Sunday, March 4, 2012

Political Rant and Women's Health Ed moment

Hey Team,

I try to avoid talking politics on here despite the fact that it is a very big and important part of my life because I personally know that MANY people in this community hold WIDELY divergent views and any discussion of politics on the internet goes to shit beyond quickly.

However, I have been needing to say something for a few days, and it just came up again on the show I am watching and I can no longer contain myself. I will keep it as short and direct as I can or else I am confident I will start a hell storm. But the main thing I want to get across here is actually educational to men who might not understand how women's contraception works, because from what I have been hearing out of both male politicians and political commentators, men don't seem to have a fucking clue how it works!!!

Please also remember that I am a woman (duh), but more specifically a non-Catholic Georgetown University woman. I suppose I have said once before in passing that I graduated from Georgetown, but I certainly haven't posted it in words before. But yes, I went to Georgetown, which is now in the middle of this ABSURD debate we are having in this country over contraception, and I am not a Catholic, which is kinda crucial to the point of my story/post.

First of all, I took hormonal birth control from age 17-21 and had sex once, at age 20. I took the pill for PMDD. I have since stopped taking it, because issues of health insurance refusing to cover brand vs generic despite my doctor's request, had led to major health issues for me when the generic does not control the amount of hormone as tightly as brand, and then the generic was actually recalled from the market. So yeah, I fucking hate the American health insurance system (but that isn't a debate I am going to have here).

Georgetown U prides itself on having people of all and of no faith at their school. They make a really big fucking deal about it actually. And Georgetown has a public hospital. Gtown also has a student clinic, which is honestly the only place anywhere near campus for health care (students aren't allowed cars on campus and you don't want to walk too far in DC). I loved the clinic. It had great care. And Gtown has its own health insurance that it offers to its students. The clinic only takes Gtown health insurance. So basically you have to buy it. I had both Gtown health insurance (which doesn't cover the pill) and my parents (which thankfully did). Now, not only did it not cover the pill which I took as a virgin for 3 years, but I had to get it prescribed in Dallas by my home doctor, and the hospital pharmacy wouldn't fill it. So I had to go off campus to find a pharmacy to fill it. It cost me $60 a month. Every month.

So here is the women's health lesson. The reason all of this is coming up, is because Rush Limbaugh called the gtown student who stood up for women at this insitution, a slut. Used the word slut. He said she should post videos of her having sex on the internet if she wanted us to pay for it, and that her parents should be ashamed of her. He did this for three days. So it's not like it was taken out of context, or he misspoke. He did it for three days.

I have never been so angry in my entire life than when I watched that show of his.

His big points were three fold. First that it costs so much because these women must just be having so much sex. Second, that she was asking for public funding for her birth control. Both of those points are FACTUALLY INACCURATE!!! And third, that a woman that wants to have sex is a slut.

1. Unlike condoms which you buy without a prescription (the pill can kill you so yes it needs to be a prescription) and use per sexual encounter, the pill is taken once a day, everyday for a month REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH SEX YOU ARE HAVING OR NOT HAVING. If you have sex once or if you have sex 300 times, the cost is the EXACT SAME. And once you take the pill during the month, you can't stop, even if you don't have sex, or it will totally fuck you up hormonally. 

2. She wants Georgetown University which is Catholic but prides itself on having non Catholic students and employees and psudeo makes you buy its health insurance which is paid for in large part by our own astronomically high tuition to pay for her Pill. NOT THE PUBLIC. No one said a DAMN THING about the public paying for anything! Health insurance should cover things that have to do with your health. Hormonal birth control is about a woman's health.

Now, I am going to just bullet point the rest of this or I will explode.


