I'm almost 40 and never-married. Does Gov. Palin think I'm supposed to be abstaining?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

I was thinking about this the whole way home. WTF is with this abstinence-until-marriage crap they're trying to push on kids? And let's be clear, it's not abstinence-only, which is bad enough because there's no information about contraception. It's not abstinence until you're an adult, or old enough to handle an intimate relationship. Which are worthy ideas, so long as there's comprehensive information about pregnancy and STD prevention along with the emphasis on waiting.

No, they want abstinence until marriage. The religious overtones are thick, for one thing. I don't know how they get away with it. And the notion of delaying sexual intercourse until marriage is completely absurd for like 90% of the population. The median age of first marriage goes up every year. So are Palin and her ilk seriously saying that people should wait that long to have sex? Sure, there are people my age who are virgins and that's perfectly okay but they're not the statistical norm.

The fundies want to indoctrinate teenagers, awash in hormones, with the belief that they must get married and start cranking out babies ASAP. They are especially fascinated with female sexuality and control of it. I honestly don't think the Palin family is that upset with Bristol being pregnant. They probably would have preferred if it happened before the marriage but either way it locks her into her proper role in the patriarchy.

But what does Serena Joy Sarah Palin think of women like me? Should I be abstinent? Should I be denied birth control? I'd relish the chance to ask her those questions.

[Skittles]

1. they're sanctimonious pieces of shit

they preach what they don't practice

[Psephos]

38. That goes on a lot around here, too

Why? Because human nature is universal.

duh

[NanceGreggs]

2. Uh, are you implying ...

... that you haven't been abstinent all of these years?

I'm afraid I'm going to have to put you on my "Ignore" list ...

[Arugula Latte]

10. She's a witch!

Throw her in the water and see if she floats!

[beac]

46. Build a bridge out of her! n/t

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. B...b...but I can be a born again virgin can't I?

:rofl:

[NanceGreggs]

28. Not unless you're a Republican ...

:rofl:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

41. Damn! That lets me out.

It's trollop-hood for me, I guess. :rofl:

[NanceGreggs]

43. That's what I figured ...

... I happen to know where you can get a make-up trowel cheap!

[rebel with a cause]

51. I heard once that there was this operation

that you could get and it would make you once again virgin, but I don't know about the born again part. ;)

:sarcasm: just in case someone thinks I really believe in the surgery.

[Pastiche423]

63. There is a operation and it is being done

http://www.revirgination.net/hymenrepair.html">Revirgination

[rebel with a cause]

64. Wow, when I was young this was just

an urban legend. Well, sort of. It got spread around a lot to and by women that wanted to erase their past. ;)

Wow that site is interesting. Sure explained some things to me. :wow: :blush: :spray: :9

[Vickers]

21. Yup.

Keep it in yer pants!





:P

[beac]

48. Yes-- in fact , we need a whole new subset for our lists...

"Dirty Whore Ignore"!

[ColbertWatcher]

3. The fundies want to be in all of your business.

What you do in your bedroom, who you consider a friend, everything.

They can't just live and let live.

[avaistheone1]

4. Interesting points about the family's possible reaction....

[Hugabear]

5. Abstinence is stupid

Why should you have to deny yourself simply because somebody's religious book says that it's bad?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

13. And how the HELL are these people being allowed into public schools with this view?!

I've read about some of the curricula of these abstinence programs and it's some creepy shit. There's this one that tell kids that a non-virgin is like a chewed piece of gum.

[TahitiNut]

19. Hey! Don't go dissing other folks' hobbies.

:silly:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=108809

[rebel with a cause]

52. Hey, we have a shared interest/hobby.

When I was diagnosed with my heart problem, I told my doctor that it was a good thing that I was practicing celibacy. She was shocked speechless. Some people don't get my kind of truth telling/humor, or maybe it was just too much information. :9

[TahitiNut]

55. Well, I figure I gotta do something with the lemons.

:rofl: If I can't make lemonade I can just try to be a lemon aficionado.

[rebel with a cause]

56. Can't top that!

:rofl: "Lemon aficionado" is much better than "the bitter old woman", which is what I call myself.

[Solly Mack]

6. You've already been naughty then?

Shocking!

Won't anyone think of the kittens!?!?!

[HEyHEY]

7. Strumpet!

[Fumesucker]

8. Yes.

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

[Teaser]

16. oh dear god our brains have merged

unlucky you!!!

[Fumesucker]

30. It's known as a "mind meld"..

I'm the only person I know whose mind started in the gutter and descended from there.. ;)

Pleased to meetcha',

Won't you guess my name?

[EFerrari]

9. Do authoritarians know that other people are other people

with insides and everything? It sure doesn't seem like it.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

20. I don't understand how school systems and other bureaucracies are taking them seriously

Has no one given a moment's thought to this idea of "abstinence until marriage" and considered how utterly irrelevant it is to most people's lives? In my state, AZ, the government running ads on TV telling people to wait until they were married to have sex. Thank god Gov. Napolitano decided to refuse the federal funding that mandated abstinence only ed last year. According to Planned Parenthood, some of the programs were described as being for young people up to the age of 27. WTF??

