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Jill at IBTP posted on this billboard, and Lisa at Sociological Images picked it up, and what I found fascinating about Lisa’s post is she didn’t mentioned what these ads are for. Obviously, this is a crisis pregnancy center ad. You don’t even have to look it up to see that it is. All these ads follow the same formula---young woman, looking down or away shamefacedly for her sluttiness, with language indicating that you, the reader who is in trouble, is scared and completely alone. Jill asks why it has to be this way.
The world’s uteruses are owned by the state. This means the world’s women are owned by the state. Unapproved pregnant women who aren’t claimed by a state-licensed nuclear family replicator (husband) are required to be scared shitless.
Her point is that this is true regardless of what you might decide. She also amusingly points out that the ads for the group that put this together imply that every pregnancy that ends in abortion would have ended in rocket scientists and perfect-looking heroes, but alas, we don’t get to have those people because sluts are so selfish.* Lisa picks it up and doesn’t mention that this ad is for a crisis pregnancy center:
It had never occurred to me before that a generalized fear of getting pregnant is a culturally and historically contingent state of mind. But, of course, it is.
What I’d like to add to this is that it’s not a coincidence that crisis pregnancy centers choose this imagery, and while they definitely rely on the larger culture’s judgment and abuse of sexual women, particularly unapproved pregnant women, the foremost reason they invariably choose the pathetic imagery is that’s what they think of women who have sex, at least if you’re young and unmarried and have a ripe uterus juicy for swiping babies out of to give to worthy straight couples. It’s been noted plenty of times before, but worth mentioning again---while there’s definitely a misogynist undercurrent that motivates the anti-choice movement, because they want to PUNISH PUNISH PUNISH the sluts, after 30 plus years of doing this shit, they’ve realized that the only way that they can even begin to be taken seriously is to pretend that they care about women. So what they do is construct this worldview (which has been effective at duping true believers, which is why you’re seeing young people joining the bitter middle-aged men to scream hatred at “counsel” women trying to enter clinics that provide abortion) where women are assumed to be extremely weak and stupid, without any moral sense at all, who are merely pawns and ciphers for male desires. And if a woman gets latched onto by the “wrong” men controlling her---men who will have sex with you despite knowing that no woman actually enjoys sex, abortion providers---she will do things like use birth control or have abortions that go against her nature and make her sad. Nature and god want the mindless automaton to be a chipper housewife providing sex, children, and service to a man who is a good patriarch, not off having sex without fundamentalist approval.
The imagery they choose reflects this belief that women who are pregnant without automatically being overjoyed by it are being controlled by the improper authorities. The billboards imply that you can get relief from your fear by going to them. That is unwashed horseshit. The primary persuasion mechanism to move the mindless bot from being controlled by the improper men to the authority of god-fearing men is fear. They tell you that abortion will maim and kill you, or leave you permanently scarred for life, and they tell you that condoms will give you butt cancer or whatever other thing is that they’re on about that week.
What’s interesting, to me at least, is contrasting the ads for crisis pregnancy centers with the ads for clinics that provide abortion. Well, first of all, you see a lot more of the former, since clinics that provide abortion have to put most of their money into their daily operations and keeping their prices low, and crisis pregnancy centers don’t offer any real services, but are just propaganda outlets disguised as service. But occasionally you see the latter. I don’t have clips of any billboards, bus ads, or newspaper ads, but the pictures on the websites for Austin clinics are a fair representation of how they choose to represent women who come to them.
Not shamefaced, nor are they broken victims. They look straight into the camera without shame, and sometimes are even smiling and laughing. It couldn’t be a more different choice.
There’s a lot of talk of common ground with anti-choicers now, trying to get them to agree that birth control is acceptable, and maybe there’s a few who both care deeply about abortion reduction and have no problem with birth control, but I’m skeptical, and for reasons like the one I’ve outlined above. Our very conception of what women are and can be couldn’t be more different. I’ve yet to speak to an abortion provider that doesn’t take to heart the idea that their job is about helping women own their choices and take responsibility for themselves and their lives, no matter whether they choose abortion or to have a baby. (Which of course is the choice on the hands of a woman who goes to a clinic that provides abortion.) But social conservatives object to the idea that women are moral creatures imbued, as men are, with the ability to take responsibility and make choices. That’s why a sexual woman is inevitably portrayed as an out of control hussy that’s a real danger to the social order, or, more commonly nowadays, as a broken victim who didn’t actually choose to have sex so much as she was shuffled into it because she didn’t have the proper paternal protection.
I joke a lot about how objections to abortion and birth control are based in the belief that women should be punished, and that’s true, but I also think there’s just a primal, knee-jerk reaction against these things from everyone who has anti-choice tendencies, because they are a reminder that women can and do make choices, take responsibility, have control---that we’re not just passive creatures, or at least we don’t have to be. You really see this panic bubble up in the paranoia about how women are “cheating” the controls put on them to keep them passive, by lying about mental health issues to obtain late term abortions,** or the equally widespread if better concealed paranoia that teenage girls fake severe adolescent menstrual symptoms in order to get on the pill and sneak past parental authority. Whether or not the latter happens a lot,*** the violently angry and paranoid reaction about it isn’t justified, since the result from such a parent-coddling deception is that you don’t get pregnant. (If only all parent-coddling deceptions worked out so well!) But the paranoia is there, and again, I think it’s just that knee-jerk freakout at even the possibility that women are taking the reins of their own lives and making their own damn decisions.