  • A woman who wants to have sex should not be looked down on! She is not a slut for having a healthy sexual appetite! In our society a man is a stud and a woman is a virgin or a whore. THAT IS FUCKED UP!
  • I don't care if the aspirin between the knees thing is just an old joke, it is INCREDIBLY OFFENSIVE. I am not easily offended, and I was floored by that comment, and the fact that people are justifying it, and keep saying it!!!
  • I was raised in an abstinence only sex ed environment and it totally fucked me up. The idea that your virginity is a gift, and after that your are dirty and used. No one showed me a condom or told me how to use it. I learned that on my own
  • Contraception is not about abortion. And if you Really are pro-life and not just anti-sex, then the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. DUH
  • This whole thing is in many ways about chauvinism and misogyny. A woman deserves the right to control her own body and to decide when she gets pregnant. If a woman isn't on the pill, it is up to the man to do the whole condom thing. And yeah, most men are going to put it on bc hey, they're not looking to father a child, but at the same time, he could poke holes in it, or put it on wrong, or convince the girl that he can just pull out. And when you went through abstinence only sex ed, let me tell you, many girls, don't know better. Oh, yeah, and then there's rape. Taking away the pill is taking away women's power. And that IS what these men want.
  • The biggest advance in women's liberty in the history of the world was the creation of the Pill. PERIOD.
  • Anyone who says they are for small government and yet wants to regulate (or even judge for that fucking matter) my sex life is LYING. Or they just want the government to be so small that its like a tiny submarine that can go inside my vagina??? Yeah, exactly. FUCK THAT.
  • IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S PLACE TO EVER REGULATE A CONSENTING SEX LIFE OR MORALITY. 

Exhale. So, Rush Limbaugh, as a Georgetown woman, who you said you would buy all the aspirin I needed to put between my knees, let me just say, please take those pills and choke on them you disgusting, misogynistic pig.

xoxo
Princess Kelley

13 comments:

  1. You know Kelley, I feel like I am one of the few fairly conservative spanking bloggers out here. No, I don't listen to Rush, and I try to stay out of politics as much as possible because the sheer idiocy of it all usually gets me all pissed off. But let me just say that this is about the finest rant I have ever read! I totally agree with you, and I think you have really great, intelligent points.

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  2. Bravo, Kelley, well said!

    Even for those clueless guys who don't know and don't care about women's health, providing easy affordable access to birth control is good public policy. An unplanned child and his/her mother are much more likely to require public assistance and Medicaid. Even if these people ignore the human side of the equation, the outcomes from available contraception are lower costs and healthier children.

    I agree that Rush and his ilk seek to cast women as inferior and powerless. That may work for Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, but it doesn't work for me.

    Hugs,
    Bonnie

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  3. Hello, Kelley:

    The root cause of the whole mess is government going where it should not go. The government does not have the power, nor the right, to tell anyone what to do about their private health care matters. Nor does government have the power or right to tell an entity which chooses to fund health care what it must or must not fund.

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  4. Amen pumpkin!! I agree with all you have written and wish i could say all those things but just dont have the wors to say so im glad someone did. proud of you
    Adam

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  5. So now, all you need is for someone to forward this link to the asshole's show and, like it or not, you will be the PUBLIC face of kink in America. Because that will be his focus because it will, to him and his followers, make there point. I agree with what you said 100%, but remember, he doesn't care about the truth. He only cares about being outrageous enough to enrage people and so stay in the news. You can't argue with people who don't care about reality, but only there APPEARANCE of moral superiority.

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  6. So Little Butterfly won't feel alone, I am ALSO a conservative (or more so than I am liberal), but I fully concur. I DO listen to Rush occasionally, and he totally missed the ball this time, not just in terms of manners and class but in plain old accuracy as well. (I guess this must be not be part of that 97.3% accuracy her claims.)
    Kelley is my friend, but I'd've agreed if we were deadly enemies. Flat out brilliant, Kelley.

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  7. couldn't have said it better... thanks for writing this.

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  8. This whole thing was not about birth control, it's about Obama's extra constitutional attempts to control our lives. The Dems know that the real issue is a loser so they are playing games with the process. They had a vetted witness that they withdrew and tried to sub Fluke at the last minute. That is against the rules and they dont' allow it either when in control. Fluke is a professional agitator, not a starving student. Her comment about "$1000.00 a year" is a lie, even your numbers don't add up to that.

    I don't know about your case but generic drugs must perfrom as the brand name or they are not generic.

    http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/UnderstandingGenericDrugs/ucm167991.htm

    There have been cases of patients complaining about generic drugs and been given a brand perscription but unknown to them they were still getting a generic, but the complaints stopped. But in any case as I understand it Gtown will pay for birth control if it is for a medical reason.

    If a private school wants to provide birth control at no cost to the user that is okay with me, but I'm not crazy about haveing money taken from me at the point of a gun (taxes) to subsidize somebody else's sex life.

