The same magic wand that made her valuable
Valerie Tarico has an extraordinary essay about what’s really behind the idea of “fetal personhood.”
The notion that life begins at conception is a variation on a very ancient cultural theme: penis worship.
I’m slow sometimes, but after years of writing about abortion rights it finally occurred to me that “life begins at conception” is one more version of a multi-millennial infatuation with the penis as symbol and proof that manliness is next to godliness.
Because it’s magic.
What creates the wonder of a new person? Forget about the maturation of germ cells, and the nine-month labor of a woman’s body, and painstaking parental nurture. It’s a sperm, a penile projectile shot forth by the ultimate organ of demi-divinity. Sperm penetrates egg and voila! A person! A new soul! All the extraordinary and unique value we accord to human life is created instantaneously.
Ahahahahaha – so it is. One touch of the penis and presto, a miraculous human being is formed.
They also insisted that a man’s magic wand could permanently transform a female from one kind of being to another, from a prized “virgin” into a worthless “whore.” In medieval Catholicism’s recipe for sexual hang-ups, the prior touch of a penis (or lack thereof) became the most defining aspect of a woman’s identity, economic value, and moral virtue. Penis penetrates female and voila! No longer a whole person! The same magic wand that made her valuable could also do the reverse.
Fundamentalists who are anchored to the Iron Age by sacred texts and patriarchal traditions still hold to this archaic view, though they may use updated terms like “licked lollypop” or “chewed gum”—and some do offer second chances through “born-again virginity.”
But at least in the West, millennials finally are catching on to how ridiculous the whole virginity thing is. As one Facebook meme put it recently, “I don’t believe in virginity. Why? Because nobody’s penis is important enough to change any part of my identity.”
Now that is the way to talk about identity.
This looks like an extraordinarily deep insight — not least because it is so simple, on its surface. Trees blocking vision of forest, etc.
An exceptionally astute observation, in other words.
Another support point for this–the prohibition against male masturbation. The notion that you’re violating God’s law by ‘spilling your seed’ clearly takes the view that ejaculate is somehow valued on its own right, as special and sacred in itself (cue Monty Python). So it really is all about the menz.
One of the arguments against votes for women in the US was the teaching that women are not human but rather a sub species created by God for men to plant their people seeds in. This is still taught by many religious organizations and is an unspoken assumption by others. It seems like it isn’t enough to control the means of production as some seem to want to control how we think about the means of producing human resources.
I think it’s less about penis worship that about the fact that if you believe in a soul independent from the body, it has appear at some point. Once there was this idea that every sperm contained a kind of mini person but we know too much about the reproductive process for that to be convincing. Instead, conception becomes the magic point.
The first thing to challenge my view as a teenager that abortion was wrong was learning that most fertilized eggs die a natural death. It told me that God just didn’t care about all those souls. It embarrasses me now to admit how I used to think.
As for virginity, I conveniently shed any beliefs about sex before marriage being wrong once I reached the age where I actually wanted to have sex. I was nevertheless a bit disappointed that losing my virginity did not make me feel any different (the next day, not in the act). It was a bit like the way it never seemed right that I felt no different on Christmas Day than any other.