It's odd how managing the menfolk's sexytimes never turns into a movement

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/08/1275891/-It-s-odd-how-managing-the-menfolk-s-sexytimes-never-turns-into-a-movement

The federal Department of Health and Human Services dispatched its Office of Inspector General to review Medicare payments for vacuum erection systems, less formally known as penis pumps.

Certainly, there may certainly be individual wags out there who are miffed that their tax dollars are going for medical treatments to allow older people to have sex. There may be cranky folks who do not think that anyone should be getting Viagra for any reason, because if God wanted them to have an erection God would have taken care of that already.

But it's not a movement. You don't see a dozen conservative women all lined up in a row to testify to Congress that allowing men past childbearing age to have sex is an abomination unto their Lord, or nationwide hobby supply shops demanding that the entire national health care system be restructured to allow them to personally decide which of their male employees ought not to be receiving medical care for insufficient sexytimes. Their religion may dictate that nobody have sex unless they are married, and unless they are fertile, but there is no nationwide, Fox-News-covered movement afoot to demand that the appropriate health care remedies be given only to married and fertile people. You don't hear the Fox News talking heads going on about that.

[Android3.14]

1. False equivalency

It is the difference between sexuality and reproduction.
The article obviously equates a man having access to boner pills and pumps with a woman having access to contraception and abortion services, and because only one of these (access to reproductive services) provokes a movement to deny or insure access, the OP sees hypocrisy. While provocative, it is a false equivalency.
Let's turn it around.
Suppose a group of people attempted to deny access to skin cancer treatments. Should those who support access to cancer detection services wag their fingers at the members of the opposition group who use Oil of Olay?
It would be silly.
And that is why this particular outrage by some members of the reproductive rights camp does nothing except annoy the opposition and make aging allies in your own camp (such as myself) feel uncomfortable, because we can still have sex on occasion.
The ability to have sex is in a different class than the ability to control the number of offspring, just as the ability to have smooth skin is in a different class than the ability to control cancer.

[eridani]

2. Interesting that insurance companies NEVER covered birth control until

--AFTER people complained when they instantly coverd Viagra, no?

[boston bean]

3. The attempts to restrict abortion are heavily based in religion.

You are missing the point here.

The article presents a juxtaposition. Not something liberal women, or feminists want to restrict.

[Android3.14]

4. Not what I meant

The juxtaposition only exposes hypocrisy if there was religious opposition to ED treatments, which I haven't heard.
I am not saying that folks who support reproductive rights also want to restrict access to ED treatments. I'm saying that the argument, i.e. (if men have access to boner pills, then women should have access to contraception) is faulty logic based on a false equivalence, and therefore inaccurate. As a propaganda meme, the false equivalency is useful, but we should at least be aware that the comparison is artificial ( kind of like a Viagra erection).
I'm also saying that using that juxtaposition in the DU environment has the potential to alienate allies of women's reproductive rights who also receive treatment for erectile dysfunction.

[boston bean]

5. That was the point. There is no religious oppostion to ED treatments.

woooooooooooooooossssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh....

[Android3.14]

6. But it isn't a point

I recognize that the article attempts to make that point, but it fails technically because it is using a false equivalency. The presence or absence of religiosity is of no consequence in the argument. The hypocrisy the OP is trying to reveal does exist, but not for the reasons the author expressed, as I illustrated in my original post.
I wasn't the one who heard that whoosh sound.

[boston bean]

7. Because it exists for one biological sex and not the other is fair game, and a fair equivalency.

Because the religious reasons against abortion are not based in science. Religions which are extremely patriarchal.

One could just as easily write a book of stories about spilt seed and jacking off and what an abomination it is. And never say anything about abortion.

One might go hmmmmmm... that seems a bit sexist...

Take it from the group of persons who experience the outcomes of this extreme religiosity that it is absolutely sexist.

Possibly, one could say and go to their congress persons that many men of a certain age cease to have erections, we could call that the will of God. Seems silly, right... Well, many women feel the exact same freaking way about the choice they make concerning their reproduction. Men do get erections and their penises are a function of reproduction.

[Android3.14]

8. Raised German Catholic

You can count me in the group who experienced the outcomes of extreme religiosity.
Whatever. We are all the victims of our own childhoods.
What you suppose (religion suppressing masturbation) has already happened many times over. There were bizarre harnesses into which religious parents put boys so as to keep them from masturbating. I was among millions, if not billions, of Catholic boys whose parents taught that masturbation and erotic thoughts were sinful. No one ever mentioned abortion to me when I was a teen. It was all about keeping your hands off yourself and saying Hail Mary's when you thought of a girl.
Regardless, the way religion has abused any group is unrelated to my argument. The OP's outrage is based on a false equivalency. That's my stance, and, so far, it seems to hold up pretty well.
The OP would do better to stick to the fundamental right to control ones own body and that restrictions on contraceptive access and abortion services infringes upon that fundamental right.
The argument that antiabortion folks are hypocrites because men can get treatment for sexual dysfunction, even if the argument is incorrect, is kind of amusing to people advocating for reproductive freedoms because of the cause/effect relationship between sex and pregnancy, but no one truly believes the Hypocritical Viagra Muncher is an argument that will change the mind of a person who is anti-abortion.

