Rise up, Sotah: Contraception, Religion, and Slut-Shaming

Cross-posted to State of Formation.

I have a truly shocking announcement: I am a woman, and I enjoy sex.

Apparently, admitting to this makes me a slut.

I am not, of course, unusual. For many of us, sex is fun. For many of us—cis-women[1] who sleep with cis-men, thereby risking pregnancy, included[2]—sex is a thing that brings joy to life and contributes to its being worth living. One of the great things about the technological age is that we have a range of medicines and devices that make it possible to have a fulfilling sex life while significantly reducing the risk of an unplanned pregnancy. By all measurable standards of human flourishing, this is awesome. And yet, society has a problem with us saying this out loud.

According to “Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog,” slut-shaming is “the idea of shaming and/or attacking a woman or a girl for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and/or acting on sexual feelings. Furthermore, it’s “about the implication that if a woman has sex that traditional society disapproves of, she should feel guilty and inferior” (Alon Levy, Slut Shaming).”

If it please the court, I’d like to present (only the latest) exhibit A:

"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."

As we are likely all well aware by this point, Rush Limbaugh directed the above screed at Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who testified before a congressional committee in support of the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate. Never mind that Limbaugh’s statement betrays a gross misunderstanding of how hormonal birth control actually works. (For those who are curious, you have to take it every day, regardless of how much sex you are or are not having.)

Never mind that much of Fluke’s testimony was directed towards the use of hormonal birth control for non-contraceptive purposes, or that it never mentioned her own sex life, or even whether she personally uses hormonal birth control, once. It was enough that a woman unapologetically acknowledged that birth control was a real need in women’s lives.

However, much as Limbaugh might prefer to think otherwise, this article is not about him. Rather, his comments were an especially egregious representation of a larger cultural trend—a trend, unfortunately, which has significant roots in religious traditions.  One of the stranger and more disturbing episodes in the Hebrew Bible describes a test as to whether a woman suspected of adultery is guilty:

"After he has made the woman stand before the Lord, the priest shall bare the woman’s head and place upon her hands the meal offering of remembrance, which is a meal offering of jealousy. And in the priest’s hands shall be the water of bitterness that induces the spell…Once he has made her drink the water—if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag; and the woman shall become a curse upon her people. (Numbers 5:16-27, JPS)"

The point here is that unrestrained female sexuality represents a threat to the social structure: in this case, a material threat, since it made establishing a child’s paternity difficult. The best way that structure could restrain it was to place not just legal sanctions but social stigma on the suspected adulteress, or sotah. The ritual was meant to physically mark her; her body itself became a kind of scarlet letter that told everyone who saw her: this is a slut.

The ritual sounds arcane and anachronistic, but don’t we take women’s bodies and how they appear as physical markers of their supposed sexual virtue? Tight or low-cut clothing, or even physical features women may not have any control over—large breasts or buttocks, for instance—we assume that these markers aren’t for the women themselves, but for us, to signal their sexual status.

Similarly, the admission that a woman uses birth control, and especially the acknowledgement by a woman that yes, sex is an important part of her life, isn’t assumed to be about her own needs and desires, but about broadcasting her sexual availability to the rest of us. And that is assumed to be shameful.

Why is this a problem? For one thing, a culture that shames an open conversation about women’s sexuality is a culture that is going to make it more difficult for women to get the reproductive healthcare that they need—especially women with limited resources, or women who might be in urgent or dangerous situations.

For another, the assumption that women’s sexual choices aren’t for them but for our collective benefit leads to a horrifying degree of victim-blaming in cases of rape and sexual assault. Slate’s Emily Bazelon notes that this even manifests itself in rape law:

"Rape law also still treats certain kinds of sexual conduct as unacceptable for women, by exempting it from the rule that places a woman’s sexual history outside the bounds of evidence that can be admitted at a rape trial…In many cases, it’s deviance that’s deemed to make a woman’s history distinctive, allowing the court to give the jury the chance to conclude that a particular’s woman’s claim of rape is less legitimate."

