I want to talk about decorum.
Specifically, I want to talk about the rules of decorum according to Michigan politics.
I want to talk about the decorum -- or is it lack thereof? -- of using words like "vagina" and phrases like "having sex" when the subject is legislation on reproductive rights.
I want to point out that it's pretty strange to be willing to push legislation limiting a woman's right to be the boss of her own vagina, but not be willing to hear the word "vagina."
I want to discuss the fact that attempting to stage a Lysistrata-style sex strike across a state is the same thing whether you say, "It's time to take some inspiration from an ancient Greek play" or "Stop having sex with us, gentlemen." Especially since I love the fact that Rashida Tlaib is calling them like she sees them. If men are going to treat women's rights with as little regard as Classical Athenians did, we should damned well treat them like the patriarchal thugs they are.
I want to ask why the word "abortion" is perfectly decorous, when the phrases "having sex" and "my vagina" aren't. The possibility of my needing an abortion only arises if a man has been having sex in my vagina. That is, frankly, the most clinical and unexciting description of the situation that I can think of. It's almost boring enough to qualify as birth control, another phrase the politicians in Michigan might be troubled by.
I'm trying very hard to think of a setting in which decorum would reasonably allow the word "abortion" but not the phrase "having sex." The problem I keep running into is that pesky concept of being reasonable.
It seems only fitting to start right out with a title that no one in her right mind would describe as following any reasonable rule of decorum. A title inviting the reader to commit a violent-sounding and (all things considered) impossible sex act on the concept of decorum. "This title," I could then go on to say, "is clearly lacking in decorum by anyone's standards. Let's work our way up from there and see what we can figure out."
But I can't quite bring myself to do it, because apparently I'm suffering from a surfeit of decorum. Or maybe I'm just tired.
Your thoughts?