Politics

Anthony Weiner – Sexual Predator, Carlos Danger or Crazed Narcissist?

Date: July 24, 2013
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Addiction, New York City, Politics, Relationships
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Official portrait of United States Congressman...

Official portrait of United States Congressman (D-NY). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anthony Weiner, disgraced congressman is like the joke that keeps on giving.  If you don’t already know the details here are the basic facts.  In 2011 Weiner sent sexually explicit photos to several adult women who were not his wife.  At first Weiner denied the allegations, going so far as to say someone hacked his twitter account.  He also made the ridiculous claim that he wasn’t sure if a photo of his erect penis inside a pair of white underwear was his or not.  I think every grown man knows his penis intimately, so well that they could pick out of a large crowd of penises.  When Weiner finally admitted that he did indeed send the photos, he eventually resigned his seat in congress and issued several public apologies.  He even appeared in People magazine with his wife and infant son, with what seemed like a heartfelt admission of guilt and a vow to stop the behavior.

Now, a short two years later Weiner is the front-runner in the New York mayoral race.  A new woman has emerged with a series of sexually explicit sex messages and a story of a virtual affair that happened in the summer of 2012.  The story almost seems like a parody with Weiner using the alias, Carlos Danger in his correspondence. He even sent her yet another photograph of his penis.  The man must truly think his genitals are something special!  I’m sure his penis has its own moniker but we aren’t privy to that information yet!  The woman involved has remained anonymous and claims she was not compensated for her story.  We have no way of knowing if she is telling the truth, we only have the text messages which are quite hilarious and graphic in nature.

What really stuck me as completely crazy was the way the site The Dirty is handling this story.  The headline by Nik Richie reads “Anthony Weiner is a Sexual Predator Luring his Victims”   Richie makes the following quote.

My source is solid. She really thought Anthony Weiner and her were in love, they spoke on the phone daily multiple times a day for 6 months. Anthony Weiner played with her emotions and mind. Most calls were phone sex. He promised her many things including a condo in Chicago (1235 S. Prairie Ave) where they were planning to meet up to have sex. Anthony Weiner has a shoe fetish, particularly heels.

Calling Weiner a sexual predator is a farce.  It actually trivializes real sexual assault, intimidation and harassment.  The woman in question is 22 years old.  She is an adult and although she is incredibly naive she is not a child.  Weiner was not her employer or teacher and had no direct control over her life.  It wasn’t as if her job or grades depended on her playing ball with his advances.  She also knew he was a married man with a then pregnant wife.  It is hard for me to view a woman who knowingly engages in this type of behavior with a married man as a victim.  The whole thing reminds me of the Tiger Woods scandal when one of his mistresses held a tear filled press conference along the lines of “I thought I was his only mistress”  I guess the sobbing woman just conveniently forgot about his wife.

At 22 years old, Weiner’s virtual mistress is probably a college graduate. Most likely she has dealt with more than one lecherous college professor, a creepy employer or faced some type of sexual intimidation.  I’m sure she had a strong crush on Weiner and found the attention he gave her exciting.   From the texts I have read there is certainly a lot of sex talk but not a lot of fondness.  We don’t know what they said over the phone and more information could come out, but I think this young woman mistook lust and sex for love.   I wish I could have a cup of coffee with her and share some of my dating horror stories or the many I have heard from readers of this blog.  She is not a victim, just a foolish woman who made a few stupid choices.  Since she is anonymous, her life will go on and she might even face much worse men in her future.  The real victim here is Weiner’s wife and young son.

Weiner’s wife will have to live this down, and his son is not only going to have to grow up with an incredibly unfortunate surname but also be subjected to teasing about his father’s behavior.   His wife will also have to question every single word that comes out of her husband’s mouth.  I also lived in denial for years in my marriage and if I could go back in time I would grab myself by both shoulders and yell – GET OUT NOW!

Again the story almost reads like a joke.  A man named Weiner, showing his weiner to the world under the name of Carlos Danger – AFTER he lost his job, damaged his career and publicly humiliated his family – engaging in the exact same behavior.  You honestly couldn’t make it up.  Will the people of New York elect him as mayor?  Who knows?  If he wins the jokes will continue and I suspect the scandals will as well. If he got caught once and kept doing it – I kind of doubt this will be the last time we hear from Carlos Danger and his mighty, mighty penis.

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Texas Justice: Open Season on Sex Workers

Date: June 7, 2013
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Politics, Women and Feminism
Comments: 3 Replies

Apparently in Texas life is cheap, especially if you are Craig’s List escort. If you haven’t read about it yet, here are the facts. Ezkiel Gilbert shot Lenora Ivie Frago.  Gilbert openly admits that he shot Frago because she wouldn’t have sex with him, and he wanted his $150 back.  The injury initially left her paralyzed but she died nine months later.  According to him she wandered around his apartment for 20 minutes and left to give the money to her driver, who ended up being her pimp/boyfriend.  Of course we don’t have her side of the story.  The link to the article is here.

