(no subject)
There is an ad currently running on our TV for the "morning after pill". I have a number of issues with it, none of which are to do with the drug itself, which I think should be made available at free clinics to anyone who wants it, and should be sold OTC at all pharmacies, and you should be able to pick it up off the shelf, no questions asked, and pay for it with your nail polish, shampoo, and whatever else you're buying that day (thus circumventing pharmacists who believe that they have any say in another persons' reproductive choices), or with the fact that it's being aired, which I think is awesome with a capital some.
No, the issues I have are purely to do with the imagery of the ad, foremost of which is the fact that the girl they choose to focus on is so thin that I doubt she gets a period at all, let alone has enough body fat to support a pregnancy. Please, please show us someone who looks like us, an average woman like you or me who has clumsy sex with a guy she likes, but both of them are kind of awkward when it comes to condoms, or she's staying over at his place, and she forgot her birth control (it happens), and one thing led to another, and now she needs something just to make absolutely sure she's not pregnant with a guy she's not sure she can introduce to her parents, let alone raise a child with.
(Soapbox) No-one, no matter how glib about casual sex, wants to go through an abortion. The (edit: not RU-486, but the "morning after pill" - see comment from pharmacist below *hearts commenters with more knowledge*) pill makes sure women (and girls) never have to go through that. It should be standard issue after any sexual assault examination, and it should be free, free, free, just like the kit used for the examination. (/Soapbox)
(Consensual) Sex is messy, awkward, and fun, and everyone does it. While I applaud the presence of the ads themselves, I would prefer something more accessible and real, like women interviewed about the relief they feel about having the option available to them, easily and without fuss, shaming, or lectures, at any pharmacy. It is not an abortion, despite what the anti-abortion lobby wants you to believe; it acts like a large dose of birth-control pills (and this is a method women have been using privately for years; if you forget a pill, take two or three the day after). If it is classified as an abortion, then birth control pills have to be classified as such, and down that scary road lies the people trying to get any kind of birth control made illegal.
(Soapbox again) Some people want the morning-after pill banned completely, claiming (falsely) that it is an abortion. These people want to take all reproductive choices away from women, and their agenda is about shaming women for being adult sexually active people. You know, because only whores have sex outside marriage, and women who are married should get pregnant all the time, because they are merely vessels for the babies they carry, not people in their own right. (/Sarcasm) (/Soapbox)
But the last, and silliest objection I have to the ad (but not its message) is that at the end, the girl makes a shape with her hand that becomes the "B" in the tag line of the ad - "Be Safe" - but in sign language, that sign (the thumb and forefinger curled to make a circle, and the last three fingers pointing up) is "F". Which made me yell "That's an F, you retards" at the screen, because I am 10 years old and cannot keep my thoughts to myself.
Mind you, the ad is tame compared to what they're getting in Britain. (slightly NSFW, no nudity, and really offensive viewpoints from the British Christian Right.) (Assholes.)
Because, in Britain, Christmas is totally about getting boozed up and having unprotected sex with questionable strangers, and how women are being told (yet again) that if they get a little tipsy, it's their fault if a man sexually assaults them, not about how men should keep it in their pants, because real men don't have sex with unconscious partners. Gah. Sexual politics piss me off.
No, the issues I have are purely to do with the imagery of the ad, foremost of which is the fact that the girl they choose to focus on is so thin that I doubt she gets a period at all, let alone has enough body fat to support a pregnancy. Please, please show us someone who looks like us, an average woman like you or me who has clumsy sex with a guy she likes, but both of them are kind of awkward when it comes to condoms, or she's staying over at his place, and she forgot her birth control (it happens), and one thing led to another, and now she needs something just to make absolutely sure she's not pregnant with a guy she's not sure she can introduce to her parents, let alone raise a child with.
(Soapbox) No-one, no matter how glib about casual sex, wants to go through an abortion. The (edit: not RU-486, but the "morning after pill" - see comment from pharmacist below *hearts commenters with more knowledge*) pill makes sure women (and girls) never have to go through that. It should be standard issue after any sexual assault examination, and it should be free, free, free, just like the kit used for the examination. (/Soapbox)
(Consensual) Sex is messy, awkward, and fun, and everyone does it. While I applaud the presence of the ads themselves, I would prefer something more accessible and real, like women interviewed about the relief they feel about having the option available to them, easily and without fuss, shaming, or lectures, at any pharmacy. It is not an abortion, despite what the anti-abortion lobby wants you to believe; it acts like a large dose of birth-control pills (and this is a method women have been using privately for years; if you forget a pill, take two or three the day after). If it is classified as an abortion, then birth control pills have to be classified as such, and down that scary road lies the people trying to get any kind of birth control made illegal.
(Soapbox again) Some people want the morning-after pill banned completely, claiming (falsely) that it is an abortion. These people want to take all reproductive choices away from women, and their agenda is about shaming women for being adult sexually active people. You know, because only whores have sex outside marriage, and women who are married should get pregnant all the time, because they are merely vessels for the babies they carry, not people in their own right. (/Sarcasm) (/Soapbox)
But the last, and silliest objection I have to the ad (but not its message) is that at the end, the girl makes a shape with her hand that becomes the "B" in the tag line of the ad - "Be Safe" - but in sign language, that sign (the thumb and forefinger curled to make a circle, and the last three fingers pointing up) is "F". Which made me yell "That's an F, you retards" at the screen, because I am 10 years old and cannot keep my thoughts to myself.
Mind you, the ad is tame compared to what they're getting in Britain. (slightly NSFW, no nudity, and really offensive viewpoints from the British Christian Right.) (Assholes.)
Because, in Britain, Christmas is totally about getting boozed up and having unprotected sex with questionable strangers, and how women are being told (yet again) that if they get a little tipsy, it's their fault if a man sexually assaults them, not about how men should keep it in their pants, because real men don't have sex with unconscious partners. Gah. Sexual politics piss me off.