*I’ve pointed out before that since being in the anti-choice movement is so all-consuming, everything is about birth control and abortion after a certain point for the followers. Their loneliness is obliquely blamed on women who don’t take on the risk of having a baby every time they have sex. They often wax poetic about all the friends they don’t have because of abortion, which makes a sane person ask if it’s not their rancid personalities that cause them to be so friendless, since the U.S. is not a population-free desolate wasteland. Well, maybe it is in the Midwestern areas that breed rapid anti-choice nuttery.
**Of course, this assumes that women are so lazy and base that they wait until they’re 7 months pregnant and then say, “Oh yeah, I need to get that taken care of.”
***You don’t have to fake the symptoms, because in a lot of teenage girls, they’re quite real. But you might be thinking that works out well, because you were going to have sex anyway.
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Posted by
Amanda Marcotte on 06:40 AM •
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There’s an ad in the NYC subways that has some girl looking really sad & its for a place that provides “abortion alternatives”, I’m always like “What’s that suppose to mean?” I guess they just tell you to have it and maybe provide you with info on adoption?
She also amusingly points out that the ads for the group that put this together imply that every pregnancy that ends in abortion would have ended in rocket scientists and perfect-looking heroes, but alas, we don’t get to have those people because sluts are so selfish.
But what about all those selfish women who are practicing abstinence? What about all the rocket scientists that will never be conceived? I guess any woman who is not pregnant and not actively trying to get pregnant right now is selfish.
What interests me is the internalized terror lots of women feel. I have met so many who are well informed about birth control, who are using condoms and HBC, who are still panicked that they will get pregnant. They treat it like an uncontrollable punishment of God for having sex. And there is a vague sense that once you are pregnant, your life is destroyed because of the shame. There are no options; you will have to wear a scarlet A and be shunned forever.
Again, these are women who are otherwise informed and in control of sex and their bodies. But the cultural shaming is so strong. They still deep-down believe they deserve punishment.
Well, if you *try* to get pregnant while not being married, then your kids will come out funny, because god really doesn’t like willful women.
But what about all those selfish women who are practicing abstinence? What about all the rocket scientists that will never be conceived?
You are a very intelligent, talented young woman.
Which, of course, is exactly why you ought to forego all thought of a career for yourself, find a good provider, and settle down to breeding rocket scientists.
Or so these people would tell you.
As I read the first couple paragraphs of Amanda’s post, I was thinking that she’d really missed the mark this time. Clearly she was reading way too much into a simple billboard.
Then I read the rest of her post, and examined the contrasting ads. I have to admit, I see her point.
Thanks for another insightful and thought-provoking post, Amanda.
I guess if anyone quoted that argument from Freakonomics* about legalized abortion reducing crime, their heads would explode. (Or they’d accuse liberals of genocide, because unwanted kids who are more likely to become criminals is a group we need more of...)
*For various reasons it’s not clear to me that the details of the argument are valid, but the reaction to it even as a hypothesis would divide the loons from the sane.
This sort of reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a priest. He was saying that the church needs to push abstinence because middle school girls are being pressured into engaging in oral sex. I pointed out that another approach to the problem would be to teach the girls (and boys) self-respect and respect for others. You know, give them tools to make their own decisions and stand up for themselves. Clearly he didn’t think much of that strategy, so this crap starts really early in women’s lives.
Again, these are women who are otherwise informed and in control of sex and their bodies. But the cultural shaming is so strong. They still deep-down believe they deserve punishment.
I think a big part of it is that we are raised to think that there is something wrong with women who like to be sexual. I was sexually active since I was 15, and I didn’t even have an exclusive boyfriend. I had several hook-up partners (with honestly all around), and I was happiest that way. But occasionally I would wonder how other people would judge me. I actually don’t have a good relationship with my father. Would people think that’s why I had sex before marriage? Like some kind of father complex? I was watching the show Mental last night, and some teenage girl character got caught posting revealing photos of herself online. Of course it wasn’t because she’s just a sexual person and maybe it was a fair trade for photos of boys, or just maybe (gasp!) she has good self-esteem about her body and her sexuality, and maybe she was actively looking for a sexual partner. It had to be all about her cry for help because of a rough divorce and not getting enough attention from daddy and mommy. Of course, something like this would legally be child pornography, and it’s not really a wise decision to make, but apparently it’s impossible for a woman to just plain be interested in sex, without some psychological issues that go along with it.
They look straight into the camera without shame, and sometimes are even smiling and laughing.
It must be said, though, that even in the Austin clinic ads the young ladies look like they’re slouching strategically a little bit to hide a baby bump…
There is a great series of billingual bus ads for contraceptive services in the Boston area. It has a happy looking latina/mediterranean woman surrounded by the words FREEDOM in two languages.
