After seven months of ‘heavy petting’ – a term I discovered in my mom’s copy of ‘The Seventeen Guide to Knowing Yourself’ published in 1967, a book I found and started reading around the age of twelve for more insight into sex than what I’d learned from my parents and sex ed in school – we were ready.
We were sixteen years old and his hard working, successful, upper middle class parents were watching TV upstairs in the living room of their house in the middle of a well to do suburban neighbourhood.
He fumbled with a condom for two minutes, entering me took around two minutes and was followed by two minutes of pain for me and pleasure for him.
Within six minutes I had lost my virginity.
As he drove me home that night, tears fell from my eyes that were comprised not of sadness, pain, hurt or regret, but of confusion over what had just happened; letdown because my first time did not consist of the passionate foreplay, mind blowing orgasm or the cuddling and caressing of skin after as seen in movies; nerves because I’d just had a penis ejaculate inside of me and by having sex – condom, no condom, defective condom or broken condom – I’d just entered myself into a contract of potential pregnancy.
Tears fell because I’d just lost my virginity to someone I loved very much and I was no longer a girl – I was a woman. It was an emotion amplified three hundred times stronger than that of my first period at the age of thirteen and with that came one of the largest responsibilities I’ve had as a woman:
Sexual health. Avoiding unplanned pregnancy, disease and HIV.
The very next day I phoned Planned Parenthood and made an appointment. They were able to meet with me after school and I walked the one block with my boyfriend at my side holding my hand.
Pregnancy was not an option for either of us.
We walked out of Planned Parenthood with counseling, an exam and pap test for me, pamphlets and brochures on sexual health, a pocketful of condoms and three months worth of birth control pills – the remainder of the one year prescription to be picked up at my convenience. They were Triphasil® – a 28-day birth control pill which seems to measure about average, medium or normal when reviewing a comparison of strengths and dosages.
For four years, Planned Parenthood continued to be my go-to guy for birth control pills, sex education, questions and physical exams including some annual STD testing. My boyfriend continued to purchase Trogan or Durex condoms for himself and we never once in our relationship encountered a defective condom issue with either brand or the condoms supplied by the Planned Parenthood clinic.
For four years, my boyfriend and I did our due diligence (condoms and birth control pills) and remained pregnancy-free.
I was twenty years old when we went our separate ways and I eventually dropped Planned Parenthood for my family doctor’s care. She continued me on Triphasil, stating it was a good product used by many women around the nation.
I’ve slept with a total of five men since I was sixteen years old. Three of them were long-term relationships, one was a long-time friend on a stupid, drunken night and the other was a guy I dated off and on for a few months and was more a ‘friends with benefits’ deal rather than a relationship.
I’ve continued and continue to do my due diligence, I’ve never become unexpectedly pregnant and I have never contracted an STD or HIV. I strongly believe that my morals and values surrounding my own sexual responsibility came from a combination of having an open and honest relationship with both of my parents, sex ed and presentations throughout school, the movie Kids, Planned Parenthood, a strong knowledge within myself that I could not be a parent until I was ready, a want to live to see that day, a fear of potentially contracting a disease and having to carry that around with me and finally, self-worth.
Yet, I still wanted to have and enjoy sex.
There was one time in my life that I have not done my due diligence and that was when Colin and I purposely conceived our children and I continue to protect myself against pregnancy today. I never want to be pregnant again, experience childbirth, nor have another child or children. I occasionally ask Colin to consider a vasectomy and if that doesn’t happen, I will have tubal ligation. Until then, protection continues.
Now, if for some reason my birth control methods were/is not enough and I found/find myself pregnant – fourteen years ago, ten years ago, today or in the future – I would and will put abortion in the ‘options’ column without guilt. What happens to my body, how I deal with my body, my life, life within my body, my consequences – it’s my choice and not your responsibility to try and guilt me into feeling bad for the choices I make.
I am pro-choice (not an activist, rather a supporter and encourager of a woman’s right to choose), but that isn’t what this post is about yet.
This post is about is a documentary finishing production as we speak called ‘Blood Money’. It is a film directed and produced by a man named David K. Kyle, seeking to expose the abortion business including Planned Parenthood, reiterating the fact that life starts at conception and how abortion affects women.