[Sheldon Cooper]

10. What you are not understanding is that by rigidly controlling women's reproductive rights,

they are also controlling women's ability to have and enjoy sex. They want to control all access to contraceptives and of course abortion because in their mind a woman who is unmarried has no business having sex, and a married woman should only have it for procreation.

You can argue this all you want, but the fact is that NONE of these religious fundies are going to deny Viagra to men. ONLY when it comes to women do they think they're entitled to a say in things. It's a god-given right for men to have sex no matter how many boner pills they have to take. It's a quality of life issue for THEM, and women can just be damned.

[Android3.14]

11. Part of your statement is true, but not the part that would weaken my argument.

They do want to restrict a woman's ability to control her fertility. And it could be true that the presence or absence of contraception may be a factor in an individual's decision to have sex, but as far as a person's enjoyment of sex, anyone with any experience at all knows that the partner, technique, location, atmosphere, relationship status and many other factors have much more impact than the presence of a contraceptive pill.
The greatest damper I've found to Mrs. 'Droids enjoyment is whether the kids are awake. In fact, when we decided to have kids and she went off of the pill, the enjoyment seemed to increase.
Now if the conservatives were also trying to restrict access to female treatments to painful or unsatisfying sex, then your argument would have validity.
But they are not, so your argument has not.
Again, the OP is only useful as humor.

[JTFrog]

12. So you you're just here for a laugh?

Good to know.

[Sheldon Cooper]

13. Three people have tried to explain where you are wrong, and yet you still don't get it.

But go ahead and smugly laugh at the humor. After all, it doesn't effect your life, does it?

[Android3.14]

14. Unamused

Unfortunately, regardless of political affiliation, when some people realize their opinion is flawed, they tend to fall back on childlike strategies such as putting words into the mouth of the person with whom they are debating in order to quell the cognitive dissonance they are experiencing.
For example, you wrote that I am laughing, implying that I take the threat to women's reproductive rights lightly. This reassures you because you would rather my intransigence be based on some sort of us-vs.-them situation rather than the actual situation in which a member of the "us" simply pointed out that one of our rhetorical weapons is a dud. A cursory glance at this thread will show I have been rather unemotional, expressed reasoned and committed support for women's rights, and suggested better arguments to sway uncommitted persons to also support women's rights.
You would think that someone with the handle of Sheldon Cooper would understand that.

[Sheldon Cooper]

15. Your words:

Again, the OP is only useful as humor.

I've noticed that when people have been proven wrong x 3, they resort to ridicule by declaring something 'humorous'. It is indeed very childish when they do that, isn't it? And it's even better when they claim that they've been nothing but perfectly reasonable and, lets not forget 'unemotional'. You managed a hat trick with that post, so congrats!

ETA: before you reply, which you inevitably will, consider that you are in a protected group. We are feminists and their allies who consider issues from a feminist point of view, and don't take kindly to people who come in here, fancying themselves as intellectuals who are simply trying to set us straight. I can assure you, we've heard all your noise before, in spades, and we're not impressed.

[Android3.14]

16. And if I'd said

the OP is only useful as intimidation, would you assume I was intimidated? I think not. Observation of a utility is not the same as being the target of the utility. That quote you referenced was just a statement of my opinion, not an expression of my emotional state.
However I am glad you are a feminist. So am I.
You informed me that this was a protected group. Unfortunately, I guess that means we can't actually discuss feminist issues. I've tried to avoid obnoxiously attacking anyone at any personal level, carefully keeping to the topic of discussion. I just thought, as a feminist, that the thread was interesting.
I will exit stage left.
Good day.

[seabeyond]

17. i guess my argument would be more in tuned to.... viagra and pumps more for medical conditions

which should be covered under medical care. so is bc. not only to prevent preg which has the right up in arms, but other medical conditions as well.

simple enough for me.

deny one, deny both. allow one, allow both

[Sheldon Cooper]

18. At last, I see something relevant:

I will exit stage left.

Good bye.

[JTFrog]

19. Isn't that the 4th law of posting?

[redqueen]

20. lol

This was the part I found most amusing.

when we decided to have kids and she went off of the pill, the enjoyment seemed to increase

Whoa, really? Removing the possibility of undesirable consequences made something more enjoyable? Who could ever have imagined such an outcome!

[seabeyond]

22. adn i didnt even read his posts but THIS... says who he is and what the fuck his agenda is.

and he sits on this progressive board. but, oh wait, that is with all things but women

[seabeyond]

21. you know what. if i am getting what you are saying, i am so damn tired of it. we have one,

and she is kicked off cause the menz whined to the point. not that she did anything. they have a good ten i can see, and i am very very bad at seeing, and they stay. no repercussion, no actions taken.

[redqueen]

9. Yep. Somehow the whole no sex unless it's for procreation rule is just ignored... but

Last edited Thu Feb 13, 2014, 02:31 PM - Edit history (1)

only when it's men's sexytimes in question.

[seabeyond]

23. at least huskster acknowledge the female libido. i give him a huge ass thumbs up for that one. nt