Nice, sex positive stuff. Very refreshing as well that there is no guy in the ad - it’s all about her, her health, her freedom, her sexuality.
...but they definitely have a “better attitude” about it than the woman in the “crisis pregnancy center” ad…
It’s been noted plenty of times before, but worth mentioning again---while there’s definitely a misogynist undercurrent that motivates the anti-choice movement, because they want to PUNISH PUNISH PUNISH the sluts, after 30 plus years of doing this shit, they’ve realized that the only way that they can even begin to be taken seriously is to pretend that they care about women.
One of the issues I seldom see explicitly addressed is there is a huge racism component to the “pro choice” movement. You watch any abortion protest for a long-enough period of time and you’ll notice that when the Asian, Hispanic and Afro-American women come to the clinic, vast swaths of the protesters find it time to take coffee breaks, etc. Sure, there are some that continue on, regardless of the race of the woman they’re trying to victimize. But, by-and-large, the non-white women receive far less hostility regarding their choice to have an abortion than the white-women.
Someone who is not as atypical in his beliefs as the anti-choice crowd would have you think, was Dr. Tiller’s murder. Roeder was not only an anti-abortion advocate, but he was also part of the Montana Freemen a racist, separatist group.
And, of course, there is Randal Terry, who constantly distributes racist materials while trying to influence politics.
MosesZD - Maybe it’s just because I live in primarily white area of a primarily white state (MN) but the pro-life billboards around here always feature photos of white, male babies and toddlers.
“*For various reasons it’s not clear to me that the details of the argument are valid, but the reaction to it even as a hypothesis would divide the loons from the sane.”
In more ways than one. That’s what (Reagan’s former secretary of education) Bill Bennett was basing his infamous “abort all the black babies” line of reasoning off of.
IMO, the primary reason why a young woman might be scared about an unwanted pregnancy is the real fear of having to pass through the gauntlet of screaming religious fanatics to enter a reproductive health clinic. (Assuming, of course, that she can even find an operating clinic which are becoming more and more scarce thanks to the terrorist tactics of the so-called “pro-life” movement.)
I only just realized, every pro-life billboard I’ve ever seen (in and around Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois) has had a white baby on it. Holy shit.
The first difference that strikes me as significant between those two sets of ads is that one is just about white women (which is also my experience of all these places in real life—what do pregnancy crisis centers want brown women to do? do they care?) and the other set shows lots of happy people of multiple hues.
When I found myself pregnant I was scared. All three times, but for different reasons, but none of them involved any guilt.
When I was single I was especially frightened, but even happily married I was very very scared. Can we afford this baby? Will this pregnancy kill me? (it almost did, BTW). Many years later as a divoreced 40-something it was “Would I even make it to term?” (bloody unlikely given my history), “Will I lose my job if I even try?” “Can I scrape together the $400+ for an abortion to get this over with without ANYONE finding out?”
Even if all the slut-shaming went away I’d imagine that for many reasons women would still go through the freaky (or awesome, depending on their plans and expectations) realization of What It All Could Mean, and be reduced into a panic over it. Crisis pregnancy centers exploit this fear by filling in the blanks for them (baybeez yay!) and alleviating some of the fears for them (financial assistance, adoptive parents, etc.). I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it beyond providing a pro-choice voice that is just as loud.
But what about all those selfish women who are practicing abstinence? What about all the rocket scientists that will never be conceived? I guess any woman who is not pregnant and not actively trying to get pregnant right now is selfish.
If by “selfish” you mean “murderer”.
“The first difference that strikes me as significant between those two sets of ads is that one is just about white women....”
I thought the woman in the billboard at the start of this post looked hispanic.
“MosesZD - Maybe it’s just because I live in primarily white area of a primarily white state (MN) but the pro-life billboards around here always feature photos of white, male babies and toddlers”
Unless they are naked, how do you know? Ive seen ones with a baby in just a diaper. The shirtlessness did not make me think boy. Nor does blue though, as my daughter and neices did on occation wear “boy” colors and clothes, especailly as toddlers.
You are right on about these ads. However, I would take it a step further, and argue that the pro-life movement itself is actually based on a deadly cocktail of preformationism and misogyny, and taps into an unconscious but very real belief in the homunculus. I explored this in more depth over at my place the other day. Come check it out!
@ Mandolin, the first woman doesn’t look unambiguously white, to me at least.
Also, why does the first ad convey a message about women being the property of the state? That I don’t get. Capitalizing on an idiom about care and sympathy in order to propagandize in a whole other direction, definitely.
they’ve realized that the only way that they can even begin to be taken seriously is to pretend that they care about women.
That forced-birth apologetics piece you copied was so creepy in that way.
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When I was 13, never been kissed, with no boyfriend, I considered what I would do if I got pregnant (yeah, women never think about it until they’ve been pregnant a couple months). My conclusion? I’d commit suicide b/c an abortion would be killing the baby and a Bad Sin, and even though suicide is also a Bad Sin, maybe it would balance out the Bad Mojo in the Sin Register somehow.
