An Oklahoma judge permanently blocked a law, which permanently blocked a law, which banned any off-label use of medications for abortion. Judge Donald Worthington’s ruling recognized bodily integrity and reproductive choice as fundamental rights under the Oklahoma state constitution for the first time. He also ruled that the restrictions are “so completely at odds with the standard that governs the practice of medicine that [the bill] can serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions and to punish and discriminate against those women who do.” Hopefully legislators get the message that their disingenuous attempts to restrict access to abortion under the guise of protecting women’s health won’t be tolerated.

Later this week Governor Fallin signed a bill requiring all Temporary Assistance for Needy Families applicants to undergo a drug screening. Originally the bill required applicants to take and pay for a chemical drug test. Now every applicant will go through a drug screening and will only be drug tested when there is “reasonable suspicion” of drug abuse. “Reasonable suspicion” is also the standard that police officers must meet to stop and question people on the streets. That policy plays out in a totally non discriminatory manner. I’m sure it’ll be the same with this law.

Lest ye worry that our state legislature might be up to something useful, the Senate passed a resolution reaffirming their support for defining marriage between one man and one woman. Apparantly Oklahoma’s stance on same-sex marriage wasn’t clear. We’d only overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage. Though I wish the mainstream gay rights movement would stop acting like marriage equality will solve all our problems, if a same-sex couple wants to get married, what is the big deal?

just 2 dudes and their dog celebrating holy matrimony

In other news, Fallin nominated the super-qualified Jim Roth to serve on the Oklahoma Election Board, but the Senate Rules Committee is not hearing his nomination. Some, including ultra-conservative newspaper The Oklahoman, speculated that the the committee isn’t hearing his nomination because Roth is openly gay. Politicians letting prejudice get in the way of what’s good for our state? Shocking.

Speaking of employment discrimination, our very own U.S. Senator James Lankford said he was totally cool with it. Think Progress reports that Lankford believes that LGBTQ workers should not be added to existing anti-discrimination employment laws because being gay is a “choice” and not an immutable characteristic like race or gender. Quoth Lankford, “You don’t walk up to someone on the street and look at them and say, ‘gay or straight?” Actually that happens in one way or another more often than you’d think, but thanks for giving your opinion on things you know nothing about, Lankford. As awful as attitudes like Lankford’s are, maybe the movement should focus less on inclusion into employment discrimination and hate crime laws since that strategy has not worked so well for women and people of color. It’s fine; I’m gonna go talk to Dean Spade about it.

People have been taking cheap shots at Lankford’s bowl cut, which I’m not going to discourage:

Check this: Lankford loves personhood so much he sponsored a personhood bill in Congress. Kevin Calvey loves personhood so much that he attempted to strong-arm our legislators into passing a bill. Same haircut. Same cause. A coincidence?

Alls I know is that I once had what could’ve been described as a bowl cut and nobody made fun of me (probably because hate didn’t spew out of my mouth every time I opened it).

I was going to post a Raven Symone video in honor of Molly and because Raven might’ve been outed this week (no matter what Glee tells you, it’s never ok to out someone). However, none of Raven’s music screamed “That’s so Raven” – i.e. it wasn’t that good. So here’s one for Calvey, Lankford, and their love affair with fertilized eggs.

Mallory’s sorry she wasn’t funny. Molly will be back along with the lols next week.

Think of it this way. Your body is made of so many different kinds of cells and configured in a variety of ways, and some areas are more [...]]]> You can repeat the following phrase to yourself as much as you need to, because it’s really, really important: STD’s are a biological, not a moral, reality.

Think of it this way. Your body is made of so many different kinds of cells and configured in a variety of ways, and some areas are more prone to illness than others. Stomach flu, common cold, strep throat, urinary tract infection, cold sores, asthma, diabetes, etc. We are covered in bacteria and exposed to so many things on a regular basis. It’s a part of the human condition (and life on earth). Some of it has to do with our genetics, some with our environment, the care we have access to, the food we eat and the air we breathe; there are so many different factors that influence our health. Personal responsibility and actions are almost always a small part of this much larger interacting system.