Gosh. Where do I begin?
“We had a whole plan that sold abortions and it was called sex education. Break down their natural modesty, separate them from their parents and their values and become the sex expert in their life so they turn to us when we would give them a low dose birth control pill they would get pregnant on or a defective condom. Our goal was three to five abortions from every girl between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.”
It was asked in the commenting section of the Blood Money trailer on Youtube, “Is there any validity in the whole Planned Parenthood gave out defective birth control claim?”
The Blood Money Film people responded intelligently with no provided link, “There is a Consumer reports article from 2005 on how bad their condoms were.”
How “bad” their condoms were? Okay.
Lets check out the referenced 2005 Consumer Report shall we.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Honeydew and Assorted Colors condoms scored the worst of the 23 condoms tested. The Honeydew condom, which scored “poor” ratings in strength and reliability, has since been redesigned, according to Long Island Newsday. The Assorted Colors condoms received “poor” marks for strength but “excellent” marks for reliability, according to Newsday. Planned Parenthood has resubmitted the Honeydew and Assorted Colors condoms — as well as its Lollipop condom, which was ranked 14th — for independent testing, and the condoms received “excellent results,” according to Karen Pearl, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Nassau County in New York.
But it appears as though Blood Money film left it out of their little expose – that Planned Parenthood did their own due diligence yet that fact remains missing.
Shame on you and your ‘little bit of the truth’.
While we’re at it, I’d also like to bring to light a fact or two about low dose birth control pills:
The low dose birth control pill is very effective. Just like higher dose pills, low dose pills are considered greater than 99% effective if used correctly. That means that, if a woman takes the pill regularly and follows the directions precisely, she has less than a one in 100 chance of becoming pregnant each year. With typical use, allowing for the occasional mistake, effectiveness is probably only about 95%.
Interesting. I guess Planned Parenthood is wasting their time and resources educating women and men on “correct” use of birth control and banking on even less than “typical” use.
“It is so shameful and secretive that many women don’t tell anybody they’ve had an abortion. They won’t say anything for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty-five years! They’re so traumatized they’re silenced.”
I wonder why this is?
Have you considered that their silence is not trauma, rather a result of anti-choice extremists making films, statements and comments in public forums to colour these women as heartless monsters and baby-killing murderers? I think so. I also think a shame, Mr. TwentyThirtyFortyFiftyFiveYears is that people like you and Mr. BadCondoms Kyle (wow, both have penises…interesting) are the ones pushing this sort of propaganda, putting into them the fear of burning in hell and suffering from a lifetime of pain and regret.
No, abortion is not something to be proud of or something to be added to a woman’s list of accomplishments in life, but it needn’t be something to be shrouded in secrecy and shame either. Women need to feel both safe and not judged to talk about their positive and negative experiences regarding unplanned pregnancy, choices including abortion, adoption, carrying a child full-term, being a mother and the effects of all in an unbiased environment.
And for your information, many women have had positive life results after abortion, are not sorry and are not afraid to say it. Kudos to them.
CHOICE.
Trying to take away a woman’s right to choose what’s best for them through ‘a little bit of the truth’ films like Blood Money is nothing but brainwashing and fear mongering. I truly feel for the young children of parents who are hoping for this documentary to be picked up and shown nationwide. This is not proper sex education, folks.
That being said, if your religion, beliefs or morals are pro-life and/or abstinence until marriage, fine. Talk and teach that to those who sit around your dinner table. Heck, go to the extremes of telling your children during boardgames that Planned Parenthood is an evil organization of murderers who only care about getting them pregnant and taking their money till you’re blue in the face. Talk about live ‘babies’ being sucked out of the womb and put in dumpsters. Go hard.
But pushing into the brains of women and individuals who don’t share your beliefs, religion or morals? That’s bullying and you’re an asshole.
And newsflash for you: Most of your kids are going to have premarital sex. Especially in this society where more often than not, women are being treated like objects by men and many of those same women are allowing themselves to be treated as objects – encouraging it even. You can go anywhere on the internet and see women from adolescence to 30+ showing off their breasts, asses and half naked bodies on various mediums for validation or whatever fucked up reasoning they have where all of a sudden the female is a headless pair of tits or half naked body for guys to jack off to or for men to imagine while fucking their wives. It’s the cool thing to do right now – “embracing femininity” or being an object – but that’s another post completely.