I had a mother who loved me to no end, who would have gladly taken care of me and raised a child for me and helped me continue to get the best education possible. Why would I come up with such a crazy solution?
Because of our society and it’s complete degradation of pregnant women if they aren’t properly owned while pregnant. The message that you should be scared and ashamed if you get pregnant at the ‘wrong’ time is LOUD and clear, and ABORTION IS WRONG is just as loud.
Many high schools still try to kick girls out if they get pregnant, or at least kick them out of honors classes. Ivy League schools expect their frosh to come in, and go straight to the dorms. Having a baby completely derails a girl’s life because she no longer fits into the ‘good girl’ space, and the space our society allows for women’s success .
Women choose abortion for completely valid reasons-->our society fucks you up if you have a baby as a teen. THAT is as big a cause of abortion as the lack of sex education. Good luck finishing your education or getting a good job if you don’t have money and support from Mom and Dad. And if you give it up for adoption, be prepared to be tossed aside as trash as soon as you deliver your precious baybee to the proper Christian parents.
We need more ads like the pro-choice ones. I’m sick of forced-birthers controlling the message, especially since they are so wrong about the causes and the solutions.
Ivy League schools expect their frosh to come in, and go straight to the dorms.
That doesn’t mean that they don’t accomodate undergraduate parents - Harvard, MIT and others put married students and parenting students in graduate accomodations.
I don’t know. I think it’s a bit silly to have an argument over what is - effectively - just advertisement. I mean when they show a commercial warning about drunk driving, the guy getting drunk is usually unshaven, recking of booze, and stumbling around. When they show a commercial for an alcoholic drink, everyone is smiling and happy and having lots of fun (and totally sober).
The target audience for the anti-choice crowd is the young girl who has already been shamed. If you were dealing with a woman who didn’t consider it a “difficult choice” she wouldn’t be interested in the service. She’d either have the kid or not, “Help Lines” be damned. They’re aiming for young, poor, isolated people. You’ll notice you don’t see a lot of “30? In the middle of your career? Contemplating an abortion?” signs either.
This might be a reflection of how abstinence/anti-choice folks perceive their intended audience, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it propaganda intended to shame anyone. Someone who is not scared and not confused won’t empathize with the ad. Any more than a bunch of college kids drinking it up on sixth street are going to empathize with the 50-year-old “one more drink” alcoholic in the AA “do you have a problem?” commercials.
The woman in the first ad doesn’t look frightened or lonely to me. She looks ashamed.
But that was probably just the first photo they came across....
“....the pro-life billboards around here always feature photos of white, male babies and toddlers” ....
Unless they are naked, how do you know?
They butch up the babies to make sure you can tell. All blue clothing, overalls, baseball caps… There is one by my house where the boy is dressed in a train engineer costume. My experience with pro-lifers tells me that they aren’t much into non-gender specific careers or clothing.
Mandolin, this is a good point, but I know for a fact that the crisis pregnancy center in my town was one of the only places that consistently had a bilingual volunteer on hand all the time. There was no abortion clinic, and most of the local obgyns couldn’t afford it / couldn’t be assed.
The first woman looks to me like she’s in Trouble but now she’s prepared to be a good girl about it. I could just be projecting.
Catgirl, I think it’s really hilarious and terrifying how some people (I am just obsessed with Quiverfullers, I confess) do actually take that approach: contraception is bad because you could have had Einstein, and marital abstinence is also bad because you could be having Einstein, or anyone else God wants to send your way.
I have got to stop reading Cedar Generation, it’s so bad for my peace of mind.
Here in Texas, at least, crisis pregnancy centers do target Hispanic women, though I’ve never seen a black woman in an ad. There’s Hispanic women in the ads, and more overtly, a lot of ads in Spanish. Those ads portray women in an even more pathetic light---often they’re being rained on, and looking like they’re running away from something. The sexual woman as an object to murder in a horror movie comes to mind. But the underlying belief that women are stupid goes to 11 when you’re talking non-white women. Which is to say that anti-choicers believe all women are stupid, but non-white women are especially so.
This might be a reflection of how abstinence/anti-choice folks perceive their intended audience,
Which was, of course, exactly what I argued. I’m not sure if you’re disagreeing with me or with someone else, but if so, I think you may have misread me.
“ Again, these are women who are otherwise informed and in control of sex and their bodies. But the cultural shaming is so strong. They still deep-down believe they deserve punishment. ”
And this happens so often. Personally I just don’t know how anyone can grow up in this culture and not be horribly damaged when it comes to issues of sex, relationships and parenthood. There are just so many screwed up, conflicting and shaming messages placed upon the youth about these aspects of life.
We have versions of that first ad on our public metro buses in Madison, WI. If I didn’t read feminist blogs and hear about these types of “clinics,” I would have no idea it was run by pro-life groups.
