It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date. – George Bernard Shaw
One year ago today I published “The Camel’s Nose”, an early miscellanea column; I hadn’t yet started grouping updates and miscellanea as separate columns, so the post is actually composed of one new topic (Congress’ first major attempt to gain control of the internet) and two updates. Since then (with the help of my diligent readers) my access to relevant articles has grown considerably, so I hereby present you with twelve updates, some of them referring to multiple (though connected) articles. Whew!
A Whore in the Bedroom (September 9th, 2010)
In this column I expressed the philosophy that “When one has a living creature under one’s care, it is one’s responsibility to take care of that creature’s needs, or else to arrange for someone else to do so. And if you shirk that responsibility, you only have yourself to blame for the inevitable and foreseeable consequences.” Usually it’s women who tend to be lax in this department, and their neglect keeps whores in business. But a number of my readers have said that it’s not unusual to see the opposite nowadays, and this story from the Telegraph of September 5th (called to my attention by regular reader Marla) is an example of it:
…France’s civil code…states married couples must agree to a “shared communal life”. A judge has now ruled that this law implies that “sexual relations must form part of a marriage”. The rare legal decision came after the wife filed for divorce two years ago, blaming the break-up on her husband’s lack of activity in the bedroom. A judge in Nice…granted the divorce and ruled the husband…was solely responsible for the split. But the 47-year-old ex-wife then took him back to court demanding 10,000 euros in compensation for “lack of sex over 21 years of marriage”. The ex-husband claimed “tiredness and health problems” had prevented him from being more attentive between the sheets…but [the] judge…ruled: “A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent. By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other.”
I certainly agree in principle, though I would’ve settled with naming the husband at fault rather than actually awarding monetary damages. It’s interesting to see some of the online commentary on this story, which seems to think the idea that spouses owe each other sex is somehow weird even though it should be obvious. OK, guys, I’m always standing up for your right to get sufficient nookie from your wives, but now it’s the ladies’ turn; if you’re not putting out as much as she needs, get with the program!
What If They Threw a Party and Nobody Came? (November 17th, 2010)
In this item I reported that Gardasil, the vaccine against the human papillomavirus, isn’t reaching the girls who need it most: “70% of the girls who are most at risk for venereal warts are either not getting the shot or else failing to show up for the two boosters.” I stated that in my opinion, the real reason for the lack of interest isn’t any of the faux reasons advanced by opponents but rather plain American prudishness:
If there were a vaccine for HIV or hepatitis people might get it because those diseases can also be spread by blood, but if there were one for herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea or even chlamydia I’m sure it would be just as unpopular as this one. And the reason for that is the same reason that the rate of venereal disease is vastly higher among university students than it is among streetwalkers: The bizarre but popular delusion, encouraged by cops and religious fundamentalists, that only “bad girls” take precautions against venereal diseases.
Despite her nonsensical claim that Gardasil can cause brain damage (an idea so farfetched a team of bioethicists bet her $11,000 she couldn’t substantiate it), this is no doubt the real reason behind would-be presidential candidate Michelle Bachman’s opposition to the vaccine:
Physicians are bracing for more parents to refuse the HPV vaccine…[as] comments by [Michelle Bachman] stoke growing and unfounded fears about a whole class of common immunizations needed to fight disease…Bachmann first raised the issue during a Republican presidential debate on Monday as a swipe at Republican rival and Texas Governor Rick Perry, who issued an executive order in 2007 mandating girls get the HPV vaccine as part of a school immunization requirement…she questioned the state’s authority to force “innocent little 12-year-old girls” to have a “government injection” that was “potentially dangerous.” The following day, she told NBC’s “Today” show the story of a woman from Tampa, Florida, who approached her after the debate and said her daughter became “mentally retarded” after getting the Gardasil vaccine…Physician groups…rushed out statements defending the safety of Merck’s vaccine and Cervarix made by GlaxoSmithKline, whose most common side effects include a sore arm, a rash and fever…The [president of the American Academy of Pediatrics] says there is absolutely no scientific validity to Bachmann’s statement…”Since the vaccine has been introduced (in 2006), more than 35 million doses have been administered, and it has an excellent safety record”…But no amount of proof will suffice for some families, who fear that even a small percentage of children may be harmed…according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 32 percent of adolescent girls last year had gotten all three shots of the HPV vaccine…
I received the vaccine last year and experienced fever after the first dose and a sore arm after the second. The recommended course is three shots, but as mentioned above many girls never get all three. There’s at least some good news on that front, though:
Two doses of the human papillomavirus vaccine may offer just as much protection…as the three-dose regimen now being used…[according to] data from…[a] trial [involving] 7,466 women…20 percent of them got only one dose or two doses for a variety of reasons. After four years, the researchers found, two doses…offered the same level of protection against HPV infection as three. Even one dose offered a high level of protection. While the researchers said that more studies are needed to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of the fewer doses, they wrote in a journal news release: “Our clinical efficacy data provide suggestive evidence that an HPV vaccine program that provides fewer doses to more women could potentially reduce cervical cancer incidence more than a standard three-dose program that uses the same total number of doses but in fewer women”…
Getting it down to one dose would be better still, reducing both cost and attrition; after that, the only obstacle left to protecting girls from this potentially fatal disease is parental ignorance and stupidity.
