^{No, no, can't have any of that! Might lead to dancing!
(Photo courtesy of Amy Jo Goddard)}

I was listening to Rachel Maddow's 6/8/2011 show earlier today, and was interested by  National Organization for Women current President Terry O'Neill's take on the rash of new "personhood" bills going through various state legislatures right now.  In case you're unfamiliar, under the guise of the "pro-life" banner, right-wing nutbar Republican legislators in various states--Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, and other states--are trying to say that human life begins at the instant of conception.  Or as Rachel Maddow pithily put it, "5 minutes after having sex, you can drive in the car-pool lane.  Alone."

O'Neill's opinion is that this is not about abortion so much as it is about limiting women's rights to "reproductive health care", infantalizing women and making them subordinant to men.  I think there's some validity in that opinion, although I think it's overly-bombastic, as I find most pronouncements from NOW to be.  But that's NOWs purpose in this world:  to keep a sharp eye out for when men are stomping on women and women's rights.  It's important.  I just don't think O'Neill took it far enough.

I think the Right hates pleasure.  Or yours, at least.

I wish I could take credit for this point of view, but I have to give a tip o' the hat to Andrew Sullivan, who was my first experience with someone gathering many of the Right's seemingly disparate views--war on drugs!  abortion is evil!  birth control is baby killing!--under the rubric of the "anti-pleasure lobby".  

Getting pleasure from drugs is not just bad, or could lead to addiction; it's E-V-I-L!  Sex for pleasure alone is EVIL!  Masturbation is pleasuring yourself, and so is EVIL!  Sex work, and sex workers, who are basically selling pleasure, are REALLY EVIL!  Pornography might add to your enjoyment of sex, and so is EEEEVIL!  And so on; I'm sure you get the picture.

So while I believe that some anti-abortion folks believe that abortion is, literally, killing, I'm pretty damn sure that a lot of the anti-abortion crowd are motivated more by a desire to limit sex that's engaged in simply for pleasure.  It's only for making babies, not for having fun, you dirty, immoral hippies!  And if you get pregnant, well then you should just have to live with that!  And it serves you right, anyway, having sex for fun!  It's a SIN, and you should be PUNISHED! 

Now, this is hardly a new thing in Western Civilization; it's been going on a long time.  The Victorians were of course famous for their opprobrium against pleasure (while experiencing it surreptitiously all the time--people like feeling good no matter what society thinks, apparently).  Many religions are famously hostile towards pleasure--the more fundamental branches of Christianity and Islam spring to mind, of course.  (Jews are taught to have pleasure, but in moderate doses and under certain conditions, so we're kind of on the sidelines, except many some of the seriously Orthodox "black hat" Jews.  But that's a discussion for another time.)

Clearly, it's not new.  What's new now, in this period, for the first time in my lifetime is the huge, across-the-board push by these radical anti-pleasure people to limit everyone else's access to potential pleasure.  And that's simply not okay.  If these Right-wing nutbars want to trudge through life not having any fun, hey, more power to 'em.  (Although by the number who espouse one thing and do another--David Vitter, Larry Craig, John Ensign, and Newt Gingrich spring instantly to mind--I'm guessing that they don't; they just want to make sure no one else has any.  Which is not only pretty obnoxious, but staggeringly hypocritical coming from a bunch of "small government, get out of my life!" folks, don't you think?)  

So no, Ms. O'Neill, I don't think it's all about limiting rights for women, or treating women as second-class citizens (although I'm sure it's some of that for some of these folks); nope, I think it's all about the Righteous People saving us from out Sinful Bad Behavior (defined as:  "anything that gives you pleasure").  It's about infantalizing everyone who doesn't adhere to their code of morality, for only their code is the correct one, so if we don't adhere to it voluntarily, they'll force us through legislation.  It's the new Puritanism, the new Inquisition.  And frankly, I think we need to fight back with everything we have.  Not just for women's rights, but for all of us, because this is the United States, and I absolutely do not believe that a bunch of small-minded, hypocritical, moralistic jerks should be allowed to tell us all what to do as if we're 5 years-old.

No ma'am (or sir), I just won't take it.  You can take your anti-pleasure agenda and shove it right up your bum.  I'll even supply the lube.  And I hope you enjoy it, because I sure will.