This contrasts with colonial American culture, in which sexual activity by never-married couples was tacitly ignored as long as the couples had the banns read as soon as pregnancy was certain. In societies where fertility is an economic asset (make your own labor), confirming a couple as fertile before committing them to unbreakable marriage only made sense.
but apparently it’s impossible for a woman to just plain be interested in sex, without some psychological issues that go along with it.
Personally I just don’t know how anyone can grow up in this culture and not be horribly damaged when it comes to issues of sex, relationships and parenthood.
What is the most damaging is the idea that you get married and reproduce without any consideration as to
1: One would make a good parent.
2: One WANTS to be a parent.
that was probably just the first cheapest photo they came across....
Fixed that for you. A lot of these ‘non-profits’ pay a lot of money to the folks at the top of the heap, they nickel and dime everything else.
Part of the issue with fertility is the Extended Adolescence—the period in which we have essentially adult brains and bodies but lack the skills necessary to get even a vaguely decent job. People are perfectly capable of having a kid at 16, dropping out for a few years to get things settled, and restarting their careers at 20 or 21. It’s not even particularly difficult—IF YOU HAVE MONEY. But without support, it’s soul-crushing, utterly.
As we continue to break up extended family support systems and make it harder and harder for one person to reasonably support a couple of dependents, we’re going to continue to make women more and more fearful. Which is, I suppose, part of the point.
The billboard woman looks like the Madonna to me—that image may resonate with the intended audience.
But literally the billboard message suggests a self-help group composed of scared pregnant women. (Not scared pregnant as in: You’ve seen Scared Straight, now see Scared Pregnant.)
If the Majella Society were serious about providing alternatives to abortion, they would offer to pay the woman what it costs to raise a child, which is roughly $200 K according to various websites. Their tagline would say, “The Money You Need to Raise a Child, For Free.”
“But what about all those selfish women who are practicing abstinence? What about all the rocket scientists that will never be conceived?”
What about all the middle-aged Christian men who are wanking off to porn every day? Is that not a waste of valuable resources? Just THINK of all the potential Einsteins that are being wadded up in a tissue & tossed in the trash!
I think we need to start a movement that returns the contents of a man’s testicles back to the State WHERE IT RIGHTFULLY BELONGS!
NancyP, that’s how my dad’s parents did it, and they worked those 12 kids like crazy.
What is the most damaging is the idea that you get married and reproduce without any consideration as to
1: One would make a good parent.
2: One WANTS to be a parent.
There was once some show - probably Hardball, it featured some people that would never experience pregnancy talking about abortion - where someone mentioned that having sex for pleasure was what animals did. Animals have sex when they are in heat. For most animals, that happens at a specific time of the year, for some, it happens when it happens. Sex generally occurs at those times, and for animals, it generally results in reproduction. But we have consciousness so we figured out that a. sex is great all the time, b. reproduction takes a lot of time and resources, c. we can have sex without making babies each time.
Ironically, these types, which were THE type until about a generation ago, are the same ones that would get offended by the idea that we evolved from other primates. Humans have sex for pleasure without reproduction. Unmanaged reproduction is far more animalistic.
Ivy League schools expect their frosh to come in, and go straight to the dorms.
That doesn’t mean that they don’t accomodate undergraduate parents - Harvard, MIT and others put married students and parenting students in graduate accomodations.
I’m sure they do, Ms Kate, just as I’m sure Stanford would set up a frosh w/child in Mirrelees apts.
But the expectation is that none of these high achieving kids will have been Slutty McSlut-sluts. Going on to an Ivy League-type education with a toddler without a rich Mom and Dad to back you up is going to be a collossally difficult task, and not just b/c being a mother and a full-time student is hard.
Society does not expect a teen mother to succeed in obtaining a great education. It happens, but it’s a fight It doesn’t have to be that way.
That’s what that sad-faced girl on the pregnancy crisis center is tying into-->our society isn’t set up to support sexually active teens. It’s set up to punish them by telling them that their sexuality is evil, that birth control is murder, and that, if they get pregnant, then they have no other option but adoption.
But the cultural shaming is so strong. They still deep-down believe they deserve punishment.
It’s not the first cheap photo they came across. Smiling faces are probably more common, unless you google image “free sad woman”. (and when you do that, you see dozens of photos that look like perfect matches for the first ad)
Ursula - I think the great apes are the only species that seem to engage in intercourse for reasons other than reproduction. Anyone know of any other species?
Marriage = managed reproduction in their eyes, does it not? Since animals can’t get married, unmarried sex is animalistic.
@ Catgirl:
You made my partner and I laugh out loud with that comment, thanks for the morning uplift!
Back in college, when my group of friends (including my partner) had great difficulty understanding the mentality of anti-choicers and anti-women (anti-human, perhaps) groups, we used to joke that we had a clear moral obligation:
People who use birth control and exercise reproductive choice plausibly can be said to have fewer children than those who don’t, therefore, we must BREED early and often or we’ll be overwhelmed by the fundies in a few generations.
