There's an episode of
Law & Order: SVU which stars Stephen Rhea as a released convict who spent so much time in solitary confinement during his 19 years in prison, he's now damaged and using it as a defense for a new crime he's committed. Detective Stabler doesn't believe being alone for so long can be anything but relaxing, so he voluntarily puts himself through a weekend in the hole to prove he's right and then discovers that it does in fact suck a big bag of dicks. By the end of the episode Rhea is found guilty and again sent to solitary confinement, but Stabler's new perspective has him getting Rhea moved from the hole to gen pop.
A mile walk in another man's shoes can give you a new perspective, but there are some things you shouldn't need to experience to be kind, reasonable, and fair. Some shit just requires that you have a heart and not be so fucking stupid.
Now, the politics surrounding women's bodies has always been intrusive because it's always been in the hands of people who don't have vaginas, brains, or a heart, but any progress that's ever been made on our behalf is being repealed,
bill by
bill. It's as if their goal is to just have us be their
reproductive concubines.
So let's talk about
mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds, shall we?
Does someone really need to be raped to understand that when you are the unwilling recipient of something shoved into your body, it is rape? Because that one should be obvious even to those without a brain. If you break your arm and the doctor tells you that before you can have painkillers, x-rays, or a cast, you have to endure a completely unnecessary rectal exam, is that alright with you? Because these mandatory ultrasounds require a woman seeking an abortion to have an unnecessary procedure involving a 10 inch wand inserted into her vagina. There's no medical necessity to it - the law is there to scare women out of having an abortion. If a woman is unwilling to have this invasive procedure done, it is rape, and now, in the states where the law has passed, it's legal rape. Thank you, conservatives.
Do you really need to walk a mile in another man's shoes for this particular perspective? Do you need to have objects unnecessarily and unwillingly shoved into you to understand?
A few days ago I watched Pedro Almodóvar's
La Piel que Habito (The Skin I Live In.) A grieving surgeon kidnaps his daughter's rapist - Vicente - cuts off his penis, and gives him a vagina. He explains to Vicente that the walls of his new vagina will stick together and close without the right therapy and then proceeds to show him, one by one, an assortment of vaginal dilators ranging from slender to a thickness resembling a fully erect penis. It will be up to Vicente to insert each dilator into his new vagina, starting with the thinnest, until he is able to get past the pain and work his way up to the thickest. The look of grief and sorrow on Vicente's face when he learns he no longer has a penis is indescribable, but the look of horror and fear it shows when he sees those dilators says everything I can't, and trying would only be the tip of the iceberg. Or vaginal dilator.
If only conservatives could understand the torture they're inflicting without having to go through something this extreme.
Then, last night, I see this. At 2 minutes and 30 seconds, you'll hear what I heard. And it wasn't on any news program I watch.
Do you see where the conservatives in this country are going? Do you get it yet? Because if you don't, the conservatives in the Supreme Court have just made it possible for you to gain that whole new perspective I was hoping you'd have.
Blue Monday
You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.
Fucking act like it.