What a Week! (November 28th, 2010)
In this column I mentioned a new mega-brothel in Spain, pointing out that such bordellos
…can only help to solidify our position; large and prominent businesses not only protect their own interests, but also enrich a number of other nearby and related businesses which will also devote money to stopping any attempts by control freaks to stop the gravy train. The legal efforts of big, wealthy casinos generally tend to help little truck stops with slot machines and have made both crooked gambling dens and police persecution of back-room card games a thing of the past, and the legal efforts of big, wealthy brothels will also tend to assist small brothels and solitary practitioners of the trade.
Given that premise, this item from Australia (called to my attention by regular reader Stick) might be considered somewhat bad news:
A proposal for what would have been Australia’s largest brothel has been unanimously rejected by the City of Sydney Council…Lord Mayor Clover Moore told the meeting there was little doubt such a large brothel would have an impact of its neighbours…Council officers had reported the business had a record of good management since it opened in 2002, but the meeting heard there were some residents who did not agree…”Residents have told councillors about the impacts from traffic and antisocial behaviour. Those impacts are expected to increase if the size is doubled. It is the size I think that is of great concern,” Councillor Moore said…Several councillors made clear they supported the operation of registered brothels within the city, but not of the size proposed.
Taxes and other business-derived fees are like a drug to politicians, and once they’re hooked they’re unlikely to kick the habit; because of that one must be wary of governmental attempts to keep sex businesses small (and therefore less lucrative from a tax standpoint). Still, the councilors made it clear that it was the size of the business that was the problem rather than its nature, so the rejection probably isn’t any major cause for alarm.
With respect to the ‘Whore In The Bedroom’ piece, I pass on this Rabbinical advice:
http://amazingwomenrock.com/how-to-get-your-wife-to-orgasm
And this Lucinda Williams anthem to the underserved:
http://amazingwomenrock.com/you-didnt-even-make-me-come-on
Enjoy.
LOL! Thanks for those, Susan; I had read the Rabbi joke before but I still think it’s hilarious! 🙂
😉
Maggie, I’m happy to see you included the news story I sent you in the October Updates relating to “A Whore in the Bedroom”.
The Frenchman in that case claimed he didn’t have sex with his wife for 21 years because of “tiredness and health problems”, which sounds like he admitted he was impotent. What do you think married couples should do if the husband is impotent, or the wife is frigid?
Sex therapy, if they can afford it. I think for people to get married without ever having sex with one another beforehand demonstrates a touching but pathological level of innocence; people need to know if they’re sexually compatible before making such a commitment. If they’re compatible but later experience dysfunction and the low-drive partner honestly doesn’t believe he or she has a psychological issue (anger, resentment, etc) with the spouse, then a physician may be able to help because the problem might be physiological.
Maggie, are you in favor of the government forcing gardasil shots?
Rick Perry didn’t force any Gardasil shots.
If you read his Executive Order on the subject – he stated clearly … “Parents have the final decision on all matters pertaining to their children’s healthcare”.
He further directed the state Health Institutions to make it easy for parents to “opt out” of the vaccine by providing internet “opt out” requests.
