good lady

last night we went to go see debra haffner, who was giving a lecture at vanderbilt.

she is neat. you can read her blog here.

she is an ordained minister, and a sexologist, and she does work around sexual justice which is FABULOUS. towards the beginning of her talk she asked the audience how many people received positive messages, as children, about their body/sexuality from their faith tradition. maybe two people raised their hands. then she asked how many people received negative messages -- half the audience (including this bunny). how many people received NO message -- half the audience. sad sad sad state of affairs!! she went on to talk about how the bible affirms our bodies and our sexuality as life fulfilling gifts....that are meant to be enjoyed. then she talked about how fucked our culture is about sex. this is the part where i get kind of alarmed, and disgruntled.....

something about which i want to get on my soapbox is "abstinence only education". see, the same people that advocate for abstinence only education also advocate for making abortion illegal. consider that every year in america, there are roughly A MILLION unintended pregnancies. so what we should do is not teach people how to prevent pregnancy, and then make sure that when they do get pregnant, they have no option except to carry the baby to term. it makes so much sense, i don't know how i didn't think of it myself. and of COURSE if you don't teach kids about sex, they won't figure it out until they are married.

debra also shared the astounding information that somewhere up in the northeast, there is this catholic hospital (which i'm sure is one of many) that refuses to provide emergency contraception......to victims of rape and incest. i work with survivors of domestic violence, and several months ago i spent some time at the shelter with a lovely, gentle 18 year old college student, who had just found out she was pregnant with her father's child. we're really going to tell her that she has to have that baby? really?

i'll get off my soapbox for now, but still. go see her blog and learn about the work she is doing. especially if you are a woman and you don't want men making decisions about what you can and can't do with your body. maybe it will turn out that women have the capacity to make wise, compassionate, well-reasoned decisions all by themselves.