Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
We knew it was coming (so to speak), thanks to Sam Alito’s leaky dick—I mean, draft. Still, when the Supreme Guillotine came crashing down, it hurt like a Constitutional Cliterectomy—which is what it is.
On Friday, June 24, 2022, a Judicial Coup led by a Gang of Five radical, religious, right-wing Supreme Court Injustices hit “delete” on the reproductive rights of millions, directly thwarting the will of the majority of Americans, endangering women’s and other pregnant people’s lives, setting the stage for further degradations, and just generally pooping on our party (what’s left of it).
Coup Anon
With their masks off and evil clown grins on display, the Gang of Five and their Judicial Coup are part of the rolling Trumpublican takeover, aka “Coup Anon.” Elements include: racist voting restrictions and gerrymandering, installing tRump-compliant election officials, harassing nonbelievers of the Big Lie, beefing up military-style policing (especially of leftist protests) and demanding zero gun control.
The colorful Coup Anon centerpiece is the Christofascist cosplay Insurrection, tRump’s 1/6 raging Rape of the Capitol, now the focus of a Congressional show trial revealing some of the criminal machinations behind this mad carnivalesque prelude to Friday’s Supreme misruling that has given the thumbs-up for forced breeding in the bleeding Red States.
It’s all connected like a conspiracy or a fever dream, and it’s all happening faster than we can shout “U-S-A,” from the top (SCOTUS) on down to the bottom (Proud Boys, MAGAts, etc.). And this hurts all of our bottoms… nonconsensually, to say the least.
As a prelude to turning Big Roe into *just a ‘ho*… on Thursday, the sadistic Supremes struck down New York gun laws, triggering a little Wild West into the Big Apple; so, if anything happens (or doesn’t) on the subway, now we can all pull out our guns and shoot each other. That same day, they also hit “delete” on our previously precious Miranda rights (which if you’ve ever been arrested, you know come in handy), making it even easier to cuck the Constitution and convict innocent lawyer-less suspects based on coerced confessions.
Then on Friday, they did the heavy lifting, completing their vile hat trick, wiping out a woman’s right to choose an abortion, a right enshrined in the Constitution for 50 years, and giving individual states the power to make pregnant people into breeding slaves.
Yes indeed, Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners, though we just celebrated Juneteenth and the freeing of the slaves, slavery is back. Forced breeding is rebranding (read JoAnn Wypejewski’s “Long Hand of Slave Breeding Redux”), as America metamorphoses into a neo-Puritanical Gilead (see The Handmaid’s Tale) with no Miranda rights, but lots of guns, dead women and poor, screaming, unwanted babies. You’d think they were trying to instigate a new American Civil War…
It’s equal parts awful and absurd. Even the Russians are laughing at us. Abort this court!
Cliterectomy Culprits
So, how the hell did it happen? Let’s start with the obvious. It’s no coincidence that three of these five radical right-wing SCOTUS Gang leaders were chosen by (or for) the Trumpus. Back in the 1970s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s (when he could get it up), tRump enthusiastically supported abortion and pro-choice candidates; Stormy Daniels’ recollection of his refusal to wear a condom, even on the first date, gives us some idea why. Then the Chosen One got religion when he realized being anti-abortion would seduce the rich and powerful Religious Right, giving birth to his shoulda-been-aborted Presidential aspirations.
All three—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett—were forced through contentious Senate confirmation hearings, each unjust in its own way, like three illegitimate forced births.
Then, shortly after shamelessly mumbo-jumbling their views of Roe v Wade as “precedent,” “settled law” or whatever gibberish they used to hide their true feelings (which everyone but Susan Collins could see through), all three joined the SCOTUS Gang of 5 to murder abortion rights. The other two hitmen, Clarence Thomas (another forced-birth confirmation) and Samuel Alito, Jr., were nominated by George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Jr., respectively. In Alexander Cockburn’s and Jeffrey St. Clair’s Holy Alito, we learn that Sammy’s “90-year old mother Rose snapped at reporters the day Bush nominated him, ‘Of course he’s against abortion.'” Out of the mouths of nonagenerians…
The mysterious, equivocating sixth member of the Gang of 5 would be Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted to uphold the Mississippi anti-abortion law but not to overturn Roe V. Wade, claiming to desire a “more measured course” to stripping Americans of reproductive rights (because he’s “a man with a slooow hand”). But that quick and ruthless Gang of Five just overwhelmed poor Chief Johnny’s resistance in what appears to have been a black-robed judicial gangbang.