Texas Jury Says It’s Cool to Kill Prostitutes For Not Having Sex with You

Here a few scenarios of what might have happened.

  • She could have arrived fully expecting to have sex with Gilbert – he brandished a gun – she got scared and tried to flee.
  • She might have intended on ripping him off of the $150 and the whole thing was a scam
  • She may never have agreed to sex with him in the first place, he misunderstood the situation, threatened her and she fled.
  • She could have agreed to sexual relations with him, but he wanted to engage in sexual acts – risky behavior – sex without a condom, anal sex, bondage, urination, defecation, blood, etc.
  • Maybe she agreed to oral sex, or fondling and he expected intercourse.
  • It may have been her protocol to give her boyfriend/pimp the money before engaging in any sexual activity with a client.

In any event she didn’t deserve to die for her actions.

He claimed he didn’t mean to kill her – yet he shot her in the neck.  He also claimed he was just trying to get back his property – $150 for an illegal act.

There is so much wrong with this case.  Was her only option to consent to being raped to avoid being killed?  Can a prostitute refuse a client she thinks is dangerous, violent or expecting more than what was mutually agreed upon?   Does that woman still have some basic rights of safety?  Because the act was illegal, the victim had no legal recourse if Gilbert threatened her, beat, raped or refused to pay.  Gilbert knew and understood that basic fact. Even if it was a legally binding contract with boundaries written out in detail she backed out of the deal – he shouldn’t have been able to act as judge, jury and executioner.   Sex is not like every other commodity.  It not as if she was selling a motorcycle, took his money, and drove off.  If she feared for her safety or her life, it is reasonable that she might bolt.

The Texas law allows people to use force not just in self-defense, but also to protect their property.  Because this case involved an illegal transaction – Texas has just set a precedent.  Drug dealers should not have to face charges if they murder anyone as long as the murder involved property.  The mafia could have a field day in Texas and avoid most murder charges.  And what is to stop any number of bogus claims of late night robberies to justify cold-blooded murder?

All that being said, what is not spoken here is that the woman’s life had little value in the eyes of the state.  I can’t imagine the same outcome over a disagreement between two men and a nonsexual crime.  Many women in the sex trade enter into it out of desperation – some are undocumented, drug-addicted, or victims of violence.   The sex industry couldn’t possibly exist if it wasn’t for the marketplace of men willing to pay for sex.  The state of Texas may not agree with the idea of prostitution but it isn’t going to go away any time soon.  No woman should die for refusing to have sex with a man, not even a sex worker.

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Facebook: Boys and Girls play differently

Date: January 15, 2013
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Politics, Social Media, Women and Feminism
Comments: 4 Replies
Danny & Alex on the See-Saw

Danny & Alex on the See-Saw (Photo credit: leekelleher)

In the title of this piece I use the terms boys and girls; but what I am really talking about is men and women.  Something about Facebook etiquette though makes me think of a school playground, so the title seems appropriate.  What is Facebook etiquette?  I don’t think any of us know yet, as social media is a relatively new forum.  It has been my experience that men and women behave completely differently on social media. As a performer I meet a lot of people and I used to friend just about anyone within reason.   I have learned the hard way that I can’t be so open.  Out of my 2700 friends, and I could have many more if I wasn’t so picky, the vast majority of negative activity has come from men.   I have had to deal with the following:

  • The Semi-Stalker – A male user who will comment on nearly everything, including completely mundane posts.  A true semi-stalker is someone who doesn’t know me well and who I may have met for an instant or is just someone I share multiple mutual friends.  Yet this virtual stranger will become fascinated by everything I post.  Most of the time, these men are in a relationship or married which makes their behavior even more unsettling.  I can’t help but picture them at their computer ready to pounce on my latest update.  Their behavior is unnerving and most Semi-Stalkers end up getting kicked off my page.
  • The Full on Cyber Stalker – A male user who goes beyond the realm of Facebook to harass me.  I have had several men exhibit stalking behavior engaging negatively on this blog, my twitter account and in my regular email.  The worst was someone who did all three and even set up two fake OKCupid profiles to torment me.  I had mutual friends with this person, he lived in New York City and was also a performer.  I thought he would be OK, but he got so crazy he resorted to threats of physical violence.  My crime:  I had kicked him off my page when he made a sexually explicit comment on my wall in a political discussion.  At the time it happened I foolishly told him why I was deleting him in angry email.   Now I simply delete/block without comment.  The less I engage the stalker the better.
  • The I want to tell you Missy –  I’ll post anything political and a man will respond with an extremely long diatribe.  Most posts from unfamiliar men are condescending and include disrespectful language.  They act as if I don’t know what I am talking about, haven’t bothered to do research or am acting purely from emotion.  These men obviously don’t know me well, and I don’t think they have ever been published anywhere.  Everything I have written for the Huffington Post goes through an editorial process.  If I use a stat or fact I have to include a hyperlink in my article to a non-biased a source.  I am not exactly a lightweight and this isn’t my first time at the political discourse rodeo.  I never started a fight with them, and I never posted on their wall.  I don’t see the point in getting into it with someone who is diametrically opposed to me politically.  The discussion is going to go nowhere, and will end up being a huge waste of time.  So to my more Libertarian, Republican or conspiracy theory friends I usually just leave well enough alone.  Everyone can post whatever they want.  I don’t have to engage in a Facebook war with them because I don’t agree with their point of view, instead I just ignore their rants.  Although I have kicked people off for posting racist articles or absolute nonsense.   I get plenty of detractors and would be critics on my Huffington post articles and on this blog.  I don’t need it on my personal facebook page.
  • The Negative Commenter – Again usually a man who I don’t know well, maybe I met them at a comedy show…I don’t know.  They will just post something negative for reasons unknown to me. Recently I was really frustrated with my memoir and I posted something along the lines of “man this is hard”.  Some guy I barely knew felt the need to write “First World Problems” as a comment.  I thought it was inappropriate especially since I didn’t know him well and he knows nothing about my life.  I quietly deleted the comment and he un-friended me.  I was happy he saved me the trouble.
  • The Pervert – I don’t feel like I need to describe this one, but I haven’t had a woman give me a problem like this yet.
  • The Bully – I once posted “Congratulations to SAG-AFTRA on our historic merger“.  This seemingly innocuous post ended in a comedian I knew calling me a cunt.  He then got on my wall with an alter-ego profile to try to keep fighting.  Again, I had no history with this man other than doing a paid show for him once.  We had mutual friends.  He had posted anti-union sentiments on my wall in the past and I had politely told him to stop saying something like “Look I come from two unionized parents and I am in two unions you aren’t going to change my mind please stop” he persisted.
  • The Scolder – No matter what I post, including things as controversial as “Being self-employed is difficult” the Scolder will point out to me that I’m being too negative. They are ALMOST ALWAYS men I barely know.  No one is always chipper and happy all of the time, and some people like to vent.  I would never dream of making some sort of judgment like that to a person I barely know.  It seems to me like just another way to put me in my place.

Are Facebook pages free speech zones?  I don’t think so.  Should people post long drawn out political rants on other people’s pages?  I would say no.  If they start the fight, they should expect to finish it.  But why start it in the first place.  In any given year I kick off dozens of men from my Facebook page, sometimes two or three in a day.  In contrast I have kicked off exactly one woman, and in her case she was doing all of her aggressive behavior via private message.  She was not posting anything on my wall. In my experience when women engage in political discussion they are ironically less likely to get emotional.  They don’t talk to me in a condescending manner and they certainly don’t call me a cunt.  To put it simply.

It’s not that all of my male friends on Facebook cause problems for me, but nearly all the problems I have on Facebook involve men.

I can’t twist my reality to conform to a politically correct narrative where men and women act the same.  I enjoy political discourse  and have plenty of close friends who don’t always agree with me.  I don’t mind getting in real debate, but that is rarely what happens.   I have male Facebook friends who constantly post inflammatory things and I don’t see them getting the same types of reactions.  But I will admit, I don’t know what a typical male goes through. Would men also post repeatedly on the wall of a man they barely knew?   I would love to hear men’s opinions on this.  Do men who barely know you pick political fights with you?  Is this a problem?  Do men engage in the same type of abusive behavior such as stalking, harassment and negative posts with other men?  Do women do it to men? I would never dream of engaging someone I didn’t know well in political discussion especially when I can tell they are already extremely passionate about their point of view.  I would never take the fight to someone else on a personal page like that.  Why do they feel the need to take it to mine?  As I have said to many  of my male ranters, ask yourself this question.

“When was the last time Juliet Jeske posted on my wall?”

The answer would be never….so please knock it off.

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Slut-Shaming: To What End?

Date: September 12, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Politics, Uncategorized, Women and Feminism
Comments: 1 Reply
gone wild

gone wild (Photo credit: istolethetv)

Lately I have found myself frustrated with other feminists over the cry of “Slut-shaming“.  Although I agree that women have been unfairly judged for their sexual appetites and behavior for hundreds of years, I also think that some sexual behavior actually hurts the cause of feminism.  We shouldn’t return to the days of corsets, ankle length skirts when the very mention of female sexuality was taboo.  Yet we should also not champion obvious degrading and detrimental sexual behavior in the name of feminism.

For instance, is a drug addicted, physically abused, low paid prostitute dominated by a male pimp anything to celebrate?  Is a young woman with low self-esteem who performs sexual acts in public to gain personal validation off-limits to criticism?  Is a sex-worker who doesn’t hide or shield her children from her occupation really making a bold step forward for female empowerment?  When do the issues of narcissism and self-destructive behavior enter the dialog?  Are all forms of female nudity and sexuality empowering?  When does it become exploitative?

