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ketevanreads 's review for:
Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion
by Gabrielle Stanley Blair
While the premise/thesis of this slim text is solid, none of these arguments are news to anyone working in reproductive health. A pithy title, well-timed during public outcry, cannot make up for inaccuracies presented as facts, gaps in the information offered, and assumptions about how men and women operate.
Some examples:
Blair is weirdly attached to vasectomies being an equally valid birth control choice as condoms. At first, I thought this was facetiousness, but she repeats this multiple times, bolstering the biological possibility of reversal while ignoring every other facet of this discussion. If someone banks sperm or thinks they can reverse it if needed, a person instantly becomes ineligible for the procedure, yet these are offered as legitimate options. Not to mention, getting a vasectomy often costs nothing, while reversals are nearly always fully paid for by the patient and cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
Lots of assumptions about condoms in here. Men are the only ones who hate condoms (they're really not). Dismissive of the internal/female condom (beloved by many people who find traditional condoms too tight) She has clearly never tried to help someone find non-traditionally sized condoms (it's time- and money-expensive, and she offers this as a simple alternative).
For some reason, she's under the impression that men demand rough sex (choking, specifically) and that women must submit to this or be rejected. As a former sex educator, this is patently false. There isn't a data-based gender breakdown or anything, but it's at least 50-50, if not the majority of women who are asking for choking during sex. She seems to only be speaking to monogamous couples, completely ignoring the real reasons that a woman would need to choose sterilization/birth control for herself vs. her multiple partners all getting vasectomies.
The worst one is that she uses the criminalization of HIV+ people (in exposing their partners to HIV) as an equivalency to sperm coming in contact with a female reproductive system. She seems to be completely unaware that the criminalization of people with STIs is in itself a human rights violation, and it's clear she's done no research on the subject, tossing it in to sensationalize, and throwing HIV+ people under the bus in the process.
Finally, the exclusion of Queer/Trans people from this book isn't simply an inexcusable oversight, but reflective of a failure to critically engage with the societal norms that need transformation in order for the thesis of this book to be realized. There are so many good points that trail off, ignoring a major aspect of the issue.
These issues make it painfully obvious that this is written by a Mormon mommy blogger who is passionate and writes well, but simply does not have the background to put together a comprehensive book about this subject. One could argue that this was not her aim. It's clear this book is aimed at beginners to reproductive justice, a guide to debating abortion with anti-choice people, and a call for societal shifts.
I'm unaware of a similarly short and straightforward book out there that is better than this one, but even without an alternative, I cannot recommend this one because of the harmful ideas it promotes (primarily the criminalization of HIV).
Some examples:
Blair is weirdly attached to vasectomies being an equally valid birth control choice as condoms. At first, I thought this was facetiousness, but she repeats this multiple times, bolstering the biological possibility of reversal while ignoring every other facet of this discussion. If someone banks sperm or thinks they can reverse it if needed, a person instantly becomes ineligible for the procedure, yet these are offered as legitimate options. Not to mention, getting a vasectomy often costs nothing, while reversals are nearly always fully paid for by the patient and cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
Lots of assumptions about condoms in here. Men are the only ones who hate condoms (they're really not). Dismissive of the internal/female condom (beloved by many people who find traditional condoms too tight) She has clearly never tried to help someone find non-traditionally sized condoms (it's time- and money-expensive, and she offers this as a simple alternative).
For some reason, she's under the impression that men demand rough sex (choking, specifically) and that women must submit to this or be rejected. As a former sex educator, this is patently false. There isn't a data-based gender breakdown or anything, but it's at least 50-50, if not the majority of women who are asking for choking during sex. She seems to only be speaking to monogamous couples, completely ignoring the real reasons that a woman would need to choose sterilization/birth control for herself vs. her multiple partners all getting vasectomies.
The worst one is that she uses the criminalization of HIV+ people (in exposing their partners to HIV) as an equivalency to sperm coming in contact with a female reproductive system. She seems to be completely unaware that the criminalization of people with STIs is in itself a human rights violation, and it's clear she's done no research on the subject, tossing it in to sensationalize, and throwing HIV+ people under the bus in the process.
Finally, the exclusion of Queer/Trans people from this book isn't simply an inexcusable oversight, but reflective of a failure to critically engage with the societal norms that need transformation in order for the thesis of this book to be realized. There are so many good points that trail off, ignoring a major aspect of the issue.
These issues make it painfully obvious that this is written by a Mormon mommy blogger who is passionate and writes well, but simply does not have the background to put together a comprehensive book about this subject. One could argue that this was not her aim. It's clear this book is aimed at beginners to reproductive justice, a guide to debating abortion with anti-choice people, and a call for societal shifts.
I'm unaware of a similarly short and straightforward book out there that is better than this one, but even without an alternative, I cannot recommend this one because of the harmful ideas it promotes (primarily the criminalization of HIV).