My point is sex and objectifying women is everywhere. TV, commercials, video games, music, music videos, magazines, school hallways, the mall and all over the internet. Want to protect your daughter from it? Good luck with that.
“I’m going to be best friends with my daughter. She’s going to be able to come to me for anything” or “My kids will be able to tell me everything because we eat together at the dinner table every night”.
Awww. Those are really nice thoughts and delusions.
I had an extremely open relationship with mostly my mom but my dad, too. Most of the time we ate around the dinner table and we talked a lot. Yet when I sat there making out with, being felt up by, grinding against and considering having sex with my boyfriend at sixteen years old, talking to my parents about it was not something that crossed my mind.
I was going to have sex because I wanted to. Period. Nothing my parents could have said or done would have changed my mind.
And still pro-lifers lobby for government’s funding of Planned Parenthood to go into abstinence programs.
Abstinence education + today’s society = oxymoron.
I know!
Why not put time and effort into helping young women become strong individuals who aren’t afraid to speak out and up when a boy comes up behind them in the hallway and grabs their ass? Why is it that girls who say, “No” and report the piggish behavior are often laughed at by both male and female classmates?
Why not teach young women and make documentaries on today’s society about why females are being objectified as well as their own contribution to the mindset. Why not teach them to have a loud voice – to be strong – to say no and mean it.
Why not teach them that their bodies are theirs and that no one is allowed to touch it or feel it in a way that makes them uncomfortable or awkward. That it’s good to be smart. That playing dumb is not sexy. That image is not the most important thing and that self-worth is. That self-worth is not based on how many guys want them, the size of their jeans, the brand of their cellphones or how many ‘friends’ they have on Facebook.
Why not put major funding into teaching young girls that being a leader and not following the crowds is inspiring, incredible and beautiful.
And why not teach them by example too, parents? It’s your job.
Why not teach them the power of choice and that their choice and choices are not allow to be laughed at, bullied, put down, belittled or harassed and if they are, to walk away with their heads held high and shoulders back. Give them the opportunity and encourage them to be their own, make their own choices and mistakes and to stand up for what they believe in without fear.
And do not try and take away their power of choice when it comes to unplanned pregnancy nor teach them it’s okay to have choice but with a few exceptions or exemptions.
~
This post is not arguing the scientific fact that life begins at conception. This post is not advocating or promoting abortion.
This post is about my personal experience with Planned Parenthood in educating me and playing a major part in my sexual health and my unplanned pregnancy-free, disease-free, HIV-free history.
This post is about the half truths, propaganda, lies and exaggerations in the form of a documentary called Blood Money. Coincidentally, a film coming out at a time when a neighbouring nation and it’s leaders are talking health care reform in which tax dollars could potentially fully or partially fund abortion, like my fine country, Canada, does.
This post is about bullying, brainwashing, threats and fear mongering by some pro-lifers and religious groups that thrive on shaming and frightening women and who feed on guilt, vulnerability and confusion in an attempt to control people’s decisions and feelings towards abortion.
This post is about teaching our daughters, in today’s society, to be strong-minded individuals and as a result, they will hopefully make strong, smart and informed decisions regarding their bodies and sex.
This post is about choices and a woman’s right have them, make them and own them.
Filed under: opinion | 20 Comments
Tags: abortion, birth control, birth control pills, blood money, blood money trailer, bloodmoney film, choice, planned parenthood, pro-choice
Awesome post. I am not active in the Planned Parenthood movement either but I am on the adoption side as an adoptee. My adoptive mother was very open with me.
