May is National Masturbation Month (thanks to the Love Shack Boutique here in my hometown of San Antonio, Texas: check them out here) so the ‘M’ word here is masturbation, which I will define as giving oneself sexual pleasure. And since this is still something that isn’t talked about, I’m going to talk about it here today. Because yesterday I wrote about the attack on abortion rights that is extending to other rights such artificial birth control, artificial conception, and same-sex and inter-racial marriage. But Justice Alito missed one big one here: the battle against the sex toys (though I’m sure he’d be pissed that he missed mentioning that one).
In 2004, several companies in Austin, Texas challenged a state law banning the sale of sex toys. Defending the state in court was future Senator Ted Cruz who wrote a seventy-six page brief saying the state had the right to ban the sale of these devices for private use since the right to privacy didn’t extend to solo sexual pleasure in the privacy of one’s private residence.
Seventy-six pages to argue against dildo’s and other sex toys… yeah ‘ol Teddy boy doesn’t bring that one up anymore and didn’t mention it in his book, but for all the juicy details of this case you can read the Mother Jones article here (blue hyperlink will open in a separate window). In 2007, Teddy Boy lost his case before the Court of Appeals and decided not to appeal it to the Supreme Court (though I would have loved to have seen that).
The attacks against reproductive rights are an attack on the right to privacy which though the word ‘privacy’ isn’t in the Constitution, it has been interpreted as a right people have in this country. But the American Taliban as the Christian-Right/conservative Republican establishment see it, the only people who have any right to privacy are married couples getting it on strictly for procreation purposes. Yes, this is an extremist view held by a good number of religious theocrats who see sex as only for procreation purposes and feel sexual pleasure is evil.
Luckily, I wasn’t raised by religious theocrat parents though my mother had been raised in a religious theocratic household, also known as strict Catholicism. As I wrote last week, as I was coming of age in the 1980’s my mother was rebelling against her upbringing and she took me along for the ride. And one thing I learned about early on was masturbation and that it wasn’t wrong, just something done in private and not talked about.
The reason I want to talk about is the American Taliban will not hesitate to talk about forcing women to give birth, take away their babies to maintain a supply of infants to adopt (the Handmaid Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barret wrote this in a brief supporting the overturning of Roe vs. Wade), and die in childbirth or from ectopic pregnancies. But talking about sexual pleasure is taboo to these assholes and we need to stop letting these assholes control the conversation once and for all.
I own a device like old Teddy-boy tried to ban. It’s the third one I’ve owned and since I’m single and live alone it’s mine to do with as I please. Personally, I think these things should be given to every woman in this country along with an instruction manual. Because if more women had orgasms without guilt and shame our country would be rid of the American Taliban in a heartbeat. Because the American Taliban want women to be silent, totally submissive, and without any joy or happiness. Why they want it is just pure evil because every cult deprives its’ followers of any form of joy and happiness to insure blind obedience.
So I’m not a silent obedient devotee of a joyless life and they probably hate me for it. Fuck them all to hell for that belief. There is NO SHAME OR GUILT in being happy and finding pleasure wherever you can, including getting help with obtaining joy and pleasure in a sexual way. I’m so sick and tired of shame and guilt being pounded into people for no reason by people who are NOT capable of feeling any shame or guilt for the pain and suffering they perpetrate onto other people. These are the people who are going to hell and not those of us having orgasms and wanting other people to live and love as they choose to.
The Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s, and into the 1980’s for me was about rejecting this bullshit shame-and-guilt about sexual pleasure and I’m all for the Revolution to keep going and roar to new life with a multi-setting battery-powered buzzing. I think at reproductive-rights rallies now women need to raise their sex toys up like wands or light-sabers instead of protest signs.
I feel just a tad bit sorry for right-wingnuts who don’t believe in sexual pleasure, sexual freedom, and flat-out joy and happiness. They must be drowning in so much shame and guilt they only have hatred to breathe through. And if any right-wing nut has made it this far in reading what I’ve written here I’ll say this to you instead: learn to love yourself and experience joy and happiness. Be brave, be bold, and buy your sex toys through the internet if you want to.
Michelesayre.com 