Speaking of which, two gangbangers, Thomas and Kavanaugh, have been charged with sexual harassment and attempted rape respectively. Let that sink in: Two men credibly accused of sexual abuse during their Supreme Court confirmation hearings have just sexually abused the entire country.
Thomas’ wife Ginni Thomas was (is?) one of the more enthusiastic ringleaders of Coup Anon. To be fair, with such a rightwing activist wife, Thomas should recuse himself from everything. However, this bitter man who has confessed that his deepest desire is to make liberals “miserable,” is far too busy taking revenge on those of us who believed Anita Hill to even consider being “fair.”
The one woman in the Gang of Five, Amy Coney Barrett, was raised in “People of Praise,” a Church more draconian than the Vatican and more cultish than Heaven’s Gate with Gorean notes, where she served (wait for it) as a “Handmaid.”
Yes, it’s a slightly different kind of handmaid from the The Handmaid’s Tale, but these black-robed fundamentalists are now our American Taliban overlords and ladies overseeing our bodily functions. Less than a year ago, in Sept 2021, we were talking about the Texas Taliban, laughing off those crazy Texans. Now we find ourselves ruled by the Supreme Taliban, the Republican Brain on steroids… with a horse dewormer chaser.
Speaking of bodily functions, if American fascism were a body, the Trumpublican party would be its fleshy face, the Proud Boys its ass, and the police are the dicks on the beat, shrinking in their pants, too scared to save a school full of kids from a mass shooter, but horny and ready to use their big phallic batons and guns to beat defenseless protestors and shoot unarmed citizens.
The body politic collapses with the spineless Democrats who didn’t have the cajones to codify Roe v Wade when they had majorities in both Houses of Congress and Obama was president. Sure, Barack tweeted his chagrin over losing Roe v Wade, but he didn’t codify it when he could have. He saved the banks instead. Well, his daughters won’t suffer.
Forced Labor is Trafficking
The rich will be fine (for a while) without Roe v. Wade. Aside from a few affluent red-state girls whose parents will use the new anti-abortion laws to force grandbabies out of their reluctant uteruses, the poor will be the victims of “forced breeding,” compelled to bear children too broke not to serve in American military branches, factories, jails, schools, and dangerous, “essential,” custodial, low-income jobs that the wealthy would never take.
Talk about “forced labor.” The double meaning is double trouble. Though consenting adult sex work is not sex trafficking (delete SESTA/FOSTA!), if anything fits the definition of “trafficking,” it’s forcing someone to stay pregnant and give birth against their will.
Forced breeding is a sexual fetish (some of my sex therapy clients are into it, though just in fantasy… I hope!). However it was also a very serious, horrific, real-world component to ensuring the indefinite viability of institutionalized, home-grown slavery in, *coincidentally,* many of the same states in the South now salivating over criminalizing abortion.
The capitalist strategy is a lot more harmful than the sexual fetish (though the kinky fantasy is informed by the historic reality) and, with a little imagination, this ruling could turn it into an everyday part of the modern neo-Puritanical marketplace. Could online adoption auctions for the rich and childless be next?
While the GOP is going for blood, the disappointing Dems appear to be more concerned with providing security for these Supreme Injustices than codifying our reproductive rights. I’m sure some are sincerely disturbed by this ruling, but in general, they seem to just want to use it to fundraise and make us vote for them. So, I’m supposed to stay in a house with a passive-aggressive ass because that house is surrounded by rabid AR-15-toting elephants?