Now because of the ways we view sex and the parts of our bodies we use for sex, we seem to think the illnesses associated with them have some kind of moral weight in a way that other illness do not. Do we shame people for being in public, touching a utensil, forgetting to wash their hands, or happening to stand near someone who just developed a cough? Of course not! But when it comes to talking about STDs that we get by touching certain parts in certain ways, it seems like personal responsibility and actions become the only important factors to discuss, and usually as a way to subtly (or not so subtly) make judgments about someone’s moral character.

But really: many kinds of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa have made it the job of their entire species to find every which way they can live off your body and spread to others around you. It is their life’s work. If we’re taking reasonable responsibility for ourselves, we know we cannot prevent every single cold, every outbreak of chicken pox, every splinter that gets infected. It is the reality of a body living on Earth! There’s just no way around getting sick and needing care for some reason at some point.

After taking a more responsible look at the role biology plays into the realities of STDs, it seems ridiculous to treat them differently than other infections and illnesses we get exposed to just for living. Sure, we can wash our hands and stay home if we have the flu, we can take medicine and keep our streets, water, and air clean. We can also wear condoms or use other barrier methods, inform partners of our past exposures and test results, and educate ourselves and others about symptoms, risks, and treatments. But that is something we can all collectively do to help improve our health; shaming improves the lives of absolutely no one.

All people have a right to the kind of consensual sex life they want for themselves. Getting tested and knowing your status is just another way of doing a personal inventory: you have to know what’s going on with you in terms of your health, your mind, your expectations, your boundaries, and your desires, in order to work towards a healthy sex life that works for you. People who live with STDs, now or have in the past, have the right to a consensual sex life; informing your partners and using appropriate protection methods is always good practice, and part of a good sex life for everyone, no matter their status.

Now print this paragraph off and tape it to your bathroom mirror:

Having an STD/experiencing one in the past only means you are a human that contracted an infection that is likely curable and most certainly treatable. It does NOT mean you are undesirable, or that no one will ever want to have sex with you again. Sure, some infections are painful, annoying, and can threaten your health, but so are infections that plague all other parts of the human body. The important thing is that your health is prioritized. What illnesses you might have now or what you’ve been exposed to in the past has absolutely nothing to do with how good or worthy or moral of a person you may be. It’s simply not relevant because, again, STDs are a biological, not a moral, reality.

Jen is so ready for pool-hopping this summer. Look forward to video blogs from her, if she can figure out how to edit the damn things! Follow her on tumblr if you want to read more of her work/watch her respond to the most bizarre asks of all time.

It’s rare that you find an open and honest memoir. Having worked in the publishing industry, I know that the majority of memoirs are used solely as an opportunity to toot one’s horn with every uncomplimentary detail completely left out. But when you do find a memoir that details every nitty gritty bit [...]]]>

It’s rare that you find an open and honest memoir. Having worked in the publishing industry, I know that the majority of memoirs are used solely as an opportunity to toot one’s horn with every uncomplimentary detail completely left out. But when you do find a memoir that details every nitty gritty bit of a person’s life and entertains simultaneously, well, you really have to share it.

Let’s Pretend this Never Happened is a masterfully written book by Jenny Lawson, also known as The Bloggess. Her book covers many of the topics her blog covers, though I feel for the first time you really get to know Jenny Lawson. She’s a woman who is known for buying giant metal chickens that she regularly uses to taunt her husband, taxidermied animals that she dresses up in their own costumes, and building her own dollhouse with Harry Potter themed rooms. But she’s known for something else as well.

Lawson regularly chronicles her battles with depression and social anxieties on her blog, and in her book, the reader gets a first-hand account of what these experiences are really like. It’s refreshing to read her candid words and know how she has spent her life dealing with these illnesses. Honestly, it seems that the only places we see depictions of these illnesses in the mainstream media is in medication commercials, and even though, I can only surmise that individuals experiencing them are often found on the couch while wearing a hoodie while the dog looks on wishing someone would just throw the tennis ball for him. (This is not unlike those terrible commercials that show a woman with that “not so fresh” feeling and how she wears a hoodie because she doesn’t feel like herself.)