It is not such much specific behavior as it is the context.  Expressions of female sexuality and nudity can be empowering, politically brazen and extremely pro-woman but they can also be degrading and demeaning.   If a woman is playing into the victim complex or treating herself as an object not worthy of respect she is part of the problem, not the solution.  Are we supposed to champion a drunken college student who decides to flash her breasts in a Girls Gone Wild video?  Should the woman who recently decided to have her anus publicly tattooed on camera be held up as some sort of example of female sexual liberty?  Or is she just a woman who has made some extremely poor decisions?  The porn industry has become so saturated with women willing to have sex on camera that wages and celebrity status have plummeted in the industry.  What was once something that only the desperate or the truly sexually liberated would do has become almost mundane.  At the same time there are prostitutes that have complete control over their income, working conditions and clientele who aren’t drug addicts, aren’t being abused and have turned the tables on the power structure in the industry.  No single sexual act or occupation can be singled out as “feminist” or “anti-feminist” if the behavior is coming from a place of pride and self-worth it is entirely different than if the source is self-loathing, fear and need of approval.  Not every sex worker or sexual exhibitionist is a victim, nor are they necessarily being exploited.

Yet during these changing times regarding female sexuality, misogyny is at an all time high.  The anti-feminist forces have gone from empty rhetoric to promoting legislation challenging our reproductive rights and even basic health care.   They want to do away with laws that might protect us from having to pay twice as much for our health insurance based on our gender, make many forms of birth control illegal, and make abortion a criminal act.  Many legislators voted against the Violence Against Women Act and the Lilly Ledbetter act, which were ultimately passed but in June the senate blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act which would have helped woman sue for equal pay.

I am not here to blame the victim, but it does discourage me when I meet so many young women who don’t seem to even know a political struggle is happening and then treat themselves with such low regard.  They are only giving fuel to the critics who would claim that all pre-marital sex is an abomination and that a sexualized female is something to fear.  I can’t help but see parallels in the civil rights movement.  Many in the African American community cry out against crime and violence, gangster rap and the thug culture that actually discourages achievement.  Of course racism is very insidious and still a huge problem, but if no one inside the community calls out the self-defeating behavior…it just makes everything more of a uphill battle.

I thought feminism was about being in control of our lives, having a right to speak our minds, and having the same opportunities as men have in the bedroom, in the workplace and in our government.  I didn’t think it was about declaring all sexual behavior as an empowering statement against patriarchy.  When I see a young woman disrespect herself my heart sinks.  When I see a woman desperately cling to some man doing anything and everything sexually in the hopes that he will stick around it saddens me.  When I see a bright intelligent woman with multiple options for her future resort to sex work it depresses me.  Although I understand its appeal, as sex work is one of the few high paying options available to young women.  The only non-sex based profession where women make considerably more money than men is the modeling industry and the largest scholarship program for women in the world is still the Miss America pageant organization.  I want every young girl to see the entire universe available to them, to know that they are more than their looks or genitalia.   It is a fine line we tread between celebrating our sexuality and allowing others to exploit it.

I do not propose that I have any answers to these ethical quandaries but I am not going to pretend that women treating themselves with disrespect and playing into negative stereotypes is a good thing.  A woman cannot treat herself poorly and then try to defend it by crying “slut-shaming” when she is the one shaming herself.  Some would argue that there is no sexual behavior that is negative or exploitative no matter what the situation.  But when a woman flashes her breasts for a Girls Gone Wild video or a woman engages in prostitution to pay for her drug habit, that is not a step forward but a step back.  To achieve real equality with men we need to respect ourselves in all aspects of our lives including our sexuality.

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A Loving Couple: What Gay Marriage Really Looks Like

Date: August 3, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Divorce, Gay Husband, Gay Rights, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Straight Spouse
Comments: 1 Reply

Any regular readers of this blog already know, I am a straight spouse.  A straight spouse is a person who married someone who they thought was straight only to find out years later that their partner was actually secretly gay.   My marriage was smoke and mirrors of lies, deception and ultimately betrayal.  From the outside my marriage appeared completely normal but we were both stuck in a miserable union.  I blame homophobia and the fear of homosexuality in part for the phenomena of gay men and women entering into these unions.  Every straight spouse knows all to well the personal hell that is a mixed orientation marriage.  Our partners, filled with so much self-loathing, bent themselves into knots to become something they weren’t and thousands of spouses and children end up as collateral damage to these sham marriages.    And then there is a marriage, like this one…

Tom & Jon

I remember when Jon first met Tom.  Jon was an actor, and Tom was a writer.  They had the same easy-going sense of humor and love of all things nerdy.   Smart, funny and supportive of their friends they were both well liked by almost everyone who knew them. Tom and Jon were one of those couples that were so cute together, they even dressed alike.  I haven’t seen either of them in years but we keep in touch thanks to Facebook and email.