Okay, okay, I’m not crazy enough (yet) to walk into a hail of honking bullets or vote Repugnican, so I will vote for the ass, not the elephant, being a Lesser-of-Two Evils gal.
But the evil is mounting daily, and I’m started to wonder if “Lesser Evil” is really just slightly slower evil. As of this writing, these Dems haven’t even charged the Trumpus for Coup Anon, leaving it open for him to run again. Do they want that… again? It ain’t over yet, so I still have hope to see the Orange One in an orange jumpsuit, though let the loser have his Miranda rights.
Where’s Our Sexual Revolution?
Third to blame (after the Toxic Duopoly) for this mess is us, the American people, because the buck stops here, even if we don’t have a buck to our name with the top 1% constantly stealing our money. Still, it’s our country—sort of… So, it looks like our Bonobo Summer of Love will have to be a summer of protest. Out in the street, Brothers and Sisters! Speak out against this horrific Judicial Coup that is sure to result in more murders of pregnant women by can’t-handle-it boyfriends, in addition to the deaths by suicide and botched, illegal abortions.
We should also fight for our Right to Party. Seriously, we have human animal needs to experience healing, consensual, peacemaking pleasure together.
It’s the 1970s all over again! Or is it? There are a few differences… like, where are all the dudes? Women and other marginalized pregnant people’s lives are on the line. Will straight men, our husbands, lovers, fathers and brothers, support us through the long haul it’s looking to be? Some are, and kudos to them! But look at how many aren’t… where are all the straight men who love women?
Tons of men—straight men—supported Roe v Wade, starting with the male Supreme Court Justices that made the ruling, along with their mostly male clerks, right on down to the dudes in the streets, the bars and the bedrooms. Why? One of the reasons that straight men supported a woman’s right to choose in the early 1970s was that it was the Sexual Revolution. They were getting laid. You could say they had skin in the game.
And now they don’t. In fact, it’s the opposite. To a great extent, straight men are not getting laid (for various reasons, some good and some really bad), and even if they are, it’s not usually with—to steal a word from the rainbow community—pride. All of us like to take pride in our sexuality, even privileged straight dudes, but between anti-sex religion on the Right and #MeToo political correctness on the Left, it’s tough. You may not think they have anything to complain about, and they don’t necessarily complain out loud (unless they’re hiding behind a Twitter handle or doing a podcast), but on the Right, you find rage and violent aggression against women and the marginalized; on the Left, apathy and despair.
The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 70s was inclusive, or tried to be—straight, gay, bi, group, trans, kink. Not everyone liked it, and it was wildly imperfect, but its ideas and many of its practices were very bonoboësque. There were some US Air Force swingers and gay U.S. Marines, but most out-of-the-closet sex revolutionaries of that time were against the Vietnam war and war in general. “Make Love Not War” was the rallying cry of the Sexual Revolution, and rally we did, around sex, love, swinging, stopping the war(s) and around abortion rights.
After all, a big part of “making love” was and is focused on recreation, not procreation, as well as good relation-ship(s). The rights to legal contraception and abortion were championed by the Women’s Movement (as everybody knows), but they were also integral to the Sexual Revolution… as many people are too embarrassed or erotophobic to admit.
Too often, especially lately, abortion rights have been framed as a “women’s issue” or about “women’s health.” However, most human pregnancies involve or at least involved a straight man. Maybe we should be getting these dudes on board with abortion rights for all, because it really is for all of us.
Straight men enjoyed the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s, and even if they didn’t participate, they could hope and vote accordingly. Thus, many young, old and middle-aged dudes who identified as straight, including many not-so-feminist men, actively supported contraception and abortion rights. Call them shallow, selfish horn-dogs, if you like, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but a lot of support for Roe vs. Wade in the bedroom, the boardroom and the courtroom came from the Sexual Revolution.
