Oh, fuck:
Govs. Pawlenty And McDonnell Apply For Abstinence-Only Funding From Health Law They Opposed:
On Monday, both Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) said they would not be applying for funds from the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which provides states with $55 million for comprehensive sex education programs. Instead, they applied for Title V funding, which has $50 million a year for states to implement abstinence-only education programs. The catch is that in order to get the federal dollars, states must provide a 75 percent match.
I hardly remember what sex education was like at my high school. However, there was a day care for all of the mothers who also happened to be sophomores, so my best guess is that it was a Hell-House-esque journey through photos of herpes sores and shades of avocado discharge.
Sadly, the curriculum even planned for the fact that in order to prove that sex always leads to infectious and in many cases incurable diseases, they’d have to show actual genitals. Their loophole depended upon showing outbreaks worse than the writing on Lopez Tonight, so that most of the sores actually eclipsed their penile residence in size. Or at least, what I think was a penis. So not only did I leave my nine weeks of, ‘This is what happens to you if you have sex, but don’t think that means we’re telling you that sex is real” with no mention of contraception, but I also began to question my own jittery grasp of how sex worked. Like, if this so-called ‘herpes’ was so bad, why did it look like a sea of pleasure nodes not unlike my own lousy uni-clitoral mud-flap? And why would I want to protect myself from it by promising Jesus that I would only take on multiple sexual partners after marriage?
It’s like taking a class on candy making that revolves solely around photos of cavities. And then telling everyone that if you make caramel, you will get burned. I mean, yeah, you probably will but that’s not the point. Because just like sex, candy is fucking awesome and if enjoyed responsibly, it can be more than an invitation to pass out in the bathroom of a 7-11.
But, really, $50 million is a great deal for a time machine. Just not one that is unable to actually go forward in time.
Today, I ‘liked’ Planned Parenthood on Facebook. As with most things, I didn’t really know what that meant. I figured that at best, it would stir up some suspicion that I just came home from an abortion, half drugged and thankful that I didn’t have to say goodbye to Peanut Butter Nipple Wednesdays.
Instead, I got this:
This is gonna be good
Alicia has either missed the point entirely or well…that’s about it. I thought about sharing my reaction so I could be part of a mob for once in my life, but I couldn’t put this into words:
After three weeks on the road and seeing Wal-Marts scarier than Christian Slater’s hairline (and if you think your Wal-Mart is scary, then either you live in Salt Lake City, where it has its own parking garage, or you’re completely full of shit), I have finally made it to Oregon.
Unfortunately, one of my first impressions of Oregon was a small town by the name of Hines, where I stopped off at a supermarket to buy a party tray of boneless honey barbecue chicken wings because, unless I wanted to chow down on bumper stickers reading “Real Men Love Jesus”, there was nothing else. It was at this moment that I overheard someone say, “I hope he falls off the face of the earth and we never have to hear about him again.” Hoping they were talking about Ryan Seacrest, my ears perked up, only to discover that this Joe Dirt knock-off and his girlfriend and/or mom were referring to a tabloid featuring Barack Obama.
Now, as far as my opinion of Barack Obama is concerned, I’m somewhere in between the rabid commemorative plate crowd and those who come up with new ways to talk about Michelle Obama’s ass, so I didn’t feel the need to really say anything. For this, I was rewarded because after that, the conversation transitioned into a heated debate on whether or not they would have enough money for cigarettes and a movie, which was weird since they were buying 22 fruit pies. If you make more than $30,000 a year and are therefore unfamiliar with the fruit pie, it’s a processed dessert (or in this case, every meal ever) consisting of a glazed pocket of crust filled with your choice of an ambiguous gravy-like substance that is passed off as cherry, lemon, or apple. It’s more like the concept of pie, which is why in most cases, it only costs .75.
So there I am, not really able to be too judgmental because I’m standing around with 7 pounds of chicken in my arms, wondering why I left everything behind for this. I mean, I knew that Oregon had more to offer than a couple with matching Army t-shirts and crew cut hair styles, but in that moment, all I wanted to do was go back to Florida so I could at least bask in a lower socio-economic culture that I was used to. Then, as I was driving away, imagining these two going home and eating their fruit pies while watching “Reba” in what I hoped was a child-free home, I saw this billboard:
It says, “One style doesn’t fit all. Especially when it comes to birth control. Free or low-cost birth control, that fits your life, your body and your budget.” I didn’t know what to make of it at first, and while searching for a picture of an aborted fetus holding up a “fornicator” sign, I finally realized that this was actually promoting safe sex practices instead of pandering to the lowest depths of teenage vernacular in order to transform pregnant fifteen-year-olds into married pregnant fiften-year-olds.
So, overall, Oregon is pretty cool–and I don’t even have to pump my own gas.