[EFerrari]

37. They're building up an alternate insane "reality" that needs checking

at every point. They're the American Taliban and they need to be undercut in every way possible.

[az chela]

11. Looking at her daughter,not sure this is working too well 4 them

[kerry-is-my-prez]

12. They're going on and on about what great values they have because she's keeping the baby

You see - it's ok if you keep the baby and not abort it.

Guess the Repubs will no longer be able to lament what horrible values there are because of teenage pregnancies - because they now state that it's a GREAT family value.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

17. Unless you're one of "those" women

You know, like brown or poor.

[Teaser]

15. yes.

this has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

[stillcool]

18. Don't ask!!

you'll be labeled a hussy, and paraded around with an H branded on you like Hester Pryne

[Errrica]

22. LMAO.

Gah, I hated that damn book.

[truthstudent]

23. Sarah Palin = Serena Joy was my first thought,,,

I was scared to death the first time I read The Handmaid's Tale... as a young woman coming into the world I couldn't understand the pretense for this novel. I really didn't get it, but of course that was many years ago now (pre-Bush/Cheney). Until that point, I had spent my whole life listening to my family tell me I could be anything I wanted to be, and I've used this book throughout my life as a justification for why I shouldn't be complacent to any slight made at my expense as a woman and why I should fight for my sisters, even when they themselves don't understand the nature of the battle (much like Sarah Palin apparently).

Does Sarah in fact embrace teenage pregnancy? Shall we wish it on all our teen, unwed daughters because babies are a "blessing from God" regardless of the circumstance? What about the simple use of contraceptives (abstinence doesn't seem to work). As VP, will Sarah Joy personally preside over the subjugating of our girls to "early babies" (as one of the talking heads termed on Larry King tonight)?

And wow, is teenage pregnancy officially no longer a social concern? Someone should tell the groups that care for these young parents and their children that their services are no longer needed, because this isn't a problem anymore.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

34. Welcome to DU, truthstudent.

Many good points in your post. The ideology of people like Palin is so rife with contradictions its mindboggling. Their views should be regarded with as much credibility as Greek mythology or the Easter Bunny, yet they are given a seat at the table of public policy. It's outrageous.

I read A Handmaid's Tale over 20 years ago and I've never forgotten it. In the ensuing years I've sadly concluded that Atwood was correct in that many women will be complicit in bringing its warnings to fruition.

[kestrel91316]

24. Heck, I'm 51 and unmarried. You really wouldn't want to deal with

me if I'd had to abstain all these years.

[samsingh]

25. it didn't work for her own family

[firedupdem]

26. Have Sex and Baby after Baby because you're human!

Just don't have an abortion! The Evangelicals are supposedly loving Palin even more because her daughter is pregnaKey evangelical leaders rallied to Sarah Palin's support Monday amid news that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was having a child. See Below!


Sarah Palin confirmed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

"Before, they were excited about her, with the Down syndrome baby," conservative, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said. "But now with this, they are over the moon. It reinforces the fact that this family lives its pro-life values."

Palin and John McCain oppose abortion and have supported promoting abstinence in schools, which would seem to make Bristol Palin's pregnancy an inconveniently timed development.

But she is keeping the child, a fact that could make the Alaska governor -- whose candidacy has been enthusiastically embraced by evangelicals who regard her as one of their own -- even more popular among that key GOP voting bloc. Watch more on Palin's announcement »

"Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father's example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation," Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said. "We are committed to praying for Bristol and her husband-to-be and the entire Palin family as they walk through a very private matter in the eyes of the public."

Evangelical leader Richard Land also backed Palin completely.

"This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don't get it," Land said in a statement.

nt!

[OHDEM]

32. Yuck!

"Before, they were excited about her, with the Down syndrome baby," conservative, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said. "But now with this, they are over the moon. It reinforces the fact that this family lives its pro-life values."

It also reinforces that:
1. abstinance only programs don't work
2. Palin & the GOP are using her "Down syndrome baby" as a prop.
3. Palin will not only use her pregnant teenage daugher as a prop she'll deny her choices that affect the rest of her life.

[firedupdem]

27. Have Sex and Baby after Baby because you're human!

Just don't have an abortion! The Evangelicals are supposedly loving Palin even more because her daughter is pregnaKey evangelical leaders rallied to Sarah Palin's support Monday amid news that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was having a child. See Below!


Sarah Palin confirmed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

"Before, they were excited about her, with the Down syndrome baby," conservative, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said. "But now with this, they are over the moon. It reinforces the fact that this family lives its pro-life values."

Palin and John McCain oppose abortion and have supported promoting abstinence in schools, which would seem to make Bristol Palin's pregnancy an inconveniently timed development.

But she is keeping the child, a fact that could make the Alaska governor -- whose candidacy has been enthusiastically embraced by evangelicals who regard her as one of their own -- even more popular among that key GOP voting bloc. Watch more on Palin's announcement »

"Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father's example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation," Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said. "We are committed to praying for Bristol and her husband-to-be and the entire Palin family as they walk through a very private matter in the eyes of the public."

