Two weeks ago, actress Alyssa Milano called for women to refuse sex as a means of protesting the possible legal bans being placed on women’s bodies in Georgia. Two or three days ago, model Emily SomeLastName posed in the nude with a piece of cloth between her legs to show her disdain for the anti-abortion rhetoric going on in Alabama.
Sigh. This is serious stuff.
I wish they made it mandatory for people in Hollywood to pass a course in critical theory and thought.
Emily WhateverHerLastName always posts cleverly covered nudes of herself … and she is a stunner and she always gets press. That’s how I know about her. Naked.
This time she entered into the Alabama debate by going bare with something pink covering her vagina and some quote about protecting a woman’s right to abortion. Know what I read? I read: If Alabama allows abortions then Emily will always be this hot.
She had a solid message but it was lost with the image.
Milano, on a news programme, said that though she took a lot of guff for her hashtag protest her message worked because now she’s on TV and “we’re” talking about the abortion issue.
Oh, and she didn’t know how long she was going to go without sex from her husband because she hadn’t thought that far in advance.
Look, I don’t care if a “news” venue gives a person air time to talk about the paint drying or global warming or human rights. And I think sometimes we do need to employ ‘stunts’ to get people’s attention.
Where I take exception is promoting a platform which takes a natural expression and turns it into a power play, employing manipulative withholding tactics on our domestic partners to bring light to a political agenda that supports controlling the human body.
Yeah, that.
Also, the inference is that it’s a ban against men.
First off – Healthy sex is not a service/consumer commodity. It’s not what a women holds and a man takes. More so, sex has nothing to do with gender. Healthy sex is enjoying a person who is enjoying you. What elevates healthy sex even further is that it is an individual’s right to not engage every person who wishes to have sex with them, thereby indulging sensual desires only to those of their consensual choice.
Secondly – Forcing an issue into your partner’s life by withholding a mutual bond … well that’s domination at its most fundamental level.
By suggesting that it is acceptable to use one form of human control to curb another form of human control at the expense of a third party … makes zero sense.
It’s a mixed message ultimatum: I’m going to stop showering until someone does something about the plastic in our oceans. You can’t get a message across if no one can stand to be around you.
You dislike something? You want to make a change? YOU. Singular. Do something about it. You don’t drag a person into a cause. You don’t force someone into your corner. You present a case and allow the adult next to you to make an educated decision. And if you don’t appreciate their stance? Well, make a better case, or find someone who is more aligned with your policies.
Finally, this bullshit of telling others “be on my side or I’ll stop loving you” is irresponsible. That nonsense has no place in the discourse of human rights or individual sovereignty.