Yes Virginia… there is a double-standard clause.

A few weeks back I went in for a vaginal ultrasound. I know… complete TMI… sorry… but I promise I have a point. I showed up for my appointment… hoped I’d remembered to shave BOTH legs… and after waiting for 45 minutes because the radiology lab had needed the ultrasound room for an emergency… I put on the stunning cloth gown and let a perfect stranger squirt warm gel up my hoo-ha and probe me with a camera shaped like a ding-a-ling for ten minutes.

It was… well… lemme tell ya. I DON’T have a medical fetish. And my tech was a woman… pretty… mid-20’s… blonde… wearing pink scrubs dotted with teddy bears. Being rather heterosexual… I’m NOT attracted to women in lab coats… no matter how nice they are. Nor do I have a thing for pink and teddy bears. So the whole experience was rather… um… awkward. At times… slightly uncomfortable… because there is nothing “exciting” about getting probed down there when it’s not in a sexual contest. (At least for me. YMMV.) But yet it’s not the same speculum, swab, scrape, and “OHMYGODDON’TPUSHTHERETHAT’SMYGONADNOTAFRICKENSTRESSBALL” that is your standard pap smear and well-woman exam.

A vaginal ultrasound… well… it’s bizarre to say the least… especially when you’re getting it for some other reason than to see your little tadpole. I imagine the excitement over seeing one’s soon to be spawn overrides the weirdness of being masturbated by a stranger with a camera.

(FYI. I have a benign cyst on one ovary that was screwing around with my cycle. No worries folks.)

And with that in the back of my head… I heard this while listening to NPR this morning…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/mandatory-ultrasound-bill-virginia-anti-abortion_n_1242627.html

If you don’t wanna click… here’s a short quote that just about sums it all up…

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.

"We need some gender equity here," she told HuffPost. "The Virginia senate is about to pass a bill that will require a woman to have totally unnecessary medical procedure at their cost and inconvenience. If we're going to do that to women, why not do that to men?"

OK. I’ve been hearing about the debate going on in Virginia and Texas over the “Show me the fetus” laws… but I had no idea that a) It was going to be at the woman’s expense as part of the abortion procedure. b) They wanted a VAGINAL ultrasound.

Without getting any more graphic… let me explain this to men...

Imagine going to your doctor for a “wand check” and having to maintain a stiffy for 10 minutes while someone "examined" it with a “sleeve” that subtly mimics its intended non-excretory usage… INCLUDING the liberal application of warm lubricant… but is being done by some big hairy guy named Bruce wearing a lab coat who is telling you to hold still and relax. (Unless you’re gay or bi and into bears… then see the description of my radiology tech above.) And the price of this awkwardness... around $600.00.

How excited would you be about it… REGARDLESS of why you were getting the examination?

It’s legislative punishment. Pure and simple. But it’s not punishment for an actual transgression. Because getting pregnant and not wanting to keep your baby… OR to go through the physical trauma and health risk of pregnancy and childbirth for the sole reason of providing your offspring to someone else to raise… IS NOT A CRIME. I have a right to make decisions for things that happen within my body. And as a woman… I also have a right to be able to boink another consenting adult without signing up for 18 years of childcare.

Men lie about their vasectomies. Condoms break. Diaphragms move. Cervical caps slip. IUDs fail. Pills get forgotten. Or God forbid you read the Republican Guide to Sex Education and now believe one of the many myths like… “You can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex” or “If you douche after sex you won’t get pregnant.” Or you’re too poor for birth control… or you're functionally illiterate and can’t use a calendar. (Not downing on folks who can't read... or read ENGLISH.)

On a more sinister note…rape happens… and so does incest. Women can get manipulated into a sexual encounter for money… a place to stay… food on the table… or a sense of security. There can be drugs and addiction involved. The moral question of having sex doesn’t matter. Where sex and intimacy is concerned… the ability to make a good decisions isn’t always there… and sometimes there’s only the ability to make the “least horrible decision” available to you. And sometimes that decision is having sex even when you don't really want to.

There are a thousand reasons why sex leads to pregnancy… and they don’t mean the woman is using abortion as a form of birth control.

So… rectal exam and cardiogram before getting your happy pills? Why stop there? Why not require that the man also be straight, married, and have a wife who is still fertile? Because EVERYONE KNOWS that the only reason to have sex is to procreate. So why would you want an erection if it wasn’t for the specific purpose of having sex to have children? (Cue Monty Python’s “Every Sperm is Sacred.”)

SOPA, cockroaches... and crystal meth.

