Republican legislators all over the country are obsessed with legislating women’s innards – specifically, reproductive innards. Whether it’s forcing doctors to perform unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound probes (government mandated rape) before legal abortions, the Republican war on contraception, or forcing women to carry a dead fetus to term, the GOP has proven their real agenda is controlling women; and they’re getting away with it by calling it religious freedom.
Sarah Silverman came up with a brilliant idea after she learned that sperm cells have a sense of smell. As reported in the Huffington Post, Silverman was delivering a stand-up routine at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City recently, and she posed a pertinent question – she suggested that since we defend the right to enact laws that makes it difficult for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies, shouldn’t we also legislate male masturbation?
“Here’s something that I learned that is fascinating, and it’s this: Scientists have found that sperms cells smell,” Silverman said. “Like I know sperm smells, but sperm cells have the sense of smell, and you know what that means: Sperm is life. And you know what that means: We’ve gotta legislate that shit.”
Here’s a sad reality: While abortion became legal on a federal level in 1973, access to it remains highly restricted due to anti-choice legislation in states across the country. Mandated waiting periods, state-directed counseling meant to mislead and discourage women, 20-week bans, and unnecessary requirements that can force abortion clinics to shut down are all ways laws still control women’s bodies, and beyond voting and protesting, there isn’t much we can do to stop the war on choice. However, there might just be a way to make the playing field equal, and, according to comedian Sarah Silverman, it’s legislating male masturbation. What? I like it already. It’s Sarah Silverman; let’s hear her out.
Silverman described how it would work:
““What we’ll do is — it’s a real simple procedure. We take a really long needle – like basically (a) GoPro camera and we put it down your penis hole, urethra … then down into your testicular sack. We’re going to show you the ultrasound, so you can see the life in your balls.”
She explained the procedure would help save some of those innocent sperm from the men who recklessly murder them with their bare hands, and added “You would not believe the amount of men that do not want to jerk off after that.”
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In a stand-up routine Silverman performed last weekend at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Silverman blessed audience members with both her inspiration for the potential bill, and her conniving plan to execute it.
“Here’s something that I learned that is fascinating, and it’s this: Scientists have found that sperm cells smell. Sperm cells have the sense of smell, and you know what that means: Sperm is life,” Silverman said, and, getting in touch with her inner-lunatic, anti-abortion lawmaker, added, “And you know what that means: We’ve gotta legislate that shit.”
Studies published as early as 1992 have confirmed that sperm do, indeed, have a sense of smell which helps them to find an egg. While it remains up for debate whether or not this means sperm cells are alive, in the same vein, doesn’t the whole debate about abortion center around answering the question of whether or not an unborn embryo/fetus constitutes a human life?
The difference here is that we give men the benefit the doubt and not women. And since Silverman understands it’s frankly wishful thinking to hope misogynistic lawmakers will modify their shitty treatment of women, maybe, just maybe, they’ll adhere to the 14th amendment’s provisions for equal treatment under the law and, well, give men equal treatment?
Alas, how would this be executed? Not forgetting the crucial step in anti-choice lawmakers’ pursuit of their interpretations of justice, Silverman determined an appropriate way to shame men for murdering their innocent sperm: “We’re going to show [them] the ultrasound, so [they] can see the life in [their] balls.”
“What we’ll do is — it’s a real simple procedure. We take a really long needle-like basically GoPro camera and we put it down your penis hole, urethra… then down into your testicular sack,” Silverman elaborated.
Alas, it’s unlikely Silverman’s brilliant plan will ever see the light of day in a Congress (literally) dominated by old white Christian men. And while sperm cells can smell in controlled environments, they lose that sense of smell in the outside world. This more or less weakens the case for sperm cells being considered alive, but, hey, to scientists and even the Constitution, the case for a fetus counting as a human life isn’t that strong either.
Following the Constitution, only born babies are American citizens/living human beings with rights, and it’s generally agreed within the scientific community that a fetus only becomes viable and able to survive outside of the mother at or past 22 weeks gestation. Just throwing those facts out there, because why not, they can’t really be said enough.
At any rate, I hope Silverman is able to run her plan by her boy Bernie before the Democratic National Convention. I’d frankly love to hear his thoughts on it.
Comment: Sarah Silverman is right. Masturbation leading to ejaculation comes closer to abortion than masturbation leading to clitoral orgasm. Judith Reisman also made the case that masturbation is linked to pedophilia in her book Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences. Again I stress than ANY avoidance of reproduction, even celibate chastity, can only be allowed if euthanasia is allowed as well. Hell is eternal, hell is eternal, hell is eternal…
oogenhand 