My body, my choice - I want some of that too, mm'kay?

 
"My body, my choice." It's a mantra that's been shouted ad infinitum, and I think it's a great mantra which highlights the importance of personal sovereignty to the exclusion of everything else, even a life. We must have control over our bodies, after all.

I really am in favour of this idea. In fact, I so fully agree with this idea, I'd like to suggest changing a few things in society to more fully put this concept in practice.

For starters, I spent two years in the navy as a conscript. My unit was a peacetime active unit, which meant we actually had to do our duties for real when there wasn't a war going on (mostly coastal patrol), and while this small part of the world is fairly safe, I was still expected to put my life on the line if need be.

Aside from that, the government took control of my body, telling me where I could be, what I could eat, what I could put into it, when and where I was allowed to smoke, how fit I have to be, and so forth. As an operationally ready reservist, I am obligated to pass a fitness test every year. Failure to do so results in me either having to go for a 20-session training course, a fine, or jail time.

Since it's my body, I demand my choice to not have my fleshy body co-opted to the point of potential death by the government to take bullets and bombs for people I hardly know. I demand that the government relinquish telling me what I can and can't do, and using the long arm of the law to force me to comply if I don't agree.

My body, my choice.



I also suggest that every single cent of tax that I pay which will go towards any sort of welfare be eliminated. While I may not pay with 14 years of my life that goes towards feeding a parasitical underclass that literally cannot sustain itself without benefits from Pimp Daddy G, I nevertheless have no desire to pay for freeloaders in my society. Why should my mind, my muscles, my organs, my life be used in the service of someone else whom I will never see or know? Since it has been determined that it is morally permissible to cut off a living being from the fruits of my body to the point of death, then why should I give a damn whether these parasites starve in their homes and die in the streets?

Indeed, why should I pay for other peoples' goodies like free contraception, free healthcare, free food, free anything and everything with the sweat of my brow and labour of my muscles?

My body, my choice.

To add to the above point, I would like to immediately make all alimony and child support completely voluntary. Not just because in the latter case the lady in question must have unilateral control over her body and hence with that comes unilateral responsbility and burden, but also because we have previously established that it is perfectly morally permissible to cut someone off from the fruits of your body to the point of death.

Hence, no one - not the ex-husband, not the divorcees' mother, not the guy next door should be coerced by the state to pay for someone's "sustained standard of living" for up to life in addition to cash and prizes, while another certain someone has to live in a dingy one-room flat or out the back of his car. Nope, his "sustained standard of living" doesn't matter, does it?

If it is so horrible to co-opt a woman's body for nine months, why is it morally permissible to co-opt a man's body for eighteen or more years? If it is unforgivable to force motherhood upon a woman, why is it permissible to force fatherhood upon a man, consigning his body to indentured servitude, stress hormones, potential risk to life and limb, and with the threat of imprisonment if he doesn't pay up?

No one is entitled to another's body, after all. My body, my choice.

My next suggestion would be that since I must have unilateral bodily autonomy at all costs, I would like for the vile practice of male infant genital mutiliation to cease immediately. Since there is no reason that is great enough, and indeed it has been proven that all the supposed "benefits" of male genital mutiliation either come from faulty studies (HIV transmission), are overstated (penile cancer), or plain crazy (reducing masturbation), this must cease immediately until the point where any boy is capable of giving informed consent as to said mutiliation before it is carried out.

Where are the mainstream, well-funded marches against this vileness? Against this horrible injustice against the bodies of infants?

My body, my choice.

Oh! Oh! How about some of you ladies stop thinking that you're entitled to our sperm, either through deception, theft, rape, shame or outright going to Pimp Daddy G and telling him to shake down us Johns.

You want to get an abortion or your tubes tied without your husband's consent? Okay, that's cool; sure, a medical practitioner might try to dissuade you from it, but their hands are tied when it comes to refusing you or else the lobbyists will raise hell. Hmm, why do we guys need a permission slip from our wives to get a vasectomy? Surely since everyone must have control of their bodies, we've got to do away with this in the interest of equality, right?

Men actually wanting to control when and under what circumstances they reproduce? What a quaint idea!

My body, my choice, yes? But I'm sure we can come to an agreement - if my earnings and sperm are to be declared "maritial assets", you can offer your womb and ovaries as "maritial assets" in the interests of "equality", can't you?

Free Northerner sums it up:

"You aren’t entitled to a woman’s body.

But they are entitled to yours.

You work, you sweat, you break your back, you endure inanity, boredom, idiocy, and bureuacracy for 40+ hours a week. Women are entitled to about 40% of that.

Women are entitled to about 2 days of your labour, 16 hours, every week. They are entitled to take this through the threat of force, violently supported by the guns of the police.

[...]

If you attempt to deprive them of your hard work, of your labour, of your body, you go to jail. The IRS (or the CRA for Canucks) will see to it.

[...]

It’s simple: either people are entitled to the bodies of others for attaining their basic needs, or they are not.

To say otherwise is hypocrisy."

To these ends, I suggest a better slogan, one more accurate to reality:

"Her benefit, her choice."

Because all the evidence goes to show that clearly "equality" and personal sovereignty were never in the sights of feminists, right from the day Betty Friedan and the feminist lobby howled down Dr. Coutinho at the 1971 World Population Congress when he proposed the male oral contraceptive gossypol. Was gossypol flawed? Perhaps. But hormonal oral contraceptives were horribly flawed too in their early years, with a whole host of side-effects (and still do today), and yet funding and approval on them didn't come to a mysterious standstill.

"No male pill!" That chant says it all.

It's all been about unilateral control over every single aspect of the reproductive process, from procuring alpha seed at will and pleasure, to being able to "cancel" the pregnancy at any time, to picking which beta herb is going to be lucky Mr. Babydaddy regardless of any real blood relation to the child.

So, men have bodies; when do they get their choice? The answer is never, not as long as this society is standing, because it runs on men not having any choice over their bodies whatsoever. Not on the fruits of their labour, not on reproductive rights, not on genital integrity, not on paternity. Victim classes flock to Pimp Daddy G and whore out their votes in exchange for some of the sugar, and they don't notice that although Daddy's shaking down the Johns more and more, he's keeping more and more of the sugar for himself.

And you wonder why it's crumbling?

When the lights go out and the water shuts off...no one's going to have any "choice". Of any sort.

Don't mind me, I'm just weathering the decline in my box.