I usually get kind of unnaturally giddy on the day I go to the gynecologist. I don’t necessarily get a thrill at the thought of my gyno touching me, but that’s mostly because I’m in a paper gown, the lighting is atrocious and I’m being finger banged all the way up to my stomach. Otherwise, I think we could have a good time together.
The one thing I don’t like about the gynecologist is when I’m asked questions I’ve already answered on the paperwork. She’ll be like, “When was your last menstrual period?” and not only am I trying to remember what I wrote so she doesn’t think I’m a liar, but I’m also trying to hold myself back from going into my usual I already told you. You never listen to me. I can’t believe I’ve wasted all of this time with you. mode.
Anyway, for whatever reason, my gynecologist’s office usually looks like your typical NASCAR audience, only with more pizza flavored Combos. When I went in today, I had the pleasure of sitting next to a pregnant chain smoker and the father/uncle of her unborn child. He was obviously very displeased with the fact that he was at the “lady doctor” (his words, not mine), and she kept lamenting about how she “needed a fucking drink”, and I’m being kind because drank is actually more phonetically accurate. From what I gathered, they just bought on new car (if a ’95 Lumina counts as ‘new’) and needed to deal with some sort of insurance issue, so they took it upon themselves to flippantly cancel their appointment minutes before and reschedule. Meanwhile, I’m approaching my first hour in the waiting room, thinking, “What kind of sweet ass deal do they have where they can just cancel an appointment within the hour and not have to pay?” Then I took my head out of my ass and thought, “Oh right. Welfare.”
Now I hate to get all Bill O’Reilly on everyone, but if you’re on government assistance, or at the very least you can’t afford to feed yourself (as was the case with these two based on the mention of their “food stamp card”), then I can’t justify any reason why you should reproduce during the time in which you are not economically viable. Ok, economically viable is kind of a bullshit term. What I mean to say is: If you can’t keep yourself in Cheetos and beer, don’t have a fucking kid.
I know there’s a slippery slope when it comes to dictating whether or not women can/should reproduce. At the same time, I refuse to accept that it is somehow anti-feminist or misogynistic to believe that women and men who choose to have children under bleak economic circumstances are at best misinformed, irresponsible, selfish or all of the above. Attempts have been made to actually consider family planning, but without much success because I guess foresight isn’t on the to-do list of the Jerry Falwell types.
So, as I’m sitting there trying not to stare at the inappropriate pictures of babies with rose peals over their genitals, I notice that the reincarnation of Anna Nicole Smith has struck up a conversation with another patient. They exchange stories, which means that in addition to learning about how nice her 14 year old car is, she has an existing brood at home and at 23, is pregnant with her third. Her new victim in this lesson of “Holy shit my life just got exponentially better” produced only one response, which was, “Well, God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle.” At this point, I almost left my post as shifty-eyed eavesdropper to challenge her to a duel because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Instead, I sat back in my chair, not knowing which fire to put out first, while ultimately landing on “meh.”
Look, I’m all for deferring personal responsibility just like everyone else, but only when I eat two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and blame it on the fact that I needed to use the rest of the bread or else it would start to mold and I paid good money for this so it’s senseless to throw it away. This doesn’t really apply when I’m responsible for another human being or really anything that doesn’t involve gorging on afternoon snacks.
Oh and on my way home, in a sick twist of consistency, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “Relax, God is in control”. We’re so fucked.
I get a lot of questions about the name “Vagina Drum”. When I say “questions”, I mean that people are like, “What the fuck is Vagina Drum and why are you so gross?”. This is the kind of question that I file under “rhetorical” and so I just shrug and maybe try to hit on them since they already have such low expectations of me.
I am still, however, taken aback when this happens, because Vagina Drum has been a fact of life for quite some time now. I wish I could tell a story about its origins that involves me finding out about some modern day Ted Bundy who kills women to use their vaginas as drum skins to play in his Guns N’ Roses cover band, and how I single-handedly shut him down minutes before my swearing-in ceremony, but I cannot. Although, it would be kind of fucked up if that really was the story, and then I went and appropriated a name from the twisted happenings, but it does sound like something I would do.
Instead, I plopped my ass on some kitchen counters, spread my legs, and just started beating away. I called it my “vagina drum” and it took me nearly four years to realize that it could me more than something I do for a cheap laugh. If you want my hippie Tommy Chong analysis, Vagina Drum is what you play when you are proud of your pussy or (for men) the fact that they exist. It is also about getting pissed off at rape as a war tactic, honor killings, and the fact that Warren Jeffs is alive and well.
I don’t think of myself as Vagina Drum, and I’m not hiding behind some ridiculous moniker. My identity is easily found online, I just think this one is much cooler.