Anyone terrified of same-sex marriage should watch this video.  Jon and Tom are just like any married couple.  They have a lot of the same interests, they love each other deeply and live fairly ordinary lives.   When I watch this I don’t see the end of civilization or the return of Sodom and Gomorrah, I just see a wonderful man who is very proud of his partner and his marriage.   And honestly I have been witness to some fairly dysfunctional and abusive straight marriages…haven’t we all?  Marriage is a crap shoot and if these two men can live together happily with their two cats, why should anyone care?  The whole point of a secular marriage is if one of them gets sick, the other one can visit them in the hospital, if one of them dies they can leave their estate to the other and on and on.  They should have the right to the same legal protections that any married couple have in this country.  Same sex couples aren’t storming churches demanding that the faithful accept them into their congregations.  They aren’t  pushing for legislation to ban straight marriages, or to make it legal for a gay employer to fire a straight employee based on their sexual orientation.  They aren’t promoting laws to make heterosexual sex illegal.  They aren’t designing programs to make straight people gay.   They just want to live their lives in peace.  This is NOT the end of the world, this is normal.

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Our broken Health Care system – My story

Date: June 28, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Politics, Scam, Uncategorized
Comments: 1 Reply
Front entrance of the old Cook County Hospital.

Front entrance of the old Cook County Hospital. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I graduated college at the age of 23.  I was living in Chicago Illinois and working as a stage actress.  My pay was low and my job did not provide health insurance, although it was a professional union theater.  I also had any number of part-time jobs but none of them provided me with health insurance.  Yet I was paying all my bills on time, and completely supporting myself.

My mother took me off of my father’s COBRA plan once I graduated from college.  She thought I could purchase an individual plan with no major problem.  She was wrong.  I applied for Blue Cross Blue Shield for a standard individual plan.  The costs were extremely high even back in 1996.  I was also being charged about double since I was a woman, I thought this was a bit absurd but it was explained to me that since women might need maternity I was paying in for myself and for all women.  A slightly twisted concept I thought since women can only get pregnant with the help of a man yet only women have to pay extra for other women.

I filled out the paperwork and waited, and waited and waited.   Finally after about six-weeks the insurer informed me that I had too many medical problems and they wouldn’t cover me.  I was 23 years old with no chronic conditions.  My asthma wasn’t even diagnosed until years later.  When I demanded to know specifically why I wasn’t covered they said it was because I hadn’t had enough healthy pap smears in a row, and because of a cervical  biopsy I had at the age of 22, I was deemed high risk.  Even though the biopsy showed no signs of disease and I didn’t even have an STD.  My exam was free and clear.  The biopsy was given to me because my pap smear was slightly off due to being on the tail end of my period.

I had only had two pap smears up until that point, which is perfectly normal for a college-aged woman.   Blue Cross said that I need five healthy pap smears in a row before they would consider insuring me.  A woman typically gets a pap smear a year, so what they were really telling me is that I had to wait five years.

I tried to apply for coverage with other insurers, I even went to an insurance broker who sat me down and told me what the real problem was, no other insurer would cover me at any amount.   My paperwork would get “lost”, phone calls were left on voice mails never answered, I would spend over an hour on hold, mail would be returned to me.  The broker told me that I was basically being blacklisted by Blue Cross Blue Shield, and yes he used those very words.  Blacklisted.  Somehow the fact that Blue Cross Blue Shield was denying me was showing up in my medical records and no other insurer would touch me due to the size of Blue Cross.  If an insurer that large wouldn’t cover me, it just made me look extremely high risk.

So we devised a plan.  I was able to get emergency only coverage for six months, that could be renewed but only for two years total.  So I couldn’t use it to go to the doctor, but if I got hit by a bus I could go to the hospital.  The coverage was lousy but better than nothing.   I also decided to get those five healthy pap smears and send them to Blue Shield, but my plan was to do it in half the time.  So every six months I went to Planned Parenthood and explained my problem.  The nurse practitioners sympathized with me and obliged me, even though they thought it was ridiculous.  So after getting and paying for five healthy pap smears in about 2 1/2 years I applied again, and was denied again.  The insurer cited health concerns again, but they wouldn’t give me a specific reason.

Meanwhile during this time I got sick, nothing major but I ended up at Cook County hospital twice.  Cook County was a no frills, bare bones public facility that could turn down no one.  The first time I went to Cook County I waited eight hours to see a doctor, and then got a free prescription, only waiting an hour to get the prescription.  The second time I went it was only a five-hour ordeal.   While waiting to see the doctor I sat in a waiting room of wooden benches along with the poorest of the poor and homeless people.  It was a rattling experience to say the least.  When I applied for the health insurance program through the state of Illinois I didn’t qualify.  Since I did not extend my COBRA coverage I was ineligible.  The cost of extending my father’s COBRA coverage was astronomical once I left college, but according to Illinois state in order to be eligible for their plan I had to extend my COBRA for as long as possible.  Of course I had no way of knowing any of this when my mother opted to stop covering me at the age of 23.

