It’s All About Banning Sexual Pleasure, Isn’t It?

“Any state that forces a pregnant woman to have a child before viability is a slaveholding state engaging in sexual violence.”

I read this today: “A pregnant woman in Texas told police that her unborn child counted as an additional passenger after being cited for driving alone in a high-occupancy (HOV) lane, offering up a potentially clever defense for a motorist navigating the legal landscape following the supreme court’s striking down of nationwide abortion rights last month.”

In Texas, insane enough to criminalize women for being pregnant, she’s right. Any right-thinking judge will invalidate that ticket.

Attempts by extremists to outlaw a woman’s right to determine her own fate, specifically whether to bring an unwanted early pregnancy to term, isn’t about the law, though some falsely claim we must change the law to protect women.

It’s about the joy of sex and those who hate the thought of women having sex not to procreate but because they choose to do so for their own pleasure.

First, the law: our Constitution clearly protects a woman’s right to equal protection under the law (the 14th amendment), which is not the case if she’s prosecuted for making decisions about her own body. Supreme court sophistry doesn’t change that fact.

In addition, the 13th Amendment protects us from slavery: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Forcing a woman against her will to engage in involuntary servitude is clearly forbidden by the Constitution. No argument there, right?

No, my friends, it’s not the law.

These judges can’t bear to think that a woman is, among many other things, a pleasure machine able to enjoy sexual pleasure at her own convenience and not because a man wants to plant his seed in her — or, for that matter, rape her, in which case the justices are fine forcing her to bear the child “for her own good.” (Again, and clearly, involuntary servitude.)

Without indulging in pornography, imagine a woman engaging in sexual relations that’s consensual, tender, and life-affirming, carried out for the sake of intimacy and pleasure. Remember the bestselling book The Joy of Sex? Were some of you bothered by it? Are you engaged in attempts to control women who don’t share your beliefs? If you’re anti-choice, that’s what you’re doing.

No argument there, right?

Now imagine affirming everybody’s right to consensual (or, for that matter, solitary) sex. Don’t be infantile about sex: embarrassed, frantic, and fearful. Sex is magical and mysterious, dangerous only when used for power or control.

Sexual violence — which isn’t sex at all — is endemic. A man often, and falsely, claims ownership of, and dominion over, a woman, by force.

Condemn sexual violence. Affirm sexual pleasure.

We learn through suffering — life teaches us that — but we also learn through pleasure.

You can believe that sexual pleasure before marriage is a sin. It’s a free country.

But you’re wrong.

Consensual and responsible sex that brings pleasure to both partners is worth celebrating over and over again. Any state that forces a pregnant woman to have a child before viability is a slaveholding state engaging in sexual violence. That state is not saving a child, it’s victimizing a woman for prurient reasons. That’s the dirty little secret of anybody who criminalizes early term abortion.