Everyone nowadays wants everything to be equal and perfect, and hey I'm no different, but sometimes we have to look at things rationally. We are not all born equal, and we are not all sexually equal. I think it's interesting that the female who broke her spine, probably has no feeling in that area, and still is in the hospital 4 days later is so worried about her birth control. Did this seem weird to anyone else? I think I would have had the same response as the doctor to tell her that that's not very important at the moment. I also watched the family guy take on paraplegic sex and it's kind of like, yeah there is some truth to people with disabilities not being able to perform sexually in the same way they might have been able to without a disability. Should everything just be ignored in order to make everything politically correct and equal, or does some rational need to put into the scope of things? What are your thoughts on this?
Diablog 3 Follow Up- Disability and Political Agency
No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/141946
Is Wilkerson arguing for everything to be "equal and perfect"? Can you explain what you mean by that phrase and how Wilkerson and/or Rubin discuss it? In my reading of Wilkerson, I see their discussion as focused on the need for agency (the ability to act and to have some control over how one's sex practices are represented, interpreted and given value) and dignity (respect).
In her essay, Wilkerson writes:
What is the impact of labeling someone's behavior and/or body deviant (or not normal/weird)? Who gets to decide what is normal and what is deviant? How does the label normal or abnormal affect the amount of dignity and agency one is afforded?In posing your questions about the reading, your goal should be to engage deeply with the reading--not necessarily to agree with it, but to take the claims that the author makes seriously and not to quickly dismiss them as being irrational or merely aimed at "political correctness".
Actually, no I don't believe that she is really arguing that everything be perfect, and although she does seem to be arguing for equality this "perfect and equal" thing was more coming from previous lectures and discussions in which it seems like I'm kind of limited to what I can say or can't say because I have to stay within this realm of "politically correct."
I guess more of what I was trying to get at, in which I didn't do a good job with, is a debate on to what extent these things should be discussed/known within the general public. Should a medical professional treat everyone equal (regarding sex as Wilkerson uses, probably sexuality as we've defined it), even if they just suffered a spinal injury and probably are not even able to move from the waist down? Wilkerson also states, "doctors often fail to screen, diagnose, or treat important medical problems, particularly in gay and lesbian patients," but should this be a common thing that doctors look at as a possibility for everyone (some diagnoses that would only apparently apply to a gay or lesbian) or would this be more of something that should be an individual case thing, and the individual should probably inform the doctor on this type of thing? Should information be readily available for young people when it comes to things like homosexuality and should homosexual sex be taught as a standard for everyone just as heterosexual sex is?
These things that vary from the norm, in which has been ingrained into our society pretty clearly so we all know what this implies, are more rare cases obviously. I guess what I was trying to get at is to what extent we should view these things, remembering to give some rational to the whole subject that we are not all sexually equal and variances lead to certain sexual obstacles.
Maybe we should just focus on the case of the patient who had a back injury (which was apparently pretty serious if she was there 4 days later and not expecting to go home any time soon) because that's what brought me to thinking that I would have probably acted in the same way as the doctor, more thinking that sex is kind of something that isn't exactly important to her at the moment and isn't really something that should be looked into in depth because of her situation without giving a second thought that maybe I was discriminating against her and that although probably true it could also be just an assumption, but I wanted to start a more general discussion on this type of thing so please feel free to comment on what you think.
It seems to me that the point isn't really about whether or not she's able to have sex (and with a back injury, it probably wouldn't be wise anyway). The point is more that by allowing her to have her birth control pills, it gives her a sense of control over the situation. For someone who's injured and in the hospital, their life in disarray, having something that they feel they have control over can be extremely reassuring. Also, is there any point in denying her birth control pills? As I said before, there might be a legitimate medical reason to not allow sex (because it could aggravate the injury, or something of the sort), but allowing the patient as much freedom as possible within the constriction of the injury is still important. Feeling like you've lost control over your life can lead to depression, which is a horrible (and difficult) thing to have to deal with.
I think it's important to note though, can this really be called discrimination? Perhaps thoughtlessness, or acting inconsiderately, but as you said, there are legitimate reasons to think that sex isn't really important right after you've been injured. It's just that there's a difference between having birth control pills and having sex.
I agree with Jodah , sometimes in some situations we may be too quick to call out on somethings to be discriminatory while it may there for legitimate reasons and with good intent. It is true that the root causes of things and reasons should be analyzed and determined , but this brings us to the question of , "How deep do we dig ?" , when do we know when to stop looking for the more fundamental cause. Everyone has a preconceived idea of something, most people stop looking for the more fundamental reason when they find a plausible explanation of what they themselves believe. The same applies to what people do and how/why they do what they do, including when people make decisions which may be good on a larger macroscopic scale but may seem cruel on a smaller individual scale.