Evangelical leader Richard Land also backed Palin completely.

"This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don't get it," Land said in a statement.

nt!

[Quantess]

29. Welcome to DU!

:hi:
Excellent post.

[Critters2]

31. I know some of these folks, and it's not just that you abstain from sex with someone else.

They'd also disapprove of my battery-powered partner. Which reminds me. I forgot to pick up c batteries today.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

39. LOL.

That reminds me of a guy I used to work with. He was single, and a "devout" Catholic. I put the quotes around it because there was this odd inconsistency about him. He claimed that he'd never masturbate because that would be degrading and defiling himself. But he go laid regularly (without protection because that would be sinful) by women he met in bars. He also went down to Mexico regularly to visit prostitutes.

I know. :crazy:

Oh, and he went to confession to absolve himself of all of it every week. :crazy:

[hfojvt]

33. abstinence until marriage is what I was taught

Not at school though. School never taught about sex, except for some pictures of sores. I'm not sure how much I knew about birth control when I was 19 either, although I do remember classmates joking about rubbers in the seventh grade.

[Skittles]

42. lol

"....some pictures of sores" :rofl:

[samuraiguppy]

35. I hope

that you are a virgin--because otherwise you are damned to hell. hmm 40 year old virgin--that would make a good movie...

edited to add--of course this is meant to be sarcastic (for those few DUers who do not have a sense of humor)

[avaistheone1]

36. Are you kidding ...THAT is a movie.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

40. I'm afraid to say that particular ship has sailed.

I'm told I can become "born again" but it never particularly interested me.

[countryjake]

44. You're supposed to multiply...

some of the ones I know look at us as defective if we don't become consumed with that godly desire to be "fruitful"...that big daddy in the sky ordered it and I have a feeling they've invented new degrees of "sin" for women who eschew marriage. They also think it's part of the job description to conquer and subdue the world, so that would include welcoming any addition to their number, no matter the circumstances, which explains Palin's attitudes on rape and incest. Hell, they need all they can get.

I know one couple that had two daughters, oldest one has never married, second one is 35 yrs old with five kids. The slams and badgering the older girl suffers thru at family gatherings, because she's defying her "fate" and ignoring her role as a woman, has gotten my blood boiling many a time, and led to uncomfortable exits for me. And her mother is the worst offender. (I thought of them when I heard the statement that Palin issued today, about what "proud" grandparents they will be) Criticize and harangue a person with three degrees, who cares deeply about improving the quality of life on this earth, while lauding the one who has become frazzled by motherhood. It's a misplaced value, as far as I'm concerned and dysfunctional, as families go.

Anyway, I'd be willing to bet Palin believes that you should quick find a man, any man, and reproduce, to fulfill your duty.

Just imagine being taught that as a kid. And then once you're old enough, being told to "abstain". It's a mind-bender, for sure.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

49. I think you pretty much nailed the mindset.

I expect that Palin's younger daughter will be knocked up fairly soon. :(

[DFW]

45. Yes, she does!

Exceptions made for immediate relatives of hers............

[demobabe]

47. DO NOT HAVE SEX

But if you have a baby, we'll love you forever. ;)

[Arugula Latte]

50. Have you not heard of Purity Pledges, young missy? Hmmm?

:eyes:

[luv_mykatz]

53. You nailed it when you said...

"They are especially fascinated with female sexuality and control of it." This is what their whole schtick is about. Fundy fanatics hate everyone else and want to control every facet of our lives. Oh, and they need more cannon fodder, and more blind sheeple to tithe and put $ in the offering plate.

[countryjake]

54. Welcome aboard, luv_mykatz!

DU needs more cat people!

[The Straight Story]

57. You mean you haven't been abstaining?

:)

[LeftishBrit]

58. Yes, I'm sure she does. Get thee to a nunnery.

She wants everyone to go back to the 50s. The 1750s, that is.

[slampoet]

59. Some people find their life partner at age 75. Fundies have NEVER been able to account for this.

What do people do with their lives until they find their partner late in life?


They have NO answer for this.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

60. They want people to get married at 19 and they need to be called out on it.

I'm so tired of these freaks being taken seriously and allowed to have influence over public policy.

[JHB]

61. Yes, she's against unauthorized sex.

The view she seems to subscribe to is that any form of sexual activity outside of a (heterosexual) marraige is immoral, illicit, sinful and degenerate. No exceptions allowed.

and the anti-choice angle effectively forbids contraceptive use as well. Nothing makes their blood boil like someone "getting away" with it.

So you're just out of luck. When you feel the need, take a cold shower and pray harder.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

62. Marriage: Patriarchy's Hall Pass.

[dysfunctional press]

65. sex outside of marriage is adultery- so yes.

but why would that matter to anyone who doesn't share her beliefs..?

[question everything]

66. Dan Quayle did

when he went after "Murphy Brown."