All Rick Perry’s EO did was establish a funding route for kids to get the shots and establish responsibilities among the health care agencies in a system to give them – that’s all.
If Rick Perry committed a “sin” in ordering the vaccinations – it was in using taxpayer moneys (both federal and state) to fund them – but he never ordered a “zero tolerance” administration of the HPV vaccine.
Opposition to this was motivated EXACTLY as Maggie states – the Conservatives have this sick notion that only “nasty” girls need protection from this virus.
My daughter turns 13 next year – and she’s getting this vaccine.
Exactly. If the girls will just behave themselves, why they won’t need the vaccine, so don’t give it to them. And if they don’t behave themselves… I guess they deserve to get cancer? Seems to be the idea.
These people who constantly assert policy on the assumption that only fear keeps anybody in line, and who seem puzzled when anybody comes at things from a different angle… I want these people to be scared, all the time. Because if there is anybody who can only be kept straight through fear, it’s somebody who believes that people can only be kept straight through fear.
Sailor,
As captured in this Limerick. (I love Limericks almost as much as Puns)
There once was a young lady named Wilde
Kept herself quite Undefiled
By thinking of Jesus
And Venereal Diseases
And the Danger of Having a Child
Then this seems to be the place to share one I wrote a few years ago:
An eager young lady from Malverne
To entertain groups of men did yearn.
When she did a big party
Some impatient smarty
At the back of the line yelled, “When’s my turn?”
For Wilde this worked for a while,
She’d give not an inch lest he took a mile,
But these days we marry quite late,
And so it’s not just due to fate,
That ‘ere thirty she made young men smile.
I’m reminded of the Lee Marvin line from “Paint Your Wagon.”
“Why would she give up making a lot of men happy just to make one man miserable?”
And,
“She’s giving up whoring? Why would she do that?”
“Her husband objects to her continuing to work.”
“Well, that is a narrow minded man.”
(I don’t have the colloquial approach just right, but think of Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood as you read it. You’ll get the drift…)
I was suddenly reminded of another movie. The Cheyenne Social Club (1970). Stars Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, and Shirley Jones. Straight-laced aging cowboy is informed that his elder brother has died and left him a successful business. Turns out it’s a brothel. What does Stewart’s character do? Shut it down in the name of morality? How moral is it to throw all those girls out of work? Become the new proprietor? Isn’t that compromising his principles? And why does Henry Fonda talk for a thousand miles?
Jumping in on the forced vaccine question;
I think that mandatory vaccination should be limited to potentially epidemic disease (smallpox, plague), where herd immunity is an important consideration. I also think that determining what diseases belong to this category, when vaccines should be distributed, how compliance should be enforced, and what should be done with PROVEN anti-vaccine quacks should be the entire business of the Center for Disease Control, and that any CD employee who dabbles in political ‘diseases’ (like gunshot wounds) should be keelhauled ….. under an aircraft carrier.
To my mind the CDC is one of the few obviously necessary modern Federal agencies, and it infuriates me when the “If you don’t use the money your budget gets cut” mentality pushes it into pandering to trendy hysteria.
As for the Autism/Vaccination meme; I am given to understand that no replicable scientific evidence supports it. That isn’t to say that none ever will, or that we should stop looking. But people who put forward fraudulent studies disgust me. I’m delighted that the British doctor who made such a name for himself has lost his license to practice now that his fake ‘study’ has been exposed.
I agree with you 100%. I also think that the “opt out” is wrong, because it still makes people have to do something in order to not do what the government thinks is best. People should have to “opt in”, not the other way around.
The enlightenment police make people have to opt out of things… 😉
me, the problem with leaving it up to parents to “opt in” to have their kids get an HPV vaccine, is that too many parents won’t “opt in” because they’re ignorant about HPV or because they refuse to acknowledge that their kids might be or might become sexually active or rape victims.
I am in favor of over-ruling parental authority on the matter of HPV vaccines, just as I am in favor of over-ruling parental authority on other matters of youthful sexuality such as sex education and abortion. Too many parents just want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend their kids are asexual.
you have some valid points, BUT I am reluctant to replace Parental authority with the authority of academic “experts”. Recent history show (me, anyway) that such “expertise” is often influenced by trendy intellectualism. And if childrens’ educations are going to be dictated by trendiness, then I’m for letting their parents make a wide variety of mistakes, rather than giving the school the authority to make one.