In retrospect, it’s a bit startling to see how we enlightened liberal youngsters missed the echoes of not only the anti-choicers (the solution to the problem is a mandate to get “our women” pregnant), but the really scary groups that argue that the white population is in decline compared to all those scary immigrants (again, get “our women” pregnant). But then, we were in the Berkeley bubble, where the scariest thing you could really be directly exposed to was a table of LaRouche supporters on Sproul plaza, and the true evil was simply so incomprehensible that it ranked right up there with the Tooth Fairy.
[/pointless-anecdote]
BadKitty:
Maybe it’s just because I live in primarily white area of a primarily white state (MN) but the pro-life billboards around here always feature photos of white, male babies and toddlers.
Are all of your ads, like mine in Iowa, by Pro-Life Across America?
Yawgmoth:
I only just realized, every pro-life billboard I’ve ever seen (in and around Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois) has had a white baby on it. Holy shit.
Again, these are from PLAA? What I notice is that PLAA, in central Iowa, has targeted low-income and ‘ethnic’ areas when it’s lower middle-class. Granted that even these areas are still majority white, but the increased minority proportion is real; they’ve been putting these things up in the Bosnian-Kosavar neighborhoods where they’ve settled after immigration. I don’t quite see why.
On a better note - driving through another city this weekend, Fort Dodge, I saw several funny and charming billboards for Avoid The Stork Overnight Delivery Services, http://avoidthestork.com/. It’s a project of the Iowa Initiative (http://www.iowainitiative.org/):
The Iowa Initiative is a program that aims to reduce the high rate of unintended pregnancies among Iowa women ages 18-30 through networking, research and public outreach. We are traveling the state to open dialog and make this a mainstream, main street conversation. And, by collaborating with established providers around the state, we will increase access to family planning services and information. Headed by Iowa’s former First Lady Christie Vilsack, the Iowa Initiative will serve as a model to prevent unintended pregnancies nationwide.
The Iowa Initiative Research Program, conducted in conjunction with the University of Northern Iowa, University of Iowa, and the University of Alabama-Birmingham, includes five studies designed to increase knowledge, persuade adult women to seek and access contraception if they wish to delay or prevent pregnancy, and improve contraceptive behaviors.
Ursula - I think the great apes are the only species that seem to engage in intercourse for reasons other than reproduction. Anyone know of any other species?
Apparently dolphins do too. Isn’t it interesting how sex for pleasure seems to correspond to intelligence?
This contrasts with colonial American culture, in which sexual activity by never-married couples was tacitly ignored as long as the couples had the banns read as soon as pregnancy was certain. In societies where fertility is an economic asset (make your own labor), confirming a couple as fertile before committing them to unbreakable marriage only made sense.
Didn’t even have to be that early—before the birth was good enough, and shortly after would be acceptable. See, for example, the book A midwife’s tale, by Laurel Ulrich. They also were big fans of child support, it turns out.
idiosynchronic - I think most of the billboards are from PLAA but I don’t always notice. We have a group called MCCL - MN Citizens Concerned for Life - who also do a fair bit of advertising up here so some of the billboards could be paid for by them. A new one just went up across from one of our colleges that features 3 toddlers in a cardboard box and a headline of “God’s Stimulus Package - America’s most valuable resource”. I gagged. Because more unwanted uninsured children that parents can’t afford will do wonders for our economy?
Ursula - I think the great apes are the only species that seem to engage in intercourse for reasons other than reproduction. Anyone know of any other species?
Bonobos certainly do; sex is the major way they settle disputes, while humans are more inclined to fight it out. Wouldn’t it be fun if the opposite was true?
I noticed some people have been talking about the ethnicity of women in the adoption ads.
I live in Chicago and those ads are all over the buses and trains. I’d estimate about 75% of them are Latina looking with about 25% looking Black. I don’t recall any white women on them. Most of them have dark, curly hair, dark eyes, and olive to dark skin. However, that could be related to their target audience or something.
Blue Jean,
I dunno, some of the people I argue most vociferously with I have no interest in banging. At all. And then we’d have to worry about jerks picking arguments to bang us. Of course, we could also be the jerks picking arguments with Javier Bardem . . . hmmm. Must think.
There’s a lot of talk of common ground with anti-choicers now, trying to get them to agree that birth control is acceptable, and maybe there’s a few who both care deeply about abortion reduction and have no problem with birth control, but I’m skeptical, and for reasons like the one I’ve outlined above. Our very conception of what women are and can be couldn’t be more different.
I think Amanda is overestimating a lot of the “pro life” supporters, the ones who donate money and vote to the anti-choice causes but don’t go further than that. A lot of them simply has not thought much about it more than “I like babies. I don’t want <s>fetus</s> babies to die”. They simply have some empathy for “babies” and have less empathy for the “woman in trouble” because “she asked for it”.
While I think it is a misogynist and simplistic view, I can still find common ground with those people: Let’s make sure less women “get in trouble” by making contraception widespread and let’s try to ensure more women have daycare, insurance and support when they do chose to have the baby.
