This article has been brewing in me a long while out of a personal experience and now out of political news. I post it as a public service. I have intentionally added many important resources. File it under the TRAVAILS of SEX and do not ignore it.
I did not expect to find myself writing on current social issues so soon but we are dealing with issues of civil liberty and health right now that I feel called to bring to attention.
First, in listening and studying the history of Roe v Wade and the Christian Right, the current threats seem to have been long intended to create chaos and further divide the country. As one friend says we could call this push to threaten and divide big lie 2. In other words, this has long been intended and may well be a strategy for 2022 campaigns. The point is to shake us all up. So let’s study a bit about it.
I will share what Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt about making Roe a national sweeping law. A law, given the Christian Right fanaticism and values of control, aimed especially against the poor and POC, could be expected to be a long time war and right now I see anything that can threaten us and upset to be definite intentional tools to getting them back in the office.
Let’s not make that so easy.
Remember RBG’s whole career was focused on equality for both sexes. Worth understanding her views now. She foresaw the unending war a national blanket law might bring. She wanted case by case.
This is RBG and her advice on how to manage abortion rights. I have added spaces to ease reading.
"The seven to two judgment in Roe v. Wade declared “violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” a Texas criminal abortion statute that intolerably shackled a woman’s autonomy; the Texas law “except[ed] from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the [pregnant woman].”
Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed, reflected most recently in the Supreme Court’s splintered decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey?
A less encompassing Roe, one that merely struck down the extreme Texas law and went no further on that day, I believe and will summarize why might have served to reduce rather than to fuel controversy."
So will we continue to force it on the whole country or expect rulings on cases that are vividly unfair, especially to the poor and POC? RBG proposed CASES THAT CLEARLY MAKE ABORTION ILLEGAL, to be overturned case by case. Not by national mandate.
The republicans would be deprived of yet another cudgel and lie over Biden. This is NOT about abortion but it IS about political maneuvering.
Though I can find no citations, I hear youth are protesting, messing with TX websites and Tik Tok. Let me know if you hear more. I hear and I hope they are successful. They are the ones this impacts to a great extent. And some say TX may well have a woman governor.
I move now onto a second topic that NO ONE TALKS ABOUT and I attribute this silencing to mostly the same Christian Right who likes being in control of bodies.
I highly recommend Michael Moore and Presbyterian Minister, renowned author, and investigative reporter, Chris Hedges, here on Substacks. Hedges has spent time with the Christian Right and he claims they are not as interested in abortion as in power. (My short take on a great wide-ranging discussion.)
We are a repressed country regarding our bodies and especially regarding sexual freedom. Most do not discuss what I am about to discuss until Sexually Transmitted Diseases hit us personally. And don’t be fooled. The elderly are just as susceptible as the young. The ignorance is tremendous.
While I could go into the US as a very sexually confused country, I suggest this article for its thoroughness although I would like some citations and no I do not testify the author leading voice in health care and I work in health care. I like her naming of the issue: Oversexualized & Sexually Repressed.
As we struggle with a pandemic that may become endemic soon, we overlook a huge leap in cases of sexually transmitted diseases. As I have said I work as a health mentor especially dealing with epigenetics which I call environmental wellbeing. I believe whether spiritual or scientific, there is ample evidence: everything is connected.
That means that freedom is not free, we need awareness and the ability to self-reflect on our lifestyles, and in a time of high stress, as we know now, good habits of eating and community connections may not be embraced. This is Reflexivity’s mission: to restore awareness and community connections for wellbeing, love, and peace. A return to civility and dignity.
Again in this time of stress statistics show a great rise in STDS.
As I reviewed STD/STI info I found the CDC one of the best overall sites and highly recommend looking it over.
Recognize they seem to miss some of this or perhaps I have not looked deeply enough: untreated some of these can cause infertility, ongoing susceptibility, and yes death.
And this involves not just the young and sexually active but the elderly. Nursing homes I have been told by social workers deal with it a lot and add the burden of dementia it makes sense. We all want to snuggle yet I can find no mention on the CDC site. Again I connect poor and less than open information with our confused sexuality and SHAME.