Also, I am reluctant to ask schools that are having a hard time teaching the little ankle-biters to read, write, and figure to expend energy and time on anything that is likely to generate a lot of parental angst. The public schools are not meeting their most basic goals. It seems to me that a lot of distracting issues (sex ed., self-esteem training, art) should be put on hold until they have the basic issue under control.
A young woman with a kid who can read, write, and figure can probably make her way better than one without offspring who remains as ignorant as a stone.
Setting aside art and sex-ed and music and such is what’s been done for the last decade. So it’s kind of hard to suggest that this will solve any problems not already solved.
But aside from that, even, are today’s kids doing worse academically than kids a decade or a generation ago? I know that the claim that they are is voiced often, but every generation does that. You’d think humanity hit it’s intellectual, moral, and cultural apex about the time of Lucy, and it’s been all downhill ever since.
Maybe students are dumber today, but I’m always skeptical of this sort of thing.
They’re not dumber at all; they’re simply asked to learn less and to put forth less effort, so that’s what they do. If the standards were raised instead of lowered, the kids would rise to the occasion. Poor American education is the fault of the bureaucrats in control of the schools, curriculum and standards, not those sentenced to a twelve-year sentence in the state babysitting and worker-making service.
OK, so it’s not the kids fault that they’re doing worse.
But are they actually doing worse? I remember in the Eighties all sorts of dreadful pronouncements about our generation. My personal favorite: some significant percentage (I think it was 40%) of American high school students couldn’t find the United States on a world map. I hear similar things today.
But it was largely bunk then, and I suspect (not saying I can prove) that it’s largely bunk now.
I taught for two years in the late ’80s, and I dealt with many, many high school students as a librarian. And if it’s gotten worse since the early ’90s, Athena help us. 🙁
I suspect Athena can relax. Every generation is convinced that the one following is going to Hell in a poorly-made hand-basket, and yet we never seem to arrive in lake of fire.
Now, Sailor, you know that isn’t true; the world and the human race continue, but cultures die just as organisms do. There is no such thing as an immortal culture, nor is there a guaranteed life-span; like people, some die young and some live to a very great age, and we have neither yet discovered a dependable means of diagnosing terminal cultural maladies nor developed a medicine which can save one which is in decline.
A culture can die, but the next one advances things a little further. Sometimes (such as after Rome fell) we slip several steps back, but we regain that ground and what Rome lacked, Italy may invent.
Purely anecdotal but my father taught biology at a university from 1965 through 1995 and my oldest brother has been teaching at a junior college since 1992.
He says that the preparation students have coming into college is declining, not just in the sciences but in math and language as well.
My father used to give essay tests where he would also grade spelling, punctuation and grammar. He gave up grading the mechanics of the English in the mid-70’s as he said he would have had to fail most students on their command of English alone. He switched to multiple-choice testing in the early 80’s at the behest of the college and in the remaining 12 years, even with the standardized testing that the college produced, saw declining grades, not just in his classes but across the entire department.
He did notice one trend though. Most of the students that ended up in the educational majors were C students in the biological sciences. And the ones that he counseled – professors were expected to do double duty both as educators and student counselors – also were mostly C students in their other disciplines as well.
I don’t know if you watched the teacher union protests in Wisconsin. If you did, you probably noticed the spelling issues and the occasional problem of matching verb tenses.
I was lucky growing up in that most of the teachers I had in elementary school were the Old Battle Axes. They didn’t take any crap and they knew how to teach.
My younger siblings went through the same school system as my older siblings and I. But they had the new crop of teachers and you can tell the difference. There also seems to be a correlation between those that got taught phonics vs. see-say method in regard to their enjoyment and facility at reading.
I think that we are fortunate in that our increasing technology masks the increasing educational problems in our society. We have machines that make our technical folks more productive so we need fewer of them. Can you imagine trying to recapitulate Feynman’s method of serial calculation (using index cards, no less) that he employed in the Manhattan Project or the Slide Rule Junkies that ran the Apollo project out of our current graduates without the new technology to back them up?