But Lawson brings the raw honesty and tempers it with her own particular brand of humor that is at once twisted and obscure, yet rhetorically sound in that chop logic sort of way.  For instance, when she relates a tale of her social anxiety disorder, she talks about how instead of admitting to being a bleeding heart liberal at a dinner party thrown by her husband’s boss, she casually says that a serial killer once stabbed her in the face. (Spoiler Alert: This was actually a dream she had while her cat clawed her face in her sleep.) And from there the laughs continue as she continues to tell the story while her husband tries to get her to be quiet, though she can’t stop because she feels if she can just say one more thing she can make it better. The story ends with she and her husband leaving the party early, and her husband agreeing that maybe letting her take a lot of medication to dull her anxieties isn’t the best idea.

She details her miscarriages, the birth of her daughter and just how many people got to look at her vagina that day. She talks about learning how to sit on couches in a rich person’s home. (Apparently, rich people don’t lean back on the cushions.) She details being the outsider in a small town and what it’s like to be the only goth girl in the cattle insemination class in high school.  She talks about being poor and so desperately wanting to fit in but it’s almost impossible when your father’s wild turkeys follow you to school everyday.

And most of all, Jenny Lawson just tells the truth. It’s a breath of fresh air from a memoir in that she doesn’t mind giving you all the information that could potentially make you turn away from her. It’s well worth the read just for the real portrayal of mental illness and how she deals with hers on a daily basis. You can find her book at most bookstores and her blog is here.

Marisa wants to be an awesome blogger someday like The Bloggess, and maybe she’ll make that happen someday if she can ever get the motivation to get off Twitter and get stuff done.

*CLPP refers to the Civil Liberties and Public Policy program at Hampshire College

Arielle currently spends her time reading, biking, and wizard dueling.

So if the personhood bill were, umm, a person..it would’ve died last week and then came back to life this [...]]]> What a week! I got a tooth filled and then accidentally overdosed on OTC cough syrup. I’m okay now, thanks for asking. Yes, I’m a grown up. No, I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.

So if the personhood bill were, umm, a person..it would’ve died last week and then came back to life this week. Like a zombie! or Jesus! Or Harry Potter! I guess it was hungry for the tears of legislators like Rep. Steve Vaughns of Ponca City. Mmm. Salty.  Dude gave my favorite Wonka Waterfall a run for the money in the WAAAAH! category. Basically the ‘Personhood USA’ people were not gonna take it when Rep. Steel said last week that the house will not be voting on SB1433. So they got together and sent out a threatening letter. HOW SWEET.  Awesome people and dumb people were at the Capitol all week and it was finally heard today, when we were told it was not being heard. Rep. Mike Reynolds got in a tizzy about that, screaming, yelling, throwing papers and had to escorted off the House floor. Which just proves my theory they are all big babies and might be into diaper play. Maybe. Probably. Cheer up, buttercup! There’s always next year!

Tomorrow is the National March against the War on Women. That’s a mouthful! It’s pretty cool because it started as a grassroots effort through social media and now marches are taking place all over the country. I invite everyone to join in at the OKC capitol. You might meet some cool people (me), get a sunburn, see some funny signs and besides it’s always fun to cause a ruckus!

So I know we rag on the coasts sometimes but it’s not because we don’t love them. We do. We love the things that NYC offers (some of us) or watching people’s nipples bleed as they run the Boston marathon. I personally look forward to visiting Ben and Jerrys at this cool area called Haight-Ashbury when I visit San Francisco. Or a attending a tandem bike belly dancing class in Portland. (I made that up!) I’m being a total hater and I’m joking. There are good things and people everywhere, even if some think living here should scare our vaginas? What I am finally getting at is some good news: A bill in California would allow Nurse Practitioners, Physicians Assistants, and Midwives to perform abortions.  Despite what we’ve been told, abortions are not a complicated procedure. This is awesome. Lawmakers that think logically about abortions? MIND BLOWN! 

I know you’re gonna have a hot-to-trot weekend. It’s freakin lovely outside, go fly a damn kite and yodel or some shit! Oh yeah, put on your fuck me pumps!

Molly’s about to graduate. It took long enough, damn. If she was gonna walk, she’d do this across the stage (and all over that assface Dean Bell) NOW GIMME THAT DAMN DIPLOMA!!!!!