I think it’s very rare to have a documentary be fair. They all claim to show the whole story, but they never do. As for giving faulty birth control and all that, I think that’s crap. Maybe they did give out crappy condoms. That’s what happens when you’re providing them for FREE to anyone that asks. Bottom line is only YOU can take responsibility for your actions. You don’t want a baby? Then you need to take the steps that will allow you to remain sexually active, but not get pregnant.
there is so much i want to say about this post… but unfortunately i am strapped for time.
however i will say this. i had an abortion at 18 years old, and almost 12 years later there still hasn’t been a day when i question it being the right decision for me.
i was lazy with my birth control and i got pregnant. my abortion was my “get out of jail free” card as far as i was concerned.
it’s not the right one for everyone… but that’s why i’m proCHOICE. decide what’s best for you in your circumstances.
and let’s stop the damn fear & hate mongering. it’s really too bad that some people can’t let others make their own decisions.
great post Huck! Glad you took the time to think it out and set it straight. most important thing to remember, you’ll never EVER change the Blood Money’s people’s minds. They are full aware of how they are using half truths, old information and selected information. That is the goal, confuse and scare.
as for preaching to the converted, great post! maybe you should blog more “issues.” You got the gift.
I am in awe of how responsible you were at 16, both you and your boyfriend. I had my first sex talk with my Mom when I was 16, but she asked whether I was pregnant (I was moody and had fought with my boyfriend…kinda funny that was the first time we ever discussed sex – I was stunned!).
Whatever your side on this topic, what alarms me is the use of the term “documentary” when it’s really propaganda. And I think they are preying on young minds that likely wouldn’t have the presence of mind to really seek out the truth amongst the selected fact finding.
Awesome post, Huck. Lies, half-truths and fear mongering. In Canada? Do you suppose Karl Rove (former adviser to George W. Bush) has some students up there?
Ha. No, this film is directed and produced in the stars and stripes nation by a conservative republican. If I were to follow Blood Money’s suit with assumed bullshit backed up with no facts, I’d say this ‘documentary’ was funded, will be picked up immediately and distributed nationwide by like-minded Americans with hidden political agendas and comprised of those vehemently against health care reform (and with cash, naturally). It’s not really about the effects of abortion at all, rather 100% politically motivated and it’s unfortunate these goons have to scare the crap out of innocent bystanders – our children and women everywhere – with their hidden agendas.
And no, we don’t have lies, half-truths (okay, we probably do) and fear mongering in Canada. Some of us are happy and peaceful, sittin’ back chillin’ with our right to choose, ’socialist’ health care system that seems to still be working well, real beer, Tim Horton’s just observing the mud-slinging south of the border. But since the internet is such a mighty force, my daughters and friends run a risk of seeing this propaganda one day and it ignites a bit of a flame within.
Right on, Huckdoll.
If I had stories like yours and could write like you, I might try the sentence-paragraph thing. We do what we can, yeah?
I am in AWE at how put together this post is. The thought of seeing this “documentary” makes me sick. Why scare girls with lies and half truths? WTF?! I absolutely love what you said here :
“This post is about teaching our daughters, in today’s society, to be strong-minded individuals and as a result, they will hopefully make strong, smart and informed decisions regarding their bodies and sex.”
Because I never grew up with a mother who was willing to talk to me, OR willing to listen. I will not go that route with my own daughters.
Very well said. I’m very pro choice – I made a decision that we were going to abort if the tests came back saying that something was wrong with Connor (after miscarrying trisomy 18 twins a few months earlier)
I believe its a choice and each woman has to decide for themselves. Should it be preached like this weasle wants to do it – no, but moreso it should not be hidden either. Sex will happen, hopefully my girls will feel like they can talk to me when they do and most of all I hope they never feel the need to be silenced if they choose to make the decision that is right for them.
What an amazing post……
~K
Excellent post. This will sound like feminist-crazed man-hating rage, but I’m sick and tired of men telling women that abortion is wrong. Cut off your dick and then you MIGHT have a right to an opinion on the subject!
All very well said Jen.
You know what pisses me off to the max? The pro-lifers who tell me because I’m pro-choice, I’m really pro-abortion. WTF? What I would or would not choose for myself has absolutely nothing to do with having the opinion that each and every person should be able to make their own decision, own choice, based on their own situation – which no one else can judge.
Then there are the religious zealots who do nothing but judge anyone if they don’t feel the same about an issue as they do. Hmm, yeah, right, THAT’S real Christian, isn’t it?
Oh, and I lived a stone’s throw away from the clinic in Norfolk, VA where the abortion doctor was shot and killed – by a pro-lifer. Now THERE is an oxymoron!
