My body is not my own.

Neither does yours belong to you.  Our bodies are civic bodies, subject to the changing whims of temporal convention and the larger body politick.  The very notion of a woman’s right to control her own body is mere comforting illusion for our sakes, no more.  We argue around the edges of a reality that exerts daily control over all our bodies.

Our bodies are civic bodies, each belonging to us all and to the government. Skeptical?  Consider then, the following.

We rail in outrage against the Taliban forcing women to wear burkas.  But do you think you have it substantively different?  No.  You have it different only in degree.  If you doubt it, try walking into the police station naked, or sunbathing on the beach in your altogether.  And it doesn’t take the police to enforce this civic rule.  Try riding the bus or subway naked and see how far you get.

Your body belongs to us.  We not only tell you what you can show us of it, we tell you what you can and cannot do with it, too.

Abortion on demand may be a right, but try getting a mastectomy because your mother and three aunts died of breast cancer, and if you haven’t already got cancer you are going to have a very difficult time protecting yourself in the manner you wish.

If you think you are free to do with your body what you want, try getting a sex change operation.  You won’t be allowed to unless you jump through years of expensive tests, first.  Just ask our own brave and eternally sunny Elena Kelly.

And speaking of sex, try charging money for it and we will put you in jail.  We let you give your body away, but we won’t let you rent it out.  How's that for body ownership?  And we’ll put you in jail for trying to rent someone else’s body, too.  And even if you don't charge money for sex, we will put you in jail if you don't do it where we want you to.  Disneyworld is a very stupid place to give your body sex if you want it to stay out of prison.

If a woman in Saudi Arabia walks with her head uncovered, government officials can hit them with sticks, and if I go to court in cutoffs and a tank top I am subject to arrest and a fine.

In  America, if your body likes to have sex with the same kind of body, you are not free to marry or serve in the military or have other rights afforded to those whose bodies like different kinds of bodies.

If your body has an outie, you are a role model if you have sex with lots of people.  If your body has an innie and you have sex with lots of people, we will give you names like tramp and slut and whore.  And those are bad names.

Certain doors in life will be closed to you if you put too much ink on your body.  And while we have no problem at all with you putting a hole in each of your ears and inserting jewelry into those holes, if you put holes elsewhere in your body we label you with other bad words and we limit what careers you can have.  And if you put the holes in certain places that we call “private” -- and we get to determine which of your body parts you should keep private -- we will give you those tramp and whore names again.

We control where you can take your body.  For instance, if you have to go to the bathroom, we tell you which rooms you can and cannot take it into.  It used to be that we would tell you what kind of job your body type could have, but that doesn’t happen so much anymore, except at Hooters.  We make clubs and gyms that you may or may not be allowed into, depending on your body.

Women are allowed to put pants on their bodies, but we weren't always.  If you are man, we won’t arrest you for putting a dress on your body, but life will certainly be made very difficult for you.  Likewise, if your body has a penis and you want to put makeup or nail polish on your body, we will limit what jobs you can have and where you can go.  And we will generally make your life miserable.  Oh, and good luck getting a date.

Women are allowed more leeway in what they can put on their bodies, but we are not completely free.  People will occasionally be mean to me when I do not put a bra on my body.  Boobs are bad.  Nipples are worse.  Other people get to control my boobs and my nipples.  Yours, too.  And tops that are considered fine for bodies with smaller breasts are often considered inappropriate for my body with my size breasts.

Plus, women bodies have more clothing requirements than men bodies.  It is the rare woman who can get away with one pair of dress shoes and one pair of casual shoes, yet lots of men do just fine with exactly two pairs of shoes.

If you have a vagina, we charge you more to get your hair cut.  Don't ask us why.  No one knows.

We also tell you what you can and cannot put inside your body.  If you’re under 21, you cannot put alcohol in your body.  You can put tobacco smoke in your body if you’re 18, but you cannot put just any kind of smoke in it.  For instance, you cannot put marijuana smoke in your body, ever.

We have lists of other things, sorted by the conditions in which we will let you put them in your body.  A few years ago, you could not put Claritin in your body unless a doctor prescribed it for you, but today you can.  That same few years ago you could put all the Sudafed in your body that you wanted, but not anymore.  Today we limit how much you can have and make you identify yourself so the government can track you.  Cocaine used to be an over-the-counter weight loss treatment and an ingredient in the nation’s best selling soft drink.  Today we will put you in prison if you put cocaine in your body.  And depending on which kind of cocaine you put in, we can incarcerate you for longer and longer periods of time.

If your body has ever been sick, we may not let you have medical insurance.

We won't let you take your body in an automobile unless you first buy insurance and wear a seatbelt.  And while cowboys are not required to wear their hats, there are special hats we force you to wear if you ride a bike or a motorcycle.

Your body is not your own.  It belongs to the rest of us.  Today, I would like to ride my naked body to the beach on my bike, and plop it on the sand in the buff while putting marijuana smoke in it.  If my body were my own, I could do that.  But my body is a civic body.  It belongs to you, not me.

And that kinda pisses me off.