I think that this shows in our public policy debates. We have a president who is arguing that electric cars will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Really? The only way that is even possible is if our energy sources are going to be predominately nuclear. (There’s not enough energy density in wind and solar to do more than augment at the margins.) But he never tells you that.
His proponents lead one to believe that electricity is more efficient than the internal combustion engine. But this is false. Anytime you transform energy, you lose a large percentage in the translation. The most efficient method, a form of natural gas turbine is only 60% efficient under optimal circumstances. If you use that as your source for electricity, you’ve already lost 40%. You lose additional energy in the transmission lines. And you lose when you charge the battery on the electric car. And then you lose again when you convert that electrical energy to kinetic energy.
The internal combustion engine only has two energy transformations; heat to mechanical energy and then from drive shaft to transmission and wheels.
This is elementary physics that my grandfather, who only had an 8th grade education, understood. But you have people in public policy positions with college degrees that can’t wrap their head around basic thermodynamics. And yet they make public policy in spite of, or perhaps, because of, this ignorance.
The problem is that many schools are already doing just that. They are teaching 6th graders about lgbt issues, but the kids cant do math. They are learning how to be green, but many cant spell. School is becoming more about social correctness, and less about critical problem solving.
C. S. P. Schofield wrote: “The public schools are not meeting their most basic goals. It seems to me that a lot of distracting issues (sex ed., self-esteem training, art) should be put on hold until they have the basic issue under control.”
Sex education and art are NOT “distracting issues” that “should be put on hold”. Sex education – basic education about puberty, reproduction, contraception, and STDs – is crucial for students’ health and ability to avoid becoming teenage parents.
Studies have shown that when students get arts education, they do better in their other classes. I have no doubt that one of the reasons American public school education is in decline is the massive cuts to arts education.
I agree with you about sex-ed, and I agree with you about art. I’ll bet a dollar to a hole in a donut that we agree about music, and I’d bet you a dollar to a dollar that we agree about phys-ed.
I’m not sure I agree that American public schools are in decline. They may be, I’m not prepared to rear up on my hind legs and fight that out, but everysinglesolitary generation says that schools are in decline. If they’d all been right, our kids wouldn’t even be able to breath unassisted. It could be that it’s finally happened. It may be that this time there really is a wolf. I haven’t satisfied myself one way or the other, but for now, color me skeptical.
Marla, it concerns me too. But i am more concerned about the slippery slope it creates. what’s next mandatory circumcision? is mandatory implantation of iuds? just because someone doesn’t make the right choice, or maybe even just the best choice, does that mean that government should make the choice for them and for some to do something?
I think it’s good for my children to learn about alternative lifestyles, and that a person’s own sexual orientation is not a danger to them. but I completely resent the school forcing that information on them at such an early age. and since I am not able to be there every time this type of instructions given, there is no way for me to tell if it is being taught in the manner or the tone in which I deem appropriate for my children.
it’s a very short step from deciding what is the best, to deciding all the rest…
me, when I speak of sex education, I mean the things the vast majority of teenagers need to know for their own health: puberty, reproduction, contraception, STDs. There is NO reason for the public schools to teach anything at all about homosexuality or transexuals; these are fringe sexualities that have no more place in a public school curriculum than teaching about sadomasochism.
Sex education should be limited to information that the vast majority of teenagers need.
I’m torn about the issue of whether or not the government should mandate these vaccines also but …
I was raised in Southern Mississippi, an agnostic Catholic amongst a crowd of evangelical Protestants. The only people who refused the school vaccines were ultra-conservative religious groups – some of whom, in my opinion – shared a bit too much in common with Mohammedism. One group in particular held also that women cutting their hair or wearing skirts were committing a sin.
(By the way – I had to take one of these girls to the High School Prom – where she promptly informed me that dancing was a sin too. I was so surprised at the end of the date when she actually let me kiss her. I opted to do it in the car – in her driveway because I’m 6’3″ and she was like 5’2″ and kissing her while sitting down was easier. It excited me so much though that I took my foot off the brake of my car and ran into the back of her Dad’s car in the driveway. LOL)
I certainly don’t like being on the same side of this issue with those types of folks.