This has to stop. And because religious traditions have helped build this structure, religious voices have a moral responsibility to be a part of what stops it. Can we step up? In subsequent posts I’ll explore resources within my own tradition that I think can be useful for doing so. But I hope dearly I won’t be spitting into the wind.

Do our traditions contain the resources to build a truly feminist, inclusive, sex-positive sexual ethic? I hope so. I think so, and I want to believe so, but I am honestly not sure. Are there texts and rituals within our traditions that contain theological and philosophical grounds upon which such an ethic can be based? Yes, there are. Do our traditions furnish us with methods of interpretation and practice that can help us emphasize those parts and confront and repair destructive ones? Absolutely. Is there the human will—the intellectual bravery and moral conviction—to use those methods? I cannot answer that question. I can be one part of the answer, but the rest is up to everyone else.

Original artwork, "Scarlet Letters," by author.

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[1] A cisgender person is someone whose gender identity, as understood within their culture, matches their phenotype and sex chromosomes. Contrast with a transgender person, whose gender identity in some way does not match their phenotype and/or sex chromosomes. A transsexual person is someone who has undergone some degree of medical gender reassignment—hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery, etc.—to bring their physically expressed sex characteristics in line with their gender identity. Not all transgender people are transsexual. For a fuller treatment of Trans 101, see the Sylvia Rivera Law Project’s helpful rundown. [2] It is absolutely not my intention to erase transpeople who have not yet undergone gender reassignment surgery or have chosen not to and who might therefore also run the risk of impregnating someone or of becoming pregnant; rather, this post is about a social phenomenon that overwhelmingly applies to people who can become pregnant and are perceived as female. Transphobia—in general, and with specific regard to sexuality and to religion—is a huge issue of its own, and something I hope to address in future articles with the depth and attention it deserves.

The Obligation to Vaccinate: "Health Freedom" and communal responsibility

Cross-posted to State of Formation

While visiting my hometown over winter break, I stopped by the local natural foods store. As I waited at the cash register, I noticed a poster on the wall.  Above a stock photo of a (white) mother blissfully cradling a newborn read the caption, “Oppose Mandatory Vaccination.” Two thoughts came to mind. First, “I will no longer spend money here.” Second, “What beliefs and fears is this poster trying to exploit?” With the language of “mandatory,” the ad clearly speaks to a fear of loosing the individual freedom to make choices about health. But is freedom really the best framework to use in this scenario? Or was the ad a demonstration of how individual freedom is a poor premise on which to base discussions of public health?
The anti-vaccine movement, in its contemporary iteration, began in 1998 when the British doctor Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the medical journal The Lancet, positing a link between the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Subsequent studies failed to corroborate Wakefield’s claims; indeed, evidence strongly suggesting that Wakefield’s work was not only incorrect, but actively fraudulent, has since come to light. None of this has stopped the vaccine-autism claim (which grew from a specific focus on the MMR vaccine to equally inaccurate claims about mercury-based preservatives and about “too many vaccines too soon” overwhelming the immune system) from sweeping the public consciousness in a big way, aided most notably by figures such as David Kirby, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Jenny McCarthy.
Tragically, the spread of this claim has had consequences: Measles, which in the mid 1990s was on the verge of eradication in the United Kingdom, has returned to endemic levels. This past year saw the largest U.S outbreak of measles in 15 years. And in Charlottesville, VA, where I live, there was a measles outbreak centered around the local Waldorf school this May.
In addition to the fact that the claims on which the entire movement is based are incorrect, and that the drop in vaccination rates precipitated by the movement is likely responsible for actually killing people, there are several other troubling premises behind it: can we, for instance, pause to note the breathtaking ableism of the assertion that risking a child’s death from infectious disease is preferable to risking autism? Equally troubling is the callous disregard of scientific consensus in favor of conspiracy theory, as well as the “Appeal to Nature” fallacy. (I would suggest that those who oppose vaccination because it does not confer “natural” immunity cease, in the name of intellectual consistency, any use of corrective lenses, contraceptives, refrigerators, computers, and so forth.)
I am most interested in here, however, in vaccine refusal as a “right.” I think this language has a particularly strong pull within religious communities. Certainly the idea of being forced to take actions contrary to one’s strongly held beliefs is anathema to many people of faith, particularly those who belong to minority traditions. And the language of “health freedom” often used in arguments for vaccine refusal echoes that of “religious freedom”—after all, if what we do with our souls is a matter of the most personal choice, surely this is also true for our bodies? Don’t we have the right to make whatever healthcare decisions we wish, however ill-advised, for ourselves and our families?
Not quite.  Not all bodily decisions are created equal. As the rise in measles rates indicate, the decision not to vaccinate has consequences for more people than those who make that decision. Indeed, as Steven L. Weinreib, M.D, pointed out in a recent New York Times op-ed, high vaccination rates are an essential bulwark against infectious disease for those who, because they are too young, have certain allergies, or are immuno-compromised, cannot be vaccinated:

