of aborted foetuses that look like children? They don’t apply to 96% of abortions in this country anyway.

I am glad that the news channels didn’t even deign to show pictures of the posters. They didn’t so much as mention them among the headlines. They were just a little side-note on text-tv. Nonetheless, these bigoted groups are one of our more unfortunate imports from America. Keep them to yourselves, guys. Please?