I learned about contraception from my mom’s copy of “Our Bodies, Our Selves.” It should be in every home.

Easy:  just teach women from birth that they exist to make men happy.

I learned about contraception from my mom’s copy of “Our Bodies, Our Selves.”

Me too, MAJeff--I’m sure that knowledge has been of vast practical assistance to both of us

Redstate quotes “one man” as saying that book started his wife down the road to divorce.  What does that say about a man, that reading “Our Bodies, Our Selves” made his wife want to divorce him?

if one of the central and defining points of being a man is simultaneously wanting to fuck women like hurricanes and not knowing anything about fucking women like hurricanes, how do I achieve my ultimate goal of hurricane-like woman fucking?

Rape.

Did you see the comment on Redstate that argues this can’t possibly be true, because the book came out when Maya was 4.  Unless Obama was such a sick pervert to give his sister the book as a toddler, they speculate.

I once received a copy of “Henry V”, which only goes to prove that I’m actually an immortal 900 year old time lord.

Redstate quotes “one man” as saying that book started his wife down the road to divorce.  What does that say about a man, that reading “Our Bodies, Our Selves” made his wife want to divorce him?

Well, the divorce rate is a mere 50%.  If it wasn’t for that damn book they’d have a coinflip’s chance of still being together!

Wow.  That’s a lot of hating on Our Bodies, Ourselves.  I didn’t know that that sort of thing was still in vogue amongst red people.  I have to agree with rea about the guy who’s wife divorced him after reading it; problem exists between wife and chair.

I gave my sister a vibrator for her 16th birthday, ‘cause she was living with our folks in Nowhereistan, MO and didn’t have any ability to get one for herself.  I’ll admit that neither she nor I were so outre as to exchange information on the success of this gift.

I didn’t know that that sort of thing was still in vogue amongst red people.

Drooling cretinism never goes out of style amongst the red gentry.

Did you see the comment on Redstate that argues this can’t possibly be true, because the book came out when Maya was 4.

Ah, come on, they can’t possibly be that stupid, can they?

This explains a lot. I thought Obama was just a flip-flop wearing effete metrosexual[...]

...aaand that’s about where I stopped reading.

But thanks to Mikey I went back and read the comments, and saw this:

Moreover, I have to say I am confused. That book came out in 1973, with a second edition in 1976. His sister is 39 years old. If he gave her the first edition, she was 4.

Wow, that is confusing. He gave her a book...after it was published. How the hell did he manage to pull that off?

Has anyone checked the kerning yet? Because something about this perfectly rational chronological series of events smells fishy to me…

“I once received a copy of “Henry V”, which only goes to prove that I’m actually an immortal 900 year old time lord.”

I’m sure most of the people raising a ruckus about this have copies of the Bible, which seems to imply that they’re all way past the age where this sort of mistake could be chalked up to youthful inexperience.

Sorry, gwangung, but they can:

Moreover, I have to say I am confused. That book came out in 1973, with a second edition in 1976. His sister is 39 years old. If he gave her the first edition, she was 4. I guess he must have given her a used copy of the 2nd edition. It just seemed strange.

This person is exhibit A in my argument in favor of denying obviously stupid people the right to vote.

If my brother had ever gone off his rocker and gave me a book about my body, I’d have decked him.

Sure, because nothing says “red-blooded, God-fearing American” like expressing your utter terror of your own body with physical violence.

So what does it say about my father that he made sure I knew where my mom’s copy was located on their bookshelf and told me it might be a good idea to make myself familiar with its contents?

Gotta say that i love that t-shirt.

According to an informal poll at the local GLBT youth group, Our Bodies, Ourselves causes lesbianism. Every girl in the group--including my daughter--had been given a copy around age 12. Apparently this just happens by osmosis. Be in the same room around the age of 11, and the next thing you know you’re marching in a Pride parade.

I suspect it’s because the type of parent who would give a blossoming daughter OBO is easier to come out to than one who says “You don’t need to know ANYTHING!”

And it came out in 1973. My daughter wasn’t born until 1992.  How on earth could she have a copy?!?!!!11?/ I mean it’s not like there are places you can go and just buy used books...oh, right.

So what does it say about my father that he made sure I knew where my mom’s copy was located on their bookshelf and told me it might be a good idea to make myself familiar with its contents?

To us? Your father is an awesome individual who wanted his daughter to know bodily autonomy.

To them? Your father is a effete pedophile.