Young babies, the immuno-compromised and people who get chemotherapy are not able to process most vaccinations. Live vaccines in particular, like those for measles and chickenpox, can make us sick. But if 75 percent to 95 percent of the population around us is vaccinated for a particular disease, the rest are protected through what is called herd immunity. In other words, your measles vaccine protects me against the measles.

Weinreib’s point demonstrates that the language of individual rights is insufficient when considering the ethics of vaccination and similar public health issues. Instead of thinking, “It’s my right to refuse a vaccination for myself or my child if I want to,” we should be thinking, “It’s my responsibility to vaccinate myself and my child for the health of the whole community.”
In Health Care and the Ethics of Encounter: A Jewish Discussion of Social Justice, Laurie Zoloth argues precisely this point:

At issue here is not what feels right to the individual, guided by an individual heart, but ‘What does it take to live an honest life within this particular community?’ Hence, a number of actions may be argued for, but all ought to be directed toward the community interest, not only the self. (Zoloth, 1999, 158)

Furthermore, Zoloth argues, the Jewish tradition provides a framework for such community-centered ethics: “Autonomy…is neither a presupposition nor a goal of Judaism…[a person is not] ‘entitled’ to act in complete freedom; he or she is required to act in community, in covenant with God, and in accordance with halakhah.” (Zoloth, 158)
One source for the primacy of communal obligation is the book of Ruth (in which Naomi’s family flees a famine-stricken Bethlehem for Moab, and is afterwards stricken with the deaths of all its male members), from which she derives several principles of an “ethics of encounter.” The first of these is particularly salient here: “To leave the community at a time of scarcity/danger is wrong. There is no personal escape from collective scarcity:”

Why does disaster fall upon this family? Who is [Naomi’s husband] Elimelech? The rabbinic response is that he must have been a man of substance, who abandoned Bethlehem at the first sign of trouble…Elimelech is the prudent libertarian. [He] chooses his individual solution, leaves the land and the community, and disaster strikes. Rather than turn his face to the face of the other, he turns away and heads in the opposite direction. (Zoloth, 204)

If we replace “scarcity” with “risk” in Zoloth’s formulation, we find it applies perfectly to the issue of vaccines and herd immunity. It’s true that vaccines are not without risk. A small minority of people do react badly, and there is the occasional fatality (at rates, it should be noted, that are miniscule compared to the toll of infectious disease). To vaccinate is to take a risk, albeit a very small one, for the sake of a greater personal and communal good. With vaccination rates as high as they are in the developed world, any given person can go unvaccinated and will likely remain quite safe; this is also what protects those who cannot be vaccinated or for whom vaccine-conferred immunity does not take. But too many defections, and the herd immunity that newborns, immune-compromised individuals, individuals for whom the vaccine did not work, and those who voluntarily refuse vaccination depend on will collapse. Those who refuse vaccination based upon a claim of individual autonomy thus behave exactly like Elimelech in this story—fleeing the community at the first sign of risk, and disclaiming their membership therein.
That the eradication of infectious disease depends upon a community upholding its responsibility to protect its citizens cannot be overstated. Precisely because of the nature of infectious disease, it is impossible to protect oneself by withdrawing from the community. Unless you can figure out how to stop breathing air, stop drinking water, stop eating food, and stop engaging in any physical contact with anything else, you will come in contact with vectors for infectious disease as a consequence of existing. This is a risk we share as a community; its amelioration is a responsibility we similarly share as a community. The vaccine issue is an object lesson as to the validity of Zoloth’s argument for the value of an ethic based on communal obligation in issues of health.
This public domain image is a work of the Federal Government and appears courtesy of Wikimedia.

