What really gets to me is the self-righteousness of the anti-choice folks.

“That bad, mean Clarissa doesn’t even want to hear out my super-convincing and inoffensive arguments as to why she is not human. How intolerant of her!” they screech with self-righteous indignation.

They sincerely feel deprived and trampled upon when I refuse to discuss the percentage of my humanity with them.

Somebody is using my blog as an example that “abortion debate is not possible.”

Of course, it isn’t possible, you weird creature. Do you consider a debate on whether you are human possible? Or a debate on whether you should meekly accept the status of a breeding pig in our society? Or a discussion on whether you should be happy if the government decides to invade your body?

I don’t want a debate with you or with anybody as to whether I have the right to control my own body. But I’m always willing to discuss how fun it would be to invade yours. Maybe chop off a few pieces for the benefit of humanity.

Are you up for that debate or is it only the invasion of female bodies that you dig discussing?

The following part of the fundamentalist sex infographic is actually quite disturbing:

 

Are these excuses that an unwilling wife offers to her sex-starved husband given in front of the children? Do they actually see “action” between their parents?

These fundamentalist people are so weird that I have no idea what to expect from them. If they believe it’s normal to sleep in the same bed with their children, do they also have sex in front of the children to teach them some sort of a lesson?

Religious fanatics are insanely funny. Look at this hilarious chart I just found:

 

I couldn’t fit the entire thing into my snipping tool, so feel free to explore this weird infographic here. The only thing that the author of this hilarious project has forgotten to mention is that the kind of sex that wives “give” to their husbands for the purpose of accumulating a range of health benefits and social gains will actually end up destroying their health. A woman who needs to be talked into having sex through the use of infographics will only damage her mental, emotional and physical health when she has sex with a man she doesn’t want out of a misunderstood sense of duty.

The weird housewife who crafted this piece of idiocy seems to have no idea that only enthusiastic, passionately desired sex brings all these benefits. The kind of sex she engages in out of a sense of duty and in order to manipulate her children (just read the entire thing and you’ll see what I mean) is pretty much the worst thing anybody can do to their health.

I kind of feel sorry for the miserable husband of hers. Imagine a poor, unwanted creature whose own wife needs all these graphs, charts and arguments to convince herself to suffer through a sex act with him. The idea of my own husband telling me, “I read this chart online and decided to give you more sex because that will help me lose weight and give me thicker hair” is enough to put me off sex forever.

Why don’t these people just leave each other in peace and go find partners whom they will desire and who will desire them without needing any charts to convince them to have sex?

We all know (or have known) somebody who is a bad person and who does bad things. Not criminal or illegal but just bad. Bullies a colleague, spreads nasty rumors, tells an anorexic friend that she gained weight, squeals to the boss about a co-worker who made a personal call on company time, sabotages other people’s projects for fun, steals other people’s ideas, etc. Cruel, cold, calculating people who go through life harming others and not feeling an ounce of remorse about it. I’m not talking about Hitler or Stalin here. The subject of today’s discussion are not genocidal maniacs but small-time villains who never break any actual laws.

I have this very simplistic worldview that works for me perfectly. In this worldview, people are either good or bad. Good people are those who cannot hurt others consciously without feeling pain. Bad people are those who are incapable of feeling any pain but their own. The good people are the majority on this planet. However, they always end up losing out because they can’t find an effective way of dealing with the bad people.

As an example, here is a comment left by reader Danny about another blogger’s suggestion that nasty people should be shamed for their bad actions:

About the shaming article I have to disagree with the idea that there is some sort of “good” or “correct” shaming. Shaming is too volatile to be used as some tool for positive change. In the long run I don’t think its right to expect some positive result from shaming (“My shaming of you is okay because I have good reasons.”)

Danny is a good person who doesn’t want to inflict harm on anybody. The problem remains, however. What should be done about bad people?

I have seen too many situations where a bunch of great, wonderful folks is practically terrorized by one cold, calculating, nasty person who keeps them in subjection with nothing other but his or her lack of conscience. They don’t want to hurt the horrible person’s feelings, so they never tell the horrible person to his or her face, “You are horrible. Shame on you.”

What these good folks forget, however, is that their fear of hurting the bad creature ultimately causes pain to all those future victims who could be spared their suffering had the previous victims gotten together and taken a stand.