Well… I think by now we’ve all heard it. An elderly woman who loses her home and car because her grandson is cooking meth in the basement… and asset seizure law doesn’t really give a crap who owns the meth lab… but takes it away from granny so that it is no longer available to be used for criminal acts. It’s sad really… this sort of situation. But it really does behoove someone to know what is going on in their own home… no? It’s not a “chemistry set” and nobody needs that many boxes of Sudafed.

So… SOPA. Provisions of the law will work similarly to asset seizure in a drug raid. But in effect… it would be like seizing someone’s house and property if the cockroaches living in their house were cooking meth between the walls.

When you have what could be considered… an infestation… living in your house. You can do due diligence in calling the Orkin Man… and making sure you’re not leaving food out for the little buggers… but it is nearly impossible to have a home and know what every little creepy crawly inside is doing at any given moment.

And not only is this now an absurd analogy… it’s what SOPA is basically expecting Internet companies to do. Peer into the minds of the little cockroaches that are file sharing illegally produced copies of the Twilight movies… or the latest album by Slipknot… (really a self-punishing act… no…??) or they’ll huff and puff and blow their entire business back into the early 1990’s.

It’s chilling… the idea. I mean… I’m all for corporate responsibility. A CEO should take full responsibility for any crimes committed by their employees on their watch. But this is holding the CEO accountable for crimes committed by their CUSTOMERS. Like suing the gun manufacturer because someone committed murder with a handgun. Might serve them right in some instances... but...

Makes no sense. If I choke someone with a bunch of bananas... you going to go after that Chiquita lady with all the fruit on her head for it?

Anyway… the business model for companies who benefit from intellectual property is outdated. Rather than buck up and change their business model… they’re trying to push our government into protecting it. Not that this has ever happened (ahem) before in the United States as we started to bleed manufacturing jobs… and the family farm slowly turned into a hobby for fans of Jeff Foxworthy. Nope… we’ve never tried to dig in our heels and try to keep progress from happening by kicking and screaming and refusing to let the good old days pass…

*laugh*

I’ll tell you… I really… really dislike online piracy. Oh… I’ve done my share of downloading. But try to find a legal copy of Helena Bøksole’s last album in the United States… and you’d hit a torrent site too. I am NOT flying to freaking Oslo for it. If it’s out of print, hard to find… or I’m looking for something innocuous like a subtitle file… yeah… I download. I’m sure I’ve downloaded something that is copyright protected. Especially when I’m too lazy to hook up my USB turntable to listen to something… so I grab the mp3 off the internet…but I don’t make it A HABIT. I don’t download things because I’m too cheap to buy a legit copy. I'm just too cheap to buy an 8-Trak Player. (Yes... I do still have a few.)

And that’s the thing in a nutshell. If people had been buying legit copies of things all the while… THIS WOULDN’T BE HAPPENING. And why aren’t they? Sure… I like free stuff just like the next person. One of the reasons I buy CDs still is because I like the liner notes. Or in some cases… the sound quality of the CD is just so much better than I could do if I bought a copy on MP3 and then burned it off to listen to in my car. I buy CDs… when I don’t have to… because I like the product… and can afford it.

So entertainment industry… if you want people to buy legit copies of movies and music and whatnot… do what any other business does. Lower costs... increase value… maximize sales. Cut out the middle men… distribution… etc. Break yourself up into small, profitable chunks. Rethink your business strategy. MOVE OFFSHORE. Worked for most other industries no? Software companies? Again… lower costs… increase value… maximize sales. You want to keep me from buying a pirated copy of your operating system? Provide me KICK ASS customer support when I buy a legit copy. Give me VALUE… and I’ll shell out $300. The thing is… I’m NOT going to shell out $300 when the only reason you’re putting out a new version… is because someone in your marketing department decided Windows 7 sounds better than Windows XP. Or Windoze whatever is buggier than a hot July and if you don't put out an updated copy... you'll implode. Stop selling me cosmetic updates… give me REAL value… something so new that you deserve another $300 of my hard earned money… and I won’t even consider borrowing a copy off my neighbor.

Pharmaceuticals? That’s a different story. It’s a case where R&D needs to balance profit and demand… and there is a maze of legislation that makes the situation so sticky… it’s covered in flies. I don’t have an easy answer. If I didn’t take prescription medication daily. I’d die. Lucky for me my drugs cost pennies a pill. But if you were deciding on rent or food vs. going without your drugs… yeah. Well… it’s a lot different from pirating an operating system.

Health care… in America… is broken. If money was provided by the government for R&D into new drug treatments… I think whatever is developed should end up having a shorter patent duration than when the research is fully funded by a for-profit company. And in the same token… more money for drug research then needs to be provided by the government. Will this happen? It’s about as likely as my finding the cure for cancer in my lunchbox. But it’s what needs to happen. Something NEEDS to happen… because it’s a quality of life thing.