I’m a conservative, VERY opposed to socialized medicine, but to me, the issue is about choice – which is why I’m against socialized medicine, against government controls, against socialization of our capital free market system. A lot of conservatives are the same, so please, don’t lump conservatives in with religious fanatics who spread this propaganda. Even my mother, who is 85 years old, and VERY old school, is VERY pro-choice – she goes so far as to get downright angry (and she doesn’t get angry about much at all – patience of Job) with the idea that men can even vote on the issue. As far as she’s concerned, men shouldn’t have a say about what a woman does, or does not do, with her body.
Awesome post. Abortion is such a small part of what Planned Parenthood does, yet they are so demonized that they can’t lobby on behalf of any legislation that might help educate people about birth control or provide health care to women. If they do, they risk its defeat. It is a sad state of affairs when an organization that is geared towards education and preventative health is attacked. In the end, isn’t the important thing that people know how to prevent a pregnancy so they don’t have to make that choice? It totally defeats the goals of anti-choice people to prevent an organization from providing education and birth control to people. Instead, these groups brand organizations like Planned Parenthood as murders and insist that we teach abstinence only in schools. Backwards.
I hate it when “facts” are distorted to sell any agenda. Especially this one. I do love it when you get going, though. Awesome post. Not much else to say when it’s all been said.
Ah, another reminder of why I LOVE to read your stuff. I am with the other reader who said that it’s annoying that pro-lifers automatically assume you are pro-abortion because you are pro-choice. That’s a total fallacy. But I have to be honest here and say that if I got raped, you best believe I would have an abortion and not look back once with regret. I guarantee it. And, you know, the bottom line is that even though I’m quite sure that abortion isn’t an option for me otherwise, I’m not 100% sure and I like that I can make the right choice for me and my body without the government intervening. I think it is interesting that the group that is all about small government wants to change the rules in this case.
Incredible. And thank you. And by the way, my first sexual experience was almost identical. LOL!
Bravo Jen.
I am opposed to abortion for myself, and would hate for my daughter to ever have to go there, but that said I feel very strongly as a woman of faith about abstaining from judging others and/or taking away someone’s free will to choose. I’m also a realist – despite our adherence to a faith that believes in waiting until marriage, my husband and I did not. We were young, dumb, and horny as all get out. I know first hand that abstinence only views are not fool-proof!
I loved this:
“That being said, if your religion, beliefs or morals are pro-life and/or abstinence until marriage, fine. Talk and teach that to those who sit around your dinner table. Heck, go to the extremes of telling your children during boardgames that Planned Parenthood is an evil organization of murderers who only care about getting them pregnant and taking their money till you’re blue in the face. Talk about live ‘babies’ being sucked out of the womb and put in dumpsters. Go hard.
But pushing into the brains of women and individuals who don’t share your beliefs, religion or morals? That’s bullying and you’re an asshole. ”
Amen, sister!
Really? This is a great post? Do you all especially like the way the text disintegrates a rant peppered with four-letter words. How about the way it undermines the painful experience of many women. Spend some time at a Rachels Vineyard retreat and hear their stories. Unlike the post suggests it is the folks who are opposing abortion that are also reaching out to help the hurt women. Sounds like the pro-choice camp would have them believe they are not really traumatized, but rather brain-washed. Maybe you can cuss them out and toughen’ them up. Why don’t you just tell them that if they’d used their protection correctly they’d be sexully active, std and abortion free. Maybe they can go back out and practice some more. And really are the same people who are opposing abortion the ones propagating the porn industry and objectification of women? But that is another post, those conservatives trying to limit the freedom of other with their religious/moral ideas. Is abstinence really so difficult or undesirable. Do you really want your daughter’s first experience to be a painful 6 minute fumbling with another adoloscent neither one understanding the beauty of truly offering ones whole self to another? Though unfortunately common, the first experience described in the post sounded risky and disappointing. Does it bother anyone but me that condoms at Planned Parenthood are called Lollipops?It seems strangely reminiscent of the cartoon Joe Camel that wasn’t meant to sell cigarettes to children. What’s not empowering about teaching girls to respect their bodies and value their life-giving reproductive system. What’s so ridiculous about talking to your kids over boardgames. And the unmentioned question….is there really no God behind all those crazy conservative religious ideas?
Thanks for reading as well as your comments, Susan. They are very thought-provoking and I appreciate your time and opinions.