And – the fact is, we are a planet with an ever increasing population and ever increasingly MOBILE population. Diseases which used to be “contained” in one part of the world can now be spread overnight throughout the world.
So it’s a difficult question – though, what do I care? As long as I can get the vaccines for myself and my family, voluntarily – then all the doofuses who won’t get the vaccines can die, and what do I really care? I guess we shouldn’t protect people from the natural truths of Darwinism! LOL.
Krulac,
There’s the old joke that the reason that fundamentalist sects frown on sex is that they’re afraid that it might lead to dancing…
I agree, C.S.P; I think mandatory vaccinations for any potentially epidemic disease is an acceptable use of government authority. Furthermore, I think any institution, including schools, should be able to require certain vaccinations as a condition of membership/participation.
The autism/vaccination thing is particularly sad because there’s a much better correlation between autism and the dramatic increase in toys being imported from China by chains like Wal-mart.
I got the shots because, though I was 43 at the time of my first one and no longer sexually promiscuous, I believe all responsible parents should get the vaccine for the daughters (and sons too, if they can afford it) and I felt that ethically I shouldn’t recommend any product I hadn’t used myself.
Except that in many cases schools are the government. What legitimate purpose would a high school have for mandating gardasil? Can the disease be caught by sharing a lunch table? If so, high school is much more exciting than when i went. I agree as it pertains to easily communicable diseases. Not convinced that a general requirement just because is a legitimate position.
Schools shouldn’t be the government, ever. If education is to be an entitlement, it’s better for everyone but bureaucrats that it be handled by vouchers. That way parents could send children to good schools rather than being trapped by their addresses into bad ones, and subjected to violence if they commit the unpardonable crime of trying to improve their kids’ educations.
But many of them are.
Yes, but we’re talking about a theoretical situation anyhow.
I’m not totally convinced that the problems with the public schools are entirely because they are a government function. I suspect that there is something that could almost be called a Natural Law of Societies that any organizational structure humans create will tend to calcify over time, and that periodic changes are necessary less because the original structure was “wrong” and the new one is “right’, than because the original structure is old and the new one isn’t. And in time it might become necessary to dismantle the “new” structure and bring back the old one ….. which would, once more, work for a while.
That said, trendy ed-school fashion for psychoanalyzing students (without a license for psychoanalysis), Obsessions with multiculturalism over the basics, and simple bureaucratic fat-headedness haven’t helped.
More, white people may not “owe” black people reparations for Slavery – nobody alive was either a slave or a slaveowner in the Old South – but we certainly DO owe them reparations for the mess that well meaning fools have made of their schools. Vouchers are a fine idea, but I wish I read about more privately funded groups trying to accomplish the same thing.
Do they let boys get the vaccine now? Last I had heard, the FDA still hadn’t approved it for males, though I never understood why. I can’t think of any conceivable reason why a vaccine would have different effects for males or females, and guys can definitely get infected. (They’re the ones the girls get it from, after all.) And while cervical cancer is what gets all the attention, the virus has been linked to other cancers, in both sexes, on rare occasion.
It’s approved for boys, but the push is for girls because of the cervical cancer.
I know, but i wasnt asking about gov perry.
I think part of the problem is a perception among some people that venereal diseases are, in some way, deserved punishment for promiscuity. Never mind that, with HPV specifically, you can be a virgin and still get it. Never mind that you can be pure as driven snow but your partner can bring home lots of nasty bugs. They think that if you just abstain, these illnesses won’t affect you. Vaccines and condoms only protect “bad people”.
There have also been statements that the HPV vaccine will somehow make women more promiscuous. I just don’t see that. Sure, if all STDs were eliminated, people would be less cautious. But I don’t think we’d see rampant sex in the streets.
I reckon all these idiots have forgotten the ’60s and ’70s, when all STDs we knew of were curable.
” But I don’t think we’d see rampant sex in the streets.”
Too bad, might make the world a happier and less stressed place 🙂
Michelle Bachman says “innocent little 12-year-old girls” don’t need the HPV vaccine Gardasil? When I was a 12 year old girl, I had a sex drive, not nearly as strong as it became when I reached adulthood, but still, a sex drive. 12 is the average age of female puberty in America. 12-year-old girls are not as innocent as Michelle Bachman, and those who agree with her, want to pretend they are.