Finally my luck changed a bit and I ended up with a full-time job, at all places the American Medical Association.  When I was filling out my employment paperwork I noticed their health care plan was through Blue Cross Blue Shield.  I panicked, I thought surely they would deny me coverage.  The woman in HR told me that no one had ever been denied coverage.  Of course, they had employees with major chronic health problems, or children with chronic health problems, but in a large group plan it was efficient to cover everyone.   My application went through and I suddenly had insurance.  I went back and asked my friend the insurance broker what exactly had happened.

He explained it like this.   An insurer will most likely lose money on an individual plan.  They have to do the paperwork and claims for one person, a person who is paying their premiums themselves and is probably going to squabble over every charge.  The same person is probably going to use the insurance more often that they are paying a few hundred dollars a month for it.  Whereas a person in a group plan won’t fight over every bill and is more likely to use their coverage less often.   Group plans were just much more efficient and cost-effective both for the insurers and the employers.  That is why the cost of individual plans are so high and why insurers usually don’t want to deal with individual plans.

So given my experience, I can’t really get enthusiastic about a “market based” solution to health care.  In my case the market completely let me down.  I couldn’t get health insurance at any cost.   So my Libertarian friends can rant and send me links to websites denouncing reform, and my Republican friends can call Obamacare socialism and tell me to read this book or that email, but my personal experience is going to trump all of it.  I was a perfectly healthy 23-year-old female with no cancer in my background, no chronic medical conditions and no history of lapsed coverage for more than a few months, yet I couldn’t get coverage.  If an insurance company can deny a healthy 23-year-old, than just about anyone could be denied coverage.

And now that I live in New York state with its much tougher patient protections I don’t want to buy health insurance from a state with less.  New York state is one of the few that a patient cannot be denied coverage for medical reasons.  Some people actually move to New York state after being denied coverage in other states.  I don’t think Affordable Care Act is perfect as it still puts too much power in the hands of health insurance companies and we still have no single payer public option.  But at least now a person who has survived cancer or is born with some type of genetic problem is able to get health insurance.    And a perfectly healthy 23-year-old would be able to buy a plan on their own.  My personal experience has shaped how I view the health insurance fiasco in this country more than any political rant or speech ever could.  I am lucky in that I didn’t get anything serious in those years I went without coverage.   And if I had, I would have ended up in the emergency room with bills that were never paid and probably ended up on Medicaid which would cost everyone that much more.

If you don’t believe my story, then sit down and talk to some of your friends, especially anyone with chronic medical conditions, small business owners or the self-employed.  You are likely to hear similar stories of denied coverage, frustrations over claims, skyrocketing premiums and financial ruin.  I have heard stories much worse than my own with some blaming health insurance companies for the premature death of family members.  After all putting a profit motive into denying coverage can have deadly consequences.  Hopefully we will figure this mess out soon enough, I know I never want to end up without any options again.

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The Birth Control Debate and Religious Freedom – Faulty Logic

Date: May 22, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Catholic - Former, Politics, Uncategorized, Women and Feminism
Comments: 9 Replies
Birth control pill

Birth control pill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Catholic church has already spent upwards of $2 billion on child sex abuse scandals so I guess spending money on lawyers for this is nothing new for them.  I read an article yesterday about how some Catholic institutions are suing the Obama administration over the proposed birth control mandate.  As it stands, religious organizations will get exemption that requires health insurances companies to pay for birth control so religious organizations do not have to pay for it directly.  Health insurance companies are not against this, as birth control is more cost-effective than pregnancies.  Birth control is also cheaper than a ruptured ovarian cyst or other complicated medical problem that hormonal birth control is sometimes used to treat.

The thought of my grandmother and other relatives giving money every Sunday to their local Catholic parishes to pay for lawsuits like these, when there are poor and needy people in their local communities is baffling to me.  Not to mention that although there were primitive forms of nearly every type of birth control except hormonal during the time of Christ, it is never mentioned in the bible.  Even though the bible includes restrictions on diet, clothing, worship, and nearly every aspect of life including restrictions on masturbation and sterilization yet female birth control and abortion are not even addressed.

Religious organizations, such as the Catholic church cry foul claiming that this mandate will force them to endorse lifestyle choices that they believe are morally wrong.   The current position of the Catholic church is that all forms of artificial birth control are sinful as are many fertility treatments including IVF.  And of course they are staunchly against abortion the only exception being if a pregnancy puts the life of the mother in jeopardy.

That being said, what are they getting so worked up about?  I fail to see their logic.  The vast majority of American women are already using some form of artificial birth control.  A recent report by the Guttmacher Institute found that up to 98% of American women have used artificial means of birth control including nearly 98% of Catholic women.  Currently a woman can purchase birth control with nothing more but a prescription from her doctor.  She can do this if she works for a Catholic employer, institution or hospital.  She simply has to pay for the medication out-of-pocket.   Many other forms of birth control are available over the counter at a drugstore, without insurance, the cost being burdened by the individual with no health insurance, or employers involved.