Of course the hard core anti-choicers are a whole different ball of wax. People who block abortion clinics and vilify women are impossible to have a common ground with. But those guys get a lot of power from the first group, the ones who donate and vote. Cut off the hard core anti choicers support base is a must and IMHO is well worth trying to find common ground with those we can talk rationally, even if they see sluts where we see women like ourselves. It’s not like their approval means anything to me or to the women who need abortion. But their money and votes mean a lot to the criminals who kill doctors. And I will gladly endure offensive talk if I can help those killers get ostracized.
My wife and I went to one of these places (We don’t want kids) by mistake. We thought they were going to help.
Anyway the lady was extremely condescending to the point of me ripping up her crappy copies of aborted babies, telling the woman to pound sand and storming out with the wife crying.
The places are clean but the people are zealots. A person alone going in there could get sucked in. I am a huge ass-hole and don’t believe anything without 3 types of proof. I wasn’t buying any of there bullshit.
Blue Jean, it was dear Aunt Twisty who said “I don’t want to have to pat a guy’s scrotum every time I cut him off in traffic,” but I do like bonobos as their hairy, occasionally cannabalistic selves. If nothing else it’s a nice way to cut off evopsych types: “Well, we’re more like bonobos and female bonobos chew through males’ toes when they get fresh, so...”
-"What’s interesting, to me at least, is contrasting the ads for crisis pregnancy centers with the ads for clinics that provide abortion. Well, first of all, you see a lot more of the former, since clinics that provide abortion have to put most of their money into their daily operations and keeping their prices low, and crisis pregnancy centers don’t offer any real services,...”
*The “faith based” walk around money that comes out of the Obama/Bush White House gives the christianists a leg up, that and their budgets don’t have “24/7 Security” costs factored in.
somewhere on the innertubes if memory serves there’s a list of all the documented instances of homosexual behavior in non-human species
that would all be non-procreative sex, of course
then there’s all the humping behavior in male dogs that seems analogous to masturbation—clearly there’s an appetite for sexual release that is indifferent to procreation
your social mammals seem as a rule to use sexuality to establish troop order, whether hierarchical or communal (e.g. those aforementioned simian perverts, the Bonobos)
we could go all Freudian and submit that all human culture and communication is a just elaborate sublimation of the sex instinct
then there’s all the humping behavior in male dogs that seems analogous to masturbation—clearly there’s an appetite for sexual release that is indifferent to procreation
Hmm, I thought dogs did that as a way to display dominance, rather than as masturbation for pleasure, although I’m certainly not an expert. I’ve known female dogs to do the same thing.
Just as an amusing aside - sorta - I used to manage an opera company in the deep south. Our poster/billboard campaign for a production of La Traviata featured the pensive face of one of my ex-wife’s voice students, in a pose not unlike that in the billboard here referenced.
Though the company’s name, etc. were clearly prominent, the ad copy emphasized betrayal, jealousy, “social rejection and slow, consumptive death - in opera this is what’s known as a crowd-pleaser.”
I found myself fielding crisis pregnancy and suicide hotline calls during production week…
Apparently dolphins do too. Isn’t it interesting how sex for pleasure seems to correspond to intelligence?
Um - see here and here. Sexuality seems to be adopted as a way of encouraging sociality in intelligent animals - and not necessarily in a nice fashion, either.
I do recall some research suggesting that bonobo and chimpanzee ranges were related to gorilla ranges and the ability to control food resources - chimpanzee aggressiveness and sexuality being tied to a different social structure.
Ren, my dealing with people who claim not to be the fantatics shows that the link between hostility to sex/misogyny are indeed on a continuum. Yes, there are people who oppose abortion that don’t want to ban birth control. But they get upset and befuddled if they think the government is “promoting” sex.
I thought dogs did that as a way to display dominance
Humping is a way to display dominance in dogs. It can also be a way to relieve anxiety. I daresay, humans aren’t all that different 
re: PiaToR’s fun, informative and apropos links
to far OT, maybe, but it must be said: what “pleasure” and “pain” mean exactly in non-human species is damned difficult to nail down exactly - I take issue (on the lines of DF Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster") with the snopes article’s insinuation that pleasure doesn’t enter the sexuality of species other than humans, dolphins and bonobos
I suspect (totally unscientifically and half-assedly, of course, but what the hell) even species whose couplings seem more firmly bound up with procreation take pleasure in the act, in their weird ways
I suspect (totally unscientifically and half-assedly, of course, but what the hell) even species whose couplings seem more firmly bound up with procreation take pleasure in the act, in their weird ways
I prefer to get head as a human rather than give it as a spider, myself…
I’m not sure about sex, but ravens are like humans (and not like other animals) in having courtship behavior go on constantly. The raven couples stick together until one of them dies, so the courtship stuff apparently helps cement the relationship.
Once again, correlation with intelligence. Ravens are generally considered the smartest birds.
then there’s all the humping behavior in male dogs that seems analogous to masturbation—clearly there’s an appetite for sexual release that is indifferent to procreation
Boy dogs masturbate, to be sure. Ours will then chew on his lust object till the stuffing comes out. Humping shows dominance, but it’s also play. On the theme of asserting dominance as play, dogs are into king of the castle games as well.
dear Aunt Twisty
Dear Aunt Twisty performed a great service for mankind in her previous life as a restaurant reviewer. Hers was the first warning I read about the fish Escolar, AKA Hawaiian butterfish, walu, and white tuna. It’s important not to eat it unless you enjoy a bout of oily orange-colored diarrhea. I have seen it on the menu of restaurants that should know better, over the past year.