HPV is both very widespread (about half of the sexually active adult female population of the United States has it) and potentially deadly (it’s the number one cause of cervical cancer). But hey, it’s fine for parents to refuse to let their daughters have the HPV vaccine Gardisil, because women’s health and survival is not nearly as important as American parents’ sacred right to pretend their daughters are virgins!
Even if a young girl actually is a virgin, as I was, she still needs Gardisil, because there is always the possibility that she may be raped.
She can even get venereal warts from dry humping, oral sex and other favorites of “technical virgins”.
HPV can also be transmitted by sharing towels, linen, clothes etc. Given that it is such a common and extremely contagious disease, boys should be vaccinated as well, particularly since there is no approved test for HPV in males.
Shh, Marla. You’ll scare the woman with the crazy eyes.
For me, this issue calls attention to the flaw in the conservative “fetal rights” position they use to bolster the pro-life movement. Why aren’t these blessed children being asked what they want for their own health, since, before their birth (in the eyes of conservatives) they had more rights than their mothers? But, of course, they lose those rights as soon as they’re born.
But Aspasia, don’t you realize the reason that fetuses are sacred is that they are incapable of any kind of sexual activity, since they’re usually all alone in the womb, and their arms aren’t long enough for them to masturbate, and they aren’t being breast fed yet so even if you admit that breast feeding might result in sensual pleasure, the fetus is still INNOCENT? Unlike the probably menstruating and possibly masturbating “innocent 12-year-old girl” who shouldn’t have the HPV vaccine because then if she fails to be sufficiently innocent she won’t get HPV and get cervical cancer and die as punishment for her wickedness? It’s all perfectly logical.
Well, actually…
Wow!
Friends of a friend had a 5 year old daughter who would periodically “tense up” after sitting for prolonged periods. They thought it was neurological, possibly a precursor to epilepsy of which there was some family history.
They took her to a doctor and there was no evidence of epilepsy. It turned out that she was was extremely sensitive to external stimulation. I imagine that that could end up being rather annoying in the long run.
Interestingly (oh, well, it interested me), the rule about it being a husband’s duty to satisfy his wife sexually has long been a part of Orthodox Jewish law (though the reverse hasn’t, as far as I know).
A pragmatic twist on this occurs in traditional Gusii society (a tribe in Kenya), where adults of both sexes are considered responsible for producing large families. This means that if a husband doesn’t come back and start having sex with his wife when she lets him know she’s available for trying to conceive again once the previous child gets old enough (it’s a polygamous society, so he’ll have been with one of his other wives in this time), she can complain about him to the headman who will then go and have a word with him about fulfilling his marital duties of trying to get her pregnant.
That’s not dissimilar to the Hebrew Levirate law, which carried very stern penalties for a man who tried to shirk it.
I believe marital sexual “rights” are also enshrined in Islam’s Quran. More here: http://www.zawaj.com/sexual-rights-in-islam/
There a section of the Bible (Exodus 21:7-11) that is often cited — incorrectly — as saying a man can sell his daughter into slavery. This is a mistranslation as English doesn’t have a word for the Hebrew concept of selling a daughter into marriage to pay off debts (bride prices being common and accepted in Biblical times and even in some modern societies). It goes on to say that such a bride is to be treated equal to other wives and she can not be denied food, clothing or “ointment”. The latter is understood by most Torah scholars to be a euphemism for sex (just like “put your had under my thigh and swear to me” was a euphemism for “take hold of my penis and swear by it”).
So the Old Testament is very clear that women are entitled to sex.
Ah, the things you learn in Hebrew School.
So are you in favor of the government forcing gardasil shots?
I thought I made that clear; no, not at all. Genital warts, nasty as they are, don’t have epidemic potential. But I think it’s OK for a school, military organization or other venue where people often meet and have sex to require them as a condition of entry, especially in our litigious culture.
Maggie, HPV is a DEADLY EPIDEMIC; at least one third of American women already have it, and it kills. HPV contracted through vaginal intercourse is the main cause of cervical cancer. HPV contracted through anal sex is the main cause of anal cancer. HPV contracted through oral sex is the main cause of throat cancer in people under 50. Mere genital warts are the least of the problems caused by this deadly virus that is spreading like wildfire.