So again what is their point?  If the Catholic church doesn’t have to pay for birth control directly, and the women in question are already using birth control, are they just upset that someone other than the woman using the birth control is paying for it.  Because that is the only real difference here.  No one is forcing anyone to use birth control.  And the Catholic church is not paying for it directly.   Women will still use birth control whether the Catholic church likes it or not.  I guess the church just doesn’t want a health insurance company to pay for it.   If birth control was currently only used by a fraction of women, and this new mandate would cause an explosion in its use I might see their point.  But now nearly every American woman uses birth control of some kind, so the mandate only shifts the costs to either an employer or in the case of religious organizations the insurer.  98% of women is nearly all women, so there will be absolutely no change in behavior.

Any woman who is a devout Catholic can still reject any form of artificial birth control and try her luck with natural family planning.  Natural family planning has a much higher failure rate than hormonal birth control and it limits the days a couple can every sex every month.  But it is every woman’s decision to make that choice, this mandate does not change that basic truth.

The only thing that changes with the proposed mandate is who pays for the birth control, not who is using birth control.  An employer does not have the right to force its employees to not use certain medical devices, treatments or prescriptions because the employer doesn’t morally agree with the moral ramifications of those choices.  Religious institutions should not trump the basic rights of anyone including their employees.  Would this even be an issue if the Catholic church was declaring that any medical treatments that might help a woman become pregnant should also not be covered.  After all, most fertility treatments, at least any that fertilize an egg outside of a woman’s uterus are strictly forbidden by the Catholic church.   For the past three decades fifteen states have enacted laws that require at least some insurance coverage for infertility treatments.    Interesting how the Catholic church wasn’t making a fuss over state mandated fertility treatments, but they act as if birth control is a matter of religious freedom.

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Birth Control Debate: Religious Freedom or Sexism?

Date: March 29, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Agnostic, Politics, Uncategorized, Women and Feminism
Comments: Leave a reply
U.S Postage Stamp, 1957

U.S Postage Stamp, 1957 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am completely floored by the current debate over the health care mandate requiring health insurance companies to pay for birth control and religious freedom. For starters no one is arguing that men receiving a prescription for the erectile dysfunction drug fill out any forms or prove that they are married or using the drug to procreate. Other than a few crafty legislatures who have introduced bills as a means to protest these insane attempts to limit access to birth control, no one has argued against viagra in terms of religious freedom.

And what about religious freedom? When did the right to worship as you please change to the right to influence or direct the personal behavior of your employees? Health insurance isn’t a hand-out paid for entirely by the employer and given to employees out of the goodness of their hearts. It is part of an employees compensation, so the employee is in effect earning their health insurance through their hard work. Most plans take a portion of the premium directly out of the employees paycheck. And the employer is allowed to deduct a certain amount paid for their employees premiums off of their tax liability, as health insurance is just another cost of doing business.  I also cry foul because so far there has been no mention of IVF fertility treatments.  The Catholic church is against IVF treatments because they create many embryos that ultimately get destroyed in the process of trying to create a pregnancy.  IVF treatments are not being mandated as part of basic health insurance coverage by the government but it is interesting how the pro-life movement rarely mentions them or brings up the topic.  We don’t see throngs of protestors outside fertility treatments for the great multitude of frozen embryos destroyed as a result of these fertility treatments.

So how far are we going to take religious freedom?  How much can an employer influence the lives of their employees in the name of religious freedom.

Would Muslim employers

  • Require female workers to wear a veil while at work, or even a Burka
  • Be allowed to discriminate against women and refuse to hire women based on their religious beliefs
  • Pay women less than men, based on their religious beliefs
  • Ban all pork and other prohibited foods under Islamic law in the workplace even for non-Muslim employees
  • Make non-Muslim employees observe Muslim holy days and traditions including fasting
  • Require moments of silence in the work place for all five times during the day that Muslims pray towards Mecca

Would Mormon Employers be allowed to

  • Ban Coffee from the work place
  • Institute modest dress code laws
  • Require mandatory readings of the Book of Mormon

Would Scientologist employers be allowed to

  • Refuse to cover any psychiatric or psychological drugs or care
  • Force employees to attend Scientologist meetings or treatment such as for alcoholism or learning disabilities
  • Demand every employee to be audited with an e-meter

Would an orthodox Jew employer be allowed to

  • Force female employees to wear wigs and forgo pants for long skirts and modest clothing.
  • Institute all Kosher laws regarding the Sabbath and food restrictions

Would a Jehovah’s Witness employer be allowed to

  • Refuse to cover many surgeries that would require a blood transfusion

Christian Scientist

  • Ban most medical procedures in favor of spiritual healing and prayer

Seventh Day Adventist

  • Require all employee to adhere to a strict vegetarian diet while at the work place

And could any religious employer refuse to cover the legal spouse of a same-sex marriage in the states in which same-sex unions and marriages are legal?  Most states mandate employers to cover their employees for some type of health care coverage depending on the amount of employees.  Could an especially frugal employer simply state that their religious beliefs would only support 100% faith healing and prayer, pretty much wiping away the need for health insurance entirely.  Why not?  If an employer gets to act as a parent to their employee and decide what is morally acceptable and what is not, what is to stop such an action.

