LJ Match 2 - Sexlectric Boogaloo
JustifiedI just napped for about an hour and a half. I woke up and read a page or two of
Bitch magazine and went right back to sleep...
This is good. Because, much as I did with my seizure symptoms, I tend to worry that I'm blowing things out of proportion. "Really, I should go to work!" No. I
never nap. That, in itself, means that I *am* really sick, that the day off WAS necessary. Plus I spent some time getting acquainted with the porcelain god. *shudder*
ParentingAppropriately enough for Marriage Protection Week, this is the Family Issue of
Bitch. One of the articles is on gay and lesbian parents, their representation in the media, etc. One thing that struck home for me was one woman who looked very much the stereotypical butch saying that all prejudice vanished when she had her young daughter - because people then assumed that she was straight. The assumption that gay people don't have kids, and people who have kids are't gay.
Going off on a tangent from that - I used to go to the Miami Book Fair every year. Huge fair over several blocks of Miami. And there was non-book-related stuff there, too - including an anti-abortion booth. (I do not call these people "pro-life". They're not pro-anything; they're anti-choice.) Well. These people would see me walking down the aisle, pushing a stroller, and they would beam at me like I was the Virgin Mary descended from heaven to argue their case; a fresh-faced young white woman with a baby! Surely I was on their side!
Oh HELL no.
I'm glad they didn't often send the same people out two years in a row - the advantage of this, for me, was that they were NOT expecting me to turn on them.
A woman with a baby is not necessarily straight. A woman with a baby is not necessarily anti-choice. Those are a hell of a lot of assumptions being made.... how were they to know that I hadn't had abortions before or since Elayna? I hadn't - I had several miscarriages before Elayna, in fact, which is why I had her even though the circumstances were less than ideal; I didn't know if I'd ever be able to carry a child to term, and if I only got one shot, I wasn't going to abort her, and I've never regretted the decision; she is my heart and my light. But I know many people who have had abortions, and sometimes it was the right decision for them and sometimes it wasn't, but it was THEIR DECISION.
Don't you ever dare to tell me what to do with my body. Or assume that I agree with you when you're trying to force your opinions on the bodies of others.
Incidentally, the circumstances of Elayna's conception were such that even some staunch anti-choice people would encourage me to have an abortion. There's a 50/50 chance that she was conceived via rape. My then-boyfriend and I had unprotected sex soon after the rape - I figured I needed to get back on the horse lest I start to fear sex - and... Elayna doesn't look like him. But she doesn't look like the rapist, either.
She just looks like me. She looks EXACTLY like me. The universe's way of saying "Doesn't matter how this little girl started - she is 100% yours."
My choice.
But I tell you, the hardest thing in the world was spending nine months wondering what I was going to do if she had brown eyes. (Then-boyfriend - Layne - had crystal-blue eyes; mine are grey-blue-green.)
Don't ever assume you know anything based on casual observation.
I'm going to go lie down now, having wandered far and wide on this twisty path of thought...
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