The Ammosexual Incel Revolt
Unfortunately, right now, we do not have a Sexual Revolution. Quite the opposite. What we have is an Ammosexual Incel Revolution. Let’s call it a revolt, because it’s quite revolting, with the Sadistic Supremes at the top and the sexually frustrated misogynists in their parents’ basements, along with the predatory Proud Boys on the street, at the bottom.
Those men who are currently crowing, “Don’t have sex if you don’t want to get pregnant!” are the same incels who cry in their forums that women reject them sexually. Every so often (way too often), they grab an AR-15 and massacre innocents in a final deadly ejaculation. Or maybe they just joke about it, encouraging others to do the deadly deeds. It’s the Revenge of the Nerds, the awkward guys who, more than most, really need sex education (something else the Religious Right would like to delete) and, unlike Marky Z, Jeffy Band Elona Musky, they don’t have enough money to hide behind.
Sanctimonious voices on the Right and Left shame straight single guys who have trouble dating, and heaven forbid they engage in healing, consensual sex with a sex worker, or they’ll be labelled a “loser” or accused of engaging in “sex trafficking.” Viable erotic alternatives are rarely discussed, let alone provided. No wonder so many men are, or just feel like, incels.
The technical definition of “incel” is an “involuntary celibate,” and for a variety of reasons, their numbers are growing. I’m also starting to see the word used to describe men—like Alito—who may have a wife and kids, but seem to despise women who enjoy sex for pleasure or erotic power. I’m embarrassed to admit that Incel Alito attended my Alma Mater for Law School. Mother Yale really should have aborted this one.
Tellingly, while a Princeton undergrad, young Samuel joined the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which was formed in October 1972 at least in part to oppose Princeton admitting women. He may not be a technical incel, but Alito could be the black-robed spokesman for an incel cologne; call it “MISOGYNY,” the scent of rejection.
Some incels say they are so furious that they *can’t* have the women they desire (and the married ones fearbeing cuckolded), that they want these women to suffer and be demeaned, “brought down a peg.” So, of course, they are attracted to the idea of “forced breeding,” in fantasy and now reality. Forced breeding is inherently anti-sex; the coerced pregnancy is *punishment* for making love, not war.
All five Injustices (and Slow-Hand Roberts makes 5 ½ ) are far more anti-sex than “pro-life,” a well-paid gang of religious fundamentalist, partisan hacks on a mission to hack off our pleasure in a judicial cliterectomy and make us into breeding slaves, all while lining the pockets of their corporate benefactors and throwing red meat to their hungry, horny (and sexually frustrated) base, now celebrating sadistically as they deprive not only women, but all Americans of erotic power, sexual pleasure and general peace of mind.
This is the opposite of what I call The Bonobo Way of Peace through Pleasure.
Bonobo Female Empowerment & Male Well-Being
The bonobos, our close great ape cousins, show us how important sex for pleasure is for the mental and physical health and well-being of great apes like us, as individuals and as a community. Bonobos are also known for female empowerment, solidarity and the power of sisterhood (even though most female bonobos in any given tribe aren’t blood-sisters). The #MeToo movement could learn something from bonobo communities where rape is rare and sexual harassment swiftly stopped.
The other, equally important side to bonobo female empowerment is male well-being. If the bonobo males aren’t being taken care of—given love, nurturance and some access to sex (whether with females or other males)—the whole beautiful female-empowering structure falls apart.
Same with humans, I guess. We see it happening now, in real time. On the Right, we see the guys—and their subservient-to-the-patriarchy women—playing hardball with anti-female laws, threats, guns, physical abuse, contempt for our consent, and now this, loss of our fundamental power over our own bodies, or to be very sexually specific, all fertile, child-bearing bodies. As for the frustrated straight males on the Left, most are, sad to say, not fighting back much at all.
Though some are fighting back, and they should be acknowledged. #GoBonobos for U.S. Chief Justice Stephen Breyer! Of course, he’s now retiring, but at least he’s doing it with a Dem in the White House. Bexar County, Texas Sheriff Javier Salazar says he will not “persecute” women who get abortions. Harry Styles is giving pro-Abortion Rights concerts. And there are many more. Somebody give these men a hug.