I sometimes look at this person I know who caused great suffering to a good many people and wonder if she even knows how horrible she is. I mean, if nobody ever says anything, if everybody always acts like her actions are completely acceptable, does this person – who obviously has no moral compass of her own – realize that what she is doing is wrong? I feel like I’m endorsing her vile treatment of others every time I say “hello” to her.

There were several times in my life where I told nasty people that they were nasty and that I despised them for their horrible actions. It felt very good and liberating. I believe that if we all do this more often, bad people will feel less empowered to hurt others. However, every single time I tried to confront a bad person, there was always a bunch of good people trying to shush me down.

“Shh, don’t, just don’t, just let it be, it isn’t worth it, shhhhh,” the good folks would say to me in such situations. “Forgiveness is the best answer to bad people.”

I’m not sure, however, that one can forgive somebody who never asked for forgiveness and never recognized that his or her actions are wrong.

Do you tell horrible people that they are horrible to their face? If you can’t simply avoid them, what is your strategy of dealing with them?

I agree with Hugo Schwyzer: shaming jerks is a great idea.

“Most of American couples are dual-earner couples; it’s about time that we acknowledge that reality instead of setting up the entire economy as if everyone, male and female, has a wife at home to pick up the kids from school and do the laundry. This is not just a female issue– this is an issue for everyone that wants to have children someday.”

Should people be sent to jail for posting offensive comments on their Facebook pages?

Even more proof that not all research publications are valued equally.

Not mentioning reproductive rights might well cost Obama the elections. And it will serve him right for pandering to woman-hating religious fanatics, too.

This is one of my favorite Nepali dishes. It’s great finally to have a recipe.

Sign the bill of reproductive rights!

Great tips on how to ask for a letter of recommendation.

Finally, somebody says something of value on foreign relations: “They want the public to believe that they think that presidential rhetoric can alter the course of foreign political events. It’s difficult to overstate just how breathtakingly arrogant one has to be to presume that the influence of the U.S. government in shaping the affairs of other nations is that great.”

This is why I never want to participate in any team-teaching.

This is exactly how I feel: “Moderator Martha Raddatz. . . asked one question towards the end that really, really pissed me off.  Namely: “I would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion has played in your own personal views on abortion.” Who in the fuck cares?  You are asking this question of two MEN.  Neither one has ever known or will ever know what it’s like to experience a pregnancy scare, or an unwanted pregnancy, or any kind of pregnancy.  Their religion has fuck-all to do with my right to control my body, my right to decide if and/or when to bear children.” Yes, yes, and a 100 times yes.

Why a Romney presidency would be horrible for women.

A fellow scholar from Illinois explains why the ethics training we are all bullied into is stupid. I agree with this post completely. I am Blogger Clarissa and I endorse this message. 🙂

What if it takes you a very long time to get into your writing?

And the post of the week: “The question of whether ADHD or bipolar “exists” is loudly debated because it is utterly meaningless, in battlefield psychiatry no one is treating the diagnosis regardless, we are all treating symptoms; and we’re not treating symptoms, we’re calling them symptoms because otherwise we don’t get paid, you don’t get the med, somebody’s going to get punched and somebody’s going to get sued because somebody didn’t “manage the underlying psychiatric process that mediated the assault” which doesn’t exist but for some weird reason is widely prevalent in poor blacks and hispanics and whites with calf tattoos.”

I really really hope that one of my independent research students wrote his Senior Spanish Essay in English and put it through Google Translator. This is the best case scenario for me. I need to be able to blame the horrible jumble of meaningless fragments I received from this student on Google Translator.

The worst case scenario is that the student’s Spanish is really that bad.

The Spanish speakers who read this blog will appreciate the depth of my desperation when they see the following snippet from the essay in question:

Como ha publicado a ser tal novela bien para los personajes que ya no es tan gran. Esto significa que cuando la ciudad de las obras de las sociedades Hispanoamérica que ha sido pelado a casi nada, como que producen en.

There are 6 pages of this + the bibliography.

This has to be Google Translator, right? No human being can come up with. . . this, right?

The reason I’m posting all these photos is that I’m trying to understand how my new phone camera works.

The store that sells world’s ugliest dresses is located in our town.

Does anybody know why portions are so enormous in American restaurants? This is supposed to be a simple lunch but look how huge it is. Even I can’t eat more than 20% of it.