HPV is little spoken of in men maybe because in MEN it may reveal a lot. HPV in a monogamous relationship, especially as most women get annual pelvic exams and men only prostate exams, and now when women are encouraged to get the HPV vaccine, and men do not, may reveal a double life in men. As I will note: there is no test, like a pelvic for women, for men. And there is no researched treatment for men.
Important Update. There is progress with HPV. In older men, it can be deadly. The recommendation is now up to 45 years of age for vaccination. Please research.
The first sign of lesions SEE A GOOD DERMOTGIST FIRST. WAKE UP.
AFTER 45 NO VAX. CANCER AND DEATH ARE POSSIBILITIES. AN UPDATE: TREATMENTS ARE INCREASING BUT MEN ESPECIALLY ARE SLOW TO GET HELP. DON’T WAIT.
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I once long ago worked for a doctor as a receptionist and was assigned to notify patients of positive STD tests and ask them to notify their contacts. Few would consent and I found the job unbearable and shocking that an infected person would not inform. I did not last long.
Now as I have personal experience that reveals more than most places, I want to share a story of a man I have tried to help and had to do a lot of research that turned out to be utterly shocking. Bottom line: MEN MUST GET HPV VACCINES or like this man face death.
I have done extensive research. Most research is on women with cancers from HPV. I can find none on men and HPV. At least from my research, there is 1. NO TEST for men with HPV and 2. NO TREATMENT for the underlying HPV. You will need cancer treatment that the HPV triggered and if you wait too long it will spread.
This client lives several states away and I found quickly is not forthcoming on a great deal making the research and advice more difficult. He first shared he had hernias so we found natural support for his groin area. In a couple of years, the cells changed to squamous and he was initially diagnosed with cancer, lymphoma, so I researched and found the genes involved. He has genetic testing and the lymphoma treatment was published by NIH.
Then the doctors did not know what to do with cellular changes in his groin area. We now know that these are squamous cells, normally associated with skin cancer, and can be deadly. At first, they wondered where he might have been irradiated.
After more biopsies, finally, with a urologist, where another cancer was found, they concluded the squamous cells were HPV and it had metastasized throughout his body. The final diagnosis: two lymphomas and two cancers all caused by HPV.
As he was a long-time married monogamous man some dark secrets were revealed. He had led a secret life and had sex with women maybe men who had not been tested as women usually are, for HPV. And while this at first shocked me, I have come to learn that sexually active men living with monogamous wives are not unusual. In gay men, this kind of relationship is called having a beard, which may perhaps be even a straight marriage to cover up gayness.
Oprah has run a lot of shows on cheating husbands and the women who get involved. The one that helped me understand was with a reunited couple. The wife happens to be a journalist and when she published, she mentioned STDS.
As I am not sure if I can post a YouTube here, although it is certainly an important topic, I post the title of that show for you to look up: Suzie Had No Idea Her Husband Lived A Double Life for 15 Years | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWN
My client has broken contact for now though he says he will begin chemotherapy soon. I hope to hear how he does.
Interesting sidebar: I personally have a good dermatologist. Last week, in going for my yearly dermatology check-up for cancers, I shared this story with him. He said if he saw genital squamous cells he would immediately assume HPV. And he knows cells. He shared he had a client with a lesion on his tongue and he personally assumed an STD. The man would not admit to any activity.
This article has dared a wide swath: considering the implications of Roe v. Wade, looking at the epidemic of STD in the US and a personal experience of male infidelity that led to severe illness due to a serious STD, HPV.
Above all please recognize that many of these infections may be ASYMPTOMATIC in slow-growing infections and the outcome can be life-threatening.
While many can be treated the infection’s impact can last for life, like herpes, so any new partner must be informed. And some like slow-growing HPV can be life-threatening.
Sadly or wisely the only real advice I found anywhere is 1. abstain or 2. be monogamous and keep healthy, testing regularly.
I conclude: we are sexually repressed and we are especially by media and consumerism lured to hypersexuality.
Wake up, please. Bodies are divine gifts and freedom requires wisdom and care.
May all beings and this Planet thrive. Information is power.