Plan B and the Internet Berserker: Adventures in Uncivil Discourse

Friday morning I posted this meme on the Worley Dervish Tumblr.

From the New York Times Editorial Board, May 3, 2013:
“Putting Politics Ahead of Science” (not to mention decency and common sense)

That post set a guy on Tumblr off on a rampage. (I honestly don't know who he is—I "ignored" him, which is Tumblr speak for "I blocked him," so now I can't see his blog, which is all to the good.) Happily, I am not usually exposed to this kind of hateful ranting, but after my initial shock, I have to confess to feeling kind of honored. I have no idea how this guy found my blog. Maybe he was looking for a lefty feminist to rage at and just happened to pick me. Oh joy.

So I decided that I needed to answer the raging bully, at least theoretically, if for no other reason than to silence the echoes still rattling around in my head. And it just so happens that because I had trouble reading the tiny type on his blog, I'd copied the rant into a Word file so I could read it. So here goes...

Oh…you want to talk decency and common fucking sense?

Yes. And watch your language. Show a little decency.

sit your ass down.

Who do you think you're talking to? I'm not your kid. As a matter of fact, I'm really, really glad I'm not your kid. Seriously.

You want girls of any age to be able to fuck around and have access to 'safe birth control' because its their uterus and they (at any age) have the right to do whatever with their body because its their body.

No one is saying that adolescents should just go out and have as much sex as they want. One hopes that parents would teach them to respect themselves and their own bodies, and to respect others and their bodies. In the real world, however, neither very wise and loving parents, nor the possibility of getting pregnant, nor the fear of a noisy, bullying, swearing, red-in-the-face father has ever been enough to prevent some adolescents from having sex.

And watch your language. Didn't anybody ever teach you not to swear at strangers?

why the fuck do we even have parents anymore? They don't even matter anymore in this society. A girl can get pregnant at 14 (even younger!) and can just buy the morning after pill over the counter and keep on fucking because apparently they are mature enough to know what to do with the pill and do it responsibly. wow! why have parents anymore when society and government can just do it for us?

I notice your focus is entirely on girls, like the only problem with adolescent sex is girls having it. And the availability of contraceptives, emergency or otherwise, would cause them to have sex without any restraint? A little reminder: it takes two to make a baby.

I suppose that because adolescent boys can't get pregnant, it's just fine for them to "fuck around" as much as they want? I suppose too that you figure it's up to girls, and girls alone, to avoid pregnancy, and boys are just too weak-willed to control their adolescent urges?

Quick access to emergency contraceptives can prevent pregnancy. It could easily take a girl weeks to work up the courage to talk to her parents about having been raped. Or about having had sex. Do you really want that girl to get pregnant just because in the few hours afterward she couldn't bear to talk to her parents about it?

No, fuck you people.

Charming. Watch your language.

How about YOU stay the fuck out of other people's daughters vaginas because as long as she is under MY roof, she is MY responsibility, NOT yours. Good parenting is raising your child right and that includes protecting them from the hot-sex society you dumbfucks are creating because you fail as parents yourselves and simply give in to them. Kids need rules and strict guidelines to live by and loving parents who show them right from wrong and actually fucking discipline them when they get outta line.

I think you're confused. It's you who are trying to control what other people's daughters have access to. And of course your daughter is your responsibility. Poor thing. But just because you don't want your daughter to have access to something she may desperately need doesn't mean that you should be able to prevent my daughter from having access to what she may desperately need.

Giving adolescents access to emergency contraception does not mean that your daughter has to take it, any more than it means that she has to have sex. You don't want her to use contraceptives? Fine. Then lay down those good rules and strict guidelines you're so fond of. That ought to do it, don't you think? It sounds, though, like you'd like the government to do it for you, to deny her access, because your rules aren't really as effective as you like to think. Are they?

According to you, if you raised your daughter right, your daughter won't need emergency contraceptives. If they're available to others, so what? What does that even have to do with you and your daughter? What happens between you and your daughter is your own business—God help her.

And watch your language.

This…'let them have sex because we can't stop them so lets promote safe sex and birth control at any age'…is fucking retarded. You are telling immature kids that its OK to have sex as long as you are safe about it but if you are not safe about it, theres Plan B which we want available to girls of all fucking ages.

This "make them have babies because we don't want them to have sex" thing is what makes no sense. Even kids with the best, most conscientious, most loving parents sometimes have sex.

Or are sometimes raped.

And here's a little nugget for you. Listen closely, because I'm sure it's news to you. Even really, really good girls sometimes get raped. That's right. Really, really good girls. That is to say, all girls who are raped are really, really good girls. All girls are good and supremely worthy of love and respect. No girl ever wants to be raped. Or asks for it. Or deserves it. And no girl is responsible for being raped. That's what it means to be raped. It means that your person has been horribly violated. When that happens to an adolescent girl, she should have access to whatever help there is in the universe, including over-the-counter emergency contraceptives. No girl who has been raped should ever be forced to become pregnant as a result of that rape.

Quit focusing exclusively on girls' behavior and start teaching boys to respect girls and not to rape them. Teach girls that they and other girls are worthy of respect and don't ever, ever deserve to be raped.

And watch your language.

As a parent, you people make me fucking sick. stay the fuck out of my kids uteruses.

It's rape and the rape culture we live in that make me sick. It's shaming girls who have been raped and then forcing them to bear children they're not ready for that makes me sick. It's foul-mouthed, bullying misogynists that make me sick.

Now go wash your mouth out with soap and think for a while about your deplorable behavior. What kind of example are you setting for your kids?