Moreover, I have to say I am confused. That book came out in 1973, with a second edition in 1976. His sister is 39 years old. If he gave her the first edition, she was 4. I guess he must have given her a used copy of the 2nd edition. It just seemed strange.

I grew up in a red state, with extremely red people and even I was dumbfounded at the utter stupidity of that quote. But perhaps Maya Soetoro-Ng went into a cocoon at four with a copy of that book and came out when she was 39, she obviously couldn’t have possibly aged in those years. Maybe she had super magic Jesus aging abilities
/snark

You’d almost think that Our Bodies, Ourselves had been continuously in print since 1973, with the most recent edition coming out in 2005.

Nah.  Gotta be the time-travel explanation.

Hey, this is the people who turned bulk-purchasing into a political tool. They’re just not familiar with books that stay in print.

(And don’t say Bible, because they’re sure as heck not familiar with that.)

There’s a line from a Borges short story that perfectly sums up one kind of machismo: “Any man who thinks about a woman for ten straight minutes is a fag.”

“Wow, that is confusing. He gave her a book...after it was published. How the hell did he manage to pull that off?

Has anyone checked the kerning yet? Because something about this perfectly rational chronological series of events smells fishy to me…”

...I bet that commenter is a Librul plant who said that just to make those healthy, red-blooded, American conservatives look bad…

“I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!”…

Sure, whatever you say, Fredo Bubba…

The Republicans will just sieze on this message that Barack is a girly boy and not a real manly man like McKrusty...Drudge and Malkin will pass it on to Hannity and O’Reilly, and the the Corporate Media will play around with it on the edges…

Sensitive guy=wimpy, limp wristed gayguy...they have no shame and will use any attack they can!

If the OBOS tidbit is true, I have to say Obama would officially win my vote* simply for managing to have a penis and be aware of that particular women’s health resource at the same time.  Even my feminist male friends tend to be unfamiliar with it, which is really sad.

*I mean, like, if he hadn’t already for reasons of either my 4-years of longing to jump his bones and/or the fact that he’s already the presumed nominee.

Yeah, that Barack, what a guy. Almost too good to be true.

Well, clearly if you’re not willing to divorce one woman because she doesn’t look the same as she did when you married her and marry a prettier, richer woman and call her a “cunt” and a “trollop” in public, you’re not a man. If you don’t want insurance to only cover penis treatments (eg Viagra) and to hell with uterus treatments (eg the pill), you’re not a man. If you genuinely care about any female’s physical and emotional well being, even if she’s related to you, you’re not a man. Apparently, not only is Senator Obama not black enough, he’s not man enough.

Opoponax, I sincerely hope your being sarcastic lest you clearly illustrate was is so disturbing about Obama’s supporters. If you’re not, I suggest you use something other than your hormones to choose the person that will hold the most important job in the world.

“Me in gold country” - exactly who do you think you are kidding on this site?  Is there ANYONE left who thinks you aren’t just trolling, unimaginatively?

I suggest you use something other than your hormones to choose the person that will hold the most important job in the world.

If I were using my hormones to choose the POTUS, I would be writing in either Gael Garcia Bernal or Rachel Weisz. 

I’m willing to admit my schoolgirl crush on Obama may have been responsible for me saying, about 30 seconds after he finished speaking at the DNC back in ‘04, “He is so going to be president someday.” Which enabled me to remember who he was between then and the beginning of the actual primaries. That’s really all his hotness got him, in terms of moi.

Also, can I just say that I love the idea of a supposed feminist assuming that the only reason women are willing to vote for Obama is because they find him attractive?  What’s next?  Accusing him of “stealing” all the white women?

From the headline, I thought the article was going to be about Obama loving the gay chicks. Oh well.

I was born in 1974 and discovered my mother’s 1973 edition in her nightstand somewhere around 1984 or 1985. What kind of sick perverted writers make a book like that, and allow a pre-pubescent girl to learn about her body?

I was fascinated with the chapter entitled, “In Amerika They Call Us Dykes.” Funny, that. When someone gave me my own 20th anniversary edition, I was disappointed to see they had retitled the chapter something like “Lesbianism.”

I first “read” Our Bodies Ourselves as a very bored and libidenous 14yrold boy. It has some tangentially bishop-waxing-related illustrations, but doood- that picture of the woman bled out on the motel room floor after the failed abortion is massive buzzkill.

So yes. Very Educational. also failed to make me gay. If i’d been gay, i’d proably never have opened it.

//redstate appears to have 60% guys being dismissive, 40% women who claim to have grown up to have completely normative lives without any help from feminists, ever.