The birth control debate is just another ridiculous attack against women.   And I don’t know when the employer’s right to freedom of religion supersedes the right of an employees right to privacy or their own religious freedom.  I thought religious freedom was the right to worship as you chose, not the right to dictate to others how they should or should not live their lives.

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Rush Limbaugh – Sluts, Prostitutes or just a pack of Lies?

Date: March 2, 2012
Author: julietjeske
Categories: Politics, Uncategorized
Comments: 4 Replies

OK so regular readers of this blog know that I have a very popular entry with the title

Dating After Divorce in a City of Sluts

That one article completely changed the course and direction of my life, got me international press and indirectly a literary agent.  When I used the term, I used it in a lighthearted attempt to describe the sexual behaviors of the entire city of NYC.  To quote myself.

I find frustrating is that if you really want to get to know a guy first before having sex with him, it seems like there is no end to the women who will jump into bed with them. And this isn’t to say that only men do this, as women engage in the same behavior as do people of all sexual orientations and gender identifications.

So although some have misinterpreted my use of the term slut, I do indeed refer to every adult male, female, gay, straight, bisexual and transgendered person indirectly as a slut.  Not to say that every adult in NYC engages in slutty behavior, but people from every sexual orientation and gender specification certainly do.  Why people felt obligated to associate the female gender to the term “slut” is beyond me, but I meant slut in terms of people who engage in promiscuous behavior.  Some men and women proudly identify as sluts so given the context, I really didn’t see what the fuss was about.  But now that we have my history with the term “slut” addressed I would like to move on to Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh decided to personally attack Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown University who testified before the congressional committee on the cost of birth control.  For sharing her personal story about the high cost of her birth control Rush labeled her both a slut and a prostitute.  I am not going to address the name calling or equating a woman using birth control as a prostitute because it is pointless to even bother.  But I am going to break down his arguments.

Hormonal birth control is prescribed to many woman for health related purposes that are not related to preventing pregnancy.  NO ONE in the press wants to address this.  Birth control pills are prescribed for many female reproductive health problems such as – ovarian cysts, heavy periods, irregular periods, painful periods, hormone imbalances, light or infrequent periods, early onset menopause even cystic acne.  In many cases, the pill is effective in most cases for reducing these symptoms, it is not exclusively taken to prevent pregnancy.

The cost of hormone based birth control when compared to condoms.  Rush and his staff “crunch the numbers to try to show that hormone based birth control pills are not cost-effective.  But comparing condoms to birth control is like comparing a raincoat to an umbrella.   According to AmericanPregnancy.com hormone based birth control pills have a 93-97%  success rate when used in real life conditions.  And according to the same site, condoms have a 14-15% failure rate.  So solely basing birth control on condom use would result in more unplanned pregnancies.  Also according to AmericanPregnancy.com the cost of delivering a baby could reach as high as $6000-8000 which does not include prenatal care or the extensive costs of a complicated pregnancy, especially one requiring a Caesarian section.

The Tax Payer is on the hook for birth control Rush also claimed that the “tax payer” is somehow paying for Sandra Fluke’s birth control but I don’t know where he is getting that other than thin air.  The subject being debated on congress had nothing to do with the federal government spending any tax dollars on anyone’s insurance.  If Rush would like to debate that topic he is free to do so, but this particular issue has to do with either the employer or the health insurance company paying for birth control, it says absolutely nothing about the government paying for anything.  It is designed to set national standards for essential healthcare benefits.  And using that logic, anyone in a health insurance plan is paying for another member’s care.  Pay $8,000 in yearly premiums, but use only $2000 worth of care?  Then you are paying directly into the profits of the health insurance company but also for another member’s heart surgery, cancer treatment or for a premature infant clinging to life in an incubator.   That is just how health insurance works, most people pay more into it than they get back and a few patients cost the plan more than they put in.  If it didn’t work this way the companies wouldn’t be able to turn a profit.

The women are having too much sex and that is why they need birth control – The way hormonal birth control works a woman has to take it for an entire month and stay on it for months whether she is having sex daily or once a year.  The amount of sex is irrelevant.

Married couples should not have hormonal birth control as an option for helping them control the size of their families? Rush doesn’t address this directly but the vast majority of women including Catholic women in the US use some form of birth control.  The Guttmacher Institute in a new report, Countering Conventional Wisdom: New Evidence on Religion and Contraceptive Use. The report showed that, “among all women who have had