By “epidemic potential” I mean the potential to spread to unsuspecting others through casual contact. Though I strongly believe in HPV vaccination, think that parents who deny it to their children are idiots and support laws which allow teenagers to request it for themselves, I don’t think that it should be FORCED onto people as vaccines against plagues can be.
Can I just say on the first story, I love the outcome of the court case.
Just like alimony laws only started to change when women were the ones getting saddled with ridiculas judgements perhaps thsi to will bring a little more parity to the sexes and make people more willing to work things out and treat each other more affectionately
One of the fascinating things about miscellanea columns is trying to predict which of the stories will get the most responses. I figured it would be the Gardasil one because of the political angle, but I didn’t figure nearly all of the comments would be about it!
On the one hand, I do know that there are perfectly legitimate reasons for one partner to not want or be able to have sex when the other wants it.
On the other hand, making a habit of this strikes me as grounds for the other partner to leave.
Yeah, I think 21 years is a bit much. 😉
Once again I am left dumbfounded.
Here in Germany, I recall girls age 15 – 16 all getting shots against cervical cancer. It’s free, voluntary etc, but:
EVERY GIRL GOT IT
Nothing was mandatory, but appearently the sex-ed and health education we receive for free make us relaxed with the topic.
Hell, I think my first sex ed in school was when I was 9. Wich makes sense: Educate about necessary precautions before the danger is imminent, so young adults can approach the activity w/o any fears….
Eieiei, America, so broke, so retarded when it comes to some topics… 🙁
“Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact.” – Marlene Dietrich
If you want to go to the Moon, decode the human genome, or invent the Internet, we are the nation to emulate. If you want to deal with youthful sexuality in a non-stupid way, please find somebody else. We can’t help you.
Aha.
It was not Wernher von Braun making rockets work and leading NASAs moon-programme
And it was not professors from switzerland inventing the net?
The HUGO was not a multinational organization?
Next you’ll tell me, that Ford invented the car.
The Soviet Union got a lot of the German rocket scientists too. And while I’m really glad my country was the one who got von Braun, he didn’t do it by himself. He needed a lot of money, a head of state to commit the nation to the job, an educated populace to think of the few things he couldn’t, etc.
I know that slapping America is popular, and God knows (and so do many Americans. Really) that sometimes we make it easy for you (no, we did not sweep in like Superman and rescue the world from Hitler all by ourselves). Be we are the ones who landed on the Moon.
The Internet was invented in the US. The British invented packet-switching, and in 1989 they invented the World Wide Web. But the Internet already existed. Sorry, but it did.*
OK, the US funded the Human Genome Project, and American scientists worked on it, but there were a lot of top brains from other parts of the world, so perhaps that’s one the whole world should take credit for.
Just don’t give us credit for sensible sexual policy in its place.
* No, it wasn’t Al Gore. He was from twenty-one years old and had just enlisted in the army, soon to be deployed to Vietnam. As a US Senator, he sponsored legislation which helped bring the Net to the public, but he didn’t invent the Internet.
Here’s a song from the early ’60s about Herr Doktor Von Braun.
OK, so Lehrer didn’t get it. A lot of people didn’t. A lot still don’t.
Love Tom Lehrer. Right up there with Monty Python. Just as cerebral with 50% less wacky.
Love his Element Song. Not as much as I love this, but still.
Um, Laura you might want to skip that second link. And this one, too.
Set to a “possibly recognizable tune.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
I said that the British invented packet-switching, and that in 1989 they invented the WWW. Tim Berners Lee was one of the British guys. But the Internet was already there.
Or youthful alcohol consumption.
Agreed. When Prohibition ended, the pendulum did not swing to the opposite extreme. The pendulum has been consistently held as close to Prohibition as could be gotten away with.
As usual, the restrictions were shifted to those who can’t vote.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44734757/ns/health-mens_health/t/cancer-spike-mainly-men-tied-hpv-oral-sex/
Very timely article.
Be careful of what you eat…
Well, yes and no; that “huge spike” is only proportionate, and the cancers are still extremely rare, as I explained in my column of last March 6th.