Bonobos certainly do; sex is the major way they settle disputes, while humans are more inclined to fight it out. Wouldn’t it be fun if the opposite was true?
Humping is a way to display dominance in dogs.
My friends and I have a “dog play group” where we get together once a week for our dogs to play & the people hang out. Noticing how the dogs work out their pecking order, decide who’s in charge, and settle squabbles primarily via humping each other, we have spent some time speculating on what life would be like if humans worked that way....
Those places are horrible! I went to one as a young, confused college student (I had grown up in an anti-choice household and had bought into the Planned Parenthood=evil) when I suspected I was pregnant. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. They lectured me about having sex, harassed me about the fact I might be pregnant, pressured me to tell them what I would do with a baby if I were in fact pregnant (and were NOT pleased, may I add, when I said I was planning to keep it) and guilt tripped me about the number of infertile couples. Then they made me take a home pregnancy test which came back negative and then told my friends who had come with me the results without my permission. I was appalled. It also turns out that I was in fact pregnant, but it was too early to show up on the test they had. After that horrific experience I started going to Planned Parenthood for my reproductive health care and nothing but good experiences because I was treated like an adult and not a petulant child.
As far as pro-sex, pro-birth control anti choicers go, that used to be me. I was anti-abortion, pro-birth control and pro comprehensive sex ed. I am also now vehemently pro-choice, which seems to be what happens to those of who are more reasonable. You grow up, realize that life is more complicated than fetus = baby, abortion= murder and adopt a pro-choice position.
Ya, I understand Amanda. I just bristle at the “no common ground” idea because it is so tempting. Of course people who are against choice are icky. But they may be just too young to see through all the BS the anti-choicers spill. Or they may be uncomfortable with other people’s sexuality. Which is icky, they should mind their own damn business!
In a perfect world I’d have nothing to do with those kind of people. But after Bush / Gore and Bush / Kerry defeats by small margins I realized we have to peel away from the GOP any somewhat sane people we encounter. Even sexually hung up misogynists!
I pointed out that another approach to the problem would be to teach the girls (and boys) self-respect and respect for others. You know, give them tools to make their own decisions and stand up for themselves. Clearly he didn’t think much of that strategy, so this crap starts really early in women’s lives.
carovee on 06/17 at 06:06 AM
But a dominator society like ours is founded on the opposite premise--it systematically tears down everyone’s self-respect in order to substitute an authoritarian structure that dictates who deserves respect, for what. There is no “self-respect,” only one’s pride in one’s position in the hierarchy, which is as much fear of losing that place as smugness in attaining it. Therefore others are not respected in themselves, but only in the power they can wield over you. The system dictates you show what it calls respect, in respect of the overwhelming power of organized society against any dissent.
In reality everyone subverts it--but this subversion is generally diverted into sustaining the system.
It should be noted that many of these crisis pregnancy centers outright lie to many of the women. As I read in This Common Secret, women are sometimes told that they will be sterile for the rest of their lives if they have an abortion or that their uterus will be scraped out with razor blades. In one case, a woman was locked into a room for an hour and forced to watch a video about the ills of abortion.
The only thing true about some of these crisis pregnancy centers are the crises they cause.
In one case, a woman was locked into a room for an hour and forced to watch a video about the ills of abortion
Three words: Wrongful Imprisonment Lawsuit.
ust as an amusing aside - sorta - I used to manage an opera company in the deep south. Our poster/billboard campaign for a production of La Traviata featured the pensive face of one of my ex-wife’s voice students, in a pose not unlike that in the billboard here referenced.
Though the company’s name, etc. were clearly prominent, the ad copy emphasized betrayal, jealousy, “social rejection and slow, consumptive death - in opera this is what’s known as a crowd-pleaser.”
I found myself fielding crisis pregnancy and suicide hotline calls during production week…
LOL. Our poster just has a camellia on it - we double-cast, so we don’t put photos of the singers on anything.
I guess any woman who is not pregnant and not actively trying to get pregnant right now is selfish.
Which is why that “pre-pregnant” line of bullshit that was fed to us by the Bush FDA was so disturbing.
Forget about making childbirth safe, or having a better infant mortality rate or even giving safe access to places where women who don’t want to have kids can take care of their problems in a non-theistic setting. It also, ever so conveniently, places the blame square on the woman for being so ingorant as to not have considered her “unborn child” all her life so that any problems the fetus has are just obivously the fault of the mother/baby carrier.
No way in HELL am I ever going to consider myself “Pre-pregnant”. EVER.
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There’s an ad in the NYC subways that has some girl looking really sad & its for a place that provides “abortion alternatives”, I’m always like “What’s that suppose to mean?” I guess they just tell you to have it and maybe provide you with info on adoption?