Instead, driven by nightmares of unwanted babies, some Gen Z women say they’re now swearing off sex with men altogether. This is very understandable, though LGBTQ rights could be on the Supreme Court Injustices’ chopping block next. Moreover, this is exactly what the anti-abortion set wants young people to do: “Abstinence only” is the Religious Right’s control rod, enabling them to morally beat their base into submission. Meanwhile, beneath the surface, it adds fuel to the fiery fury of the Ammosexual Incel Revolt.
On a more realistic and exciting note, many young people and a few elders are sharing tips (don’t use a period tracker app!) and organizing “underground railroads” for people in red states who need abortions. If these ammosexual incels in power are going to treat us like slaves and criminals in service of their corporate overlords and capitalist owners, we should learn from Harriet Tubman and the courageous slaves of history how to make that underground railroad roll through tunnels of love into freedom.
The Bible: Life Begins at Breath
Incel Alito interprets the Constitution like a fundamentalist interprets the Bible. But if these Bible thumpers actually read the Bible instead of just thumping us over the head with it, they’d see that it says life begins at “breath,” not conception and not a heartbeat.
B’reishit, “in the beginning,” God “breathed” life into the world. God is said to have formed Adam, the first human, from the dust of the earth, but Adam was like a clay sculpture, not yet alive. Then God blew into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, and at that point, Adam began breathing on his own and became a living being.
According to the Bible, an unborn fetus is not considered a person until it has been born. The fetus is regarded as part of the mother until it separates from her body during childbirth. Exodus 21:22-23 concerns a case in which two men are fighting and one injures a pregnant woman causing her to miscarry. The culprit must pay for her miscarriage like property damage, but it is not a murder where he must pay with his life. In Numbers 5:12-31, the Bible recommends that if a husband suspects his wife is cheating on him, he take her to the priest who makes her drink bitter water that causes her to miscarry. Sounds like a Biblical abortion to me!
Not that religion should dictate our civil laws. Which reminds me: Abortion rights should not fall under “privacy.” In our current high surveillance society, there is virtually no privacy anyway. Abortion rights should be based on “freedom of religion.”
Most anti-abortion activists, including those Supreme Injustices, are ultra-religious. Theoretically, this shouldn’t matter, but it does… a lot.
If your religion says abortion is murder, don’t get an abortion. My religion says a microscopic group of cells is not yet a person and should not have more rights than an actual woman, or really any “rights” at all. I’m not saying I’m correct, or that strict Catholicism or Evangelism is incorrect. I’m asking: Isn’t there supposed to be a separation of Church and State? America isn’t Gilead… yet. Though ammosexual heartthrob Lauren Boebert has proclaimed that it is.
My Abortion
In closing, here’s a little confession from your Mother Confessor. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I have had an abortion. My story isn’t as dramatic as so many out there, but it does show you can think you’re being responsible, and still get knocked up. I was having sex with a man who had a vasectomy and, unbeknownst to us, the vasectomy broke. I found out when I was less than 6 weeks along, so it was an embryo, not a fetus, and I honestly didn’t think of this clump of molecules as a human being at all—not then or now—not any more than my appendix is a human being. Fortunately, the guy agreed. My pregnancy was a mistake that would benefit no one, and my abortion corrected that mistake, harming no one. Not that I am any kind of poster child for abortion, especially nowadays. My life wasn’t at stake. I was well over 18. I wasn’t raped. I wasn’t working on my medical degree to become a life-saving oncologist. I didn’t have other children to raise. I was pretty sure I wanted to be child-free for life. I didn’t hate the guy. I just didn’t want to have his baby or any baby, and I knew I had that right, and that was enough.
And now it’s not. Suddenly, for many Americans, it’s not at all.
So, let’s protest, object, vote, abort the court (impeach these injustices!), practice the Bonobo Way of female empowerment and male well-being, and help grease the tracks of that new Underground Railroad for the refugees of forced breeding in America.