On Binge Drinking

Recovery Position: So your drunk doesn't pull a Jimi Hendrix. 

Pursuant to my adventure this weekend (short version of the story: S & I assisted a VERY drunk undergrad who had locked herself out of her house)-- some thoughts, in no particular order:

• Should anyone find themselves in a similar situation to the one we were in: if you are even THINKING about calling the rescue squad, CALL THE RESCUE SQUAD. While you are waiting for the rescue squad, here is a guide for how to attend to them.
• Binge-drinking culture is frustrating and upsetting, particularly in its effect on young women.
• I see this culture expressed far more here at [Big State University] where I attend grad school, than I did as an undergrad at [Offbeat Liberal Arts College]. Not that people didn't like intoxication there; they loved it. On the other hand, we had no greek life, pot was probably as popular (if not more so) than alcohol, and if someone was getting trashed, there was a very strong possibility they would be quoting Dostoyevsky in the process. Which is why I occasionally am still shocked.
• I suspect that Dan Savage is largely correct when he says that one thing feeding binge-drinking culture is sexual puritanism: specifically, as long as society frowns on displays of sexual agency (particularly by the female-identified), people will get blackout drunk, have anonymous sex, and then blame the booze.
• Would I have behaved differently if the person who needed assistance had not been a.) female, b.) white, c.) young, or d.) clearly middle class? What is the correct way to balance fighting one's internalized racism, sexism, and classism, while nevertheless maintaining a legitimate concern for one's own safety (the legitimacy of said concern, by the way, extends only as far as male vs. female bodied--much as I may not like it, I'm not exactly Venus Williams, and I'm not sure how much it would be wise to insert myself into a situation with a drunk who was bigger and stronger than I am.)
• Lurid pink drink mixes are a.) representative of a frustrating trend of disguising alcohol as candy and thus encouraging drinking to the point of blackout, b.) specifically targeted at (again) young women, c.) perpetuate rape culture (a term I do not use lightly) by encouraging a breed of sexually uninhibited behavior that is totally divorced from any reasonable notion of agency d.) a barbarous way to treat perfectly good ethanol.
• It is appalling to me that [Big State University] lacks a medical amnesty policy. This is an excellent way to get people killed.
• As countless older, wiser friends have counseled me, there is a smart way to do dumb shit, and then there is a stupid way. I accept that, for most people, only firsthand experience will teach them that drinking to the point of blackout and/or vomiting is not that much fun. This was certainly true for me. However, the handful of times it took for me to learn this, I was in a safe environment with trustworthy people, at least one of whom was relatively sober. I urge anyone who still needs to learn this lesson to do the same.

Image by Rama. Used under a Creative Commons Share Alike 2.0 license.

"Body Parts Not Reached By Penetration of its Main Shaft"

Via Jewschool : Kosher Sex Toys, the frum set's answer to Babeland!

I'm pretty much in agreement with Chanel's read on the whole thing, especially her concluding point:

In spite of all the stuff to find infuriating about KosherSexToys.net- the need for a spell checker, the lack of clinical language, the emphasis on heterosexual marriage-it’s pretty great that this exists. It’s an important move towards more sex positive Jewish relationships and communities.

However. What I want to know is, how the hell do they get away with claiming that a pocket rocket, for fuck's sake, is "the quietest most compact and technologically advanced personal stimulator in the world today"?

In case any of you STILL think vaccines cause autism...

...please allow XKCD to explain everything that is wrong with science and health journalism today.

Rape, Arson, Murder, and Omitted Conjunctions

From the department of unfortunate newspaper typos:




In the 4-3 Irish Business post. Via Language Log. Extra credit to anyone who gets the reference in the title.