    And last but not least, Sarah Palin has been called a slut and a lot more. I'm still waithing to hear anybody apologize, or any feminist to be upset about it. Rush Limbuagh did not move in next door to Fluke and spy on her.

    I don't listen to Rush, and while I'm consertive in many ways I'm also what is considered liberal on some things too.

    While I do not agree with some of what you said, and with how you said most of it, I don't dislike you, I'm not going to boycott you, and I continue to wish you well.

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  9. Eric-
    My post was not about health insurance specifically in order to avoid comments like yours. It is specifically about how some men in power do not understanding how birth control works.

    I would appreciate if you did not attempt to rewrite or infer upon my medical history of which you have a very limited knowledge. I was under the impression that generic and brand medications must be the same as well. However, after the fact, my doctor told me that the way the rules work and how specifically low dose hormonal birth control works, generics are not as effective at treating PMDD. They still however prevent pregnancy. It has to do with the amount of hormone in each pill, and the range by day in each pack. I trust my doctor on this, as well as my own experience.

    In regards to Gtown covering things, if you went to Georgetown and were able to get birth control, please feel free to say so. But otherwise, you have no basis to be speaking from.

    Also, my deductible was $60 per month because I am fortunate enough to also be on my parent's health insurance plan, which does cover birth control. Many others are not as fortunate.

    The main thing though, is that none of this is about who Fluke is, or the situation in which she was called to testify. Rush used the word slut to describe a young girl and he shouldn't have. But mostly Rush doesn't understand how birth control works.

    And lastly, I am not, and Fluke is not, saying that the people should be paying for our prescriptions (a debate on public health care is its own issue and sure as hell not one I want to have on my blog). What we are saying is that organizations shouldn't be allowed to deny coverage based on their morals that may or may not be shared by their patrons.

    I do not agree with calling anyone a slut (or stalking anyone for that matter) even if that person is Sarah Palin (that's a joke btw), and that was not in my post, nor up for discussion. Please stick to the topic or don't comment.

    I also disagree with what you said and how you said it, but I don't know you, so I don't dislike you, and I wish you the best.

    xoxo
    Princess Kelley


    Everyone else- Thank you for your support and your comments (even Jerry's which was in my estimation, rather conservative :) I am very happy that you understood what my point was)

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  10. Here, Here !!!!!!

    That is just another example of the extremist right trying to smoke screen the truth.
    Eric already drank the Cool Aid, so there is no point trying to talk sense to him now.


    (You are much better at the logical argument backed up by facts Eric or myself, Kelly.)

    Your Alaskan Prince,
    Chuck

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  11. CORRECTION

    Better 'THAN' Eric or my self.
    Sorry for the error.

    Chuck

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  12. If a woman that struggles to afford birth control does become pregnant... what then? Get an abortion? Have the baby and ask the state to pick up the tab? And pick up the tab for how long? Or should the government just say tough shit, you and your kid are on your own?

    Babies cost a heck of lot more than birth control. Pretty clear that society doesn't benefit from denying the poor birth control... and those that do support that idea are merely expressing a moral opinion. We're all allowed those, of course... including Rush.

    Honestly think he's pretty harmless too. He looks to create controversy because it benefits him (and the left does indeed do the same thing...Sarah Palin being called the c-word by Bill Maher... etc-etc). In this case, he thrust the topic into the national spotlight... where a more serious debate can occur... and ultimately Rush's opinion isn't going to win out.

    Rush can do fine when he speaks unchallenged into a microphone to a crowd of supporters. He's an easy-easy target though. He did a huge favor to those that disagree with him by opening his mouth.

    A target I'd like to see taken on is ~the Pope~. Rush thinks people should pay for their own BC (and was a total asshat about it)... the Pope doesn't think *anyone* should ever use BC, and he claims to be speaking for God. How crazy is that!

    btw... agree with every point you made... and thanks for posting about this topic in our little corner of the world.

    :)
    ~Todd and Suzy

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  13. Kelly,

    Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a cunt and a twat. Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a slut. Any outrage about those incidents?

    Any outrage over the presses treatment of Palin? Her children?

    This Fluke woman had the freedom to attend college wherever she chose. If she did not like the terms, she should have gone elsewhere.

    If nothing else, she has served a purpose. She has exposed the hypocrisy of some of the liberals in the US.

    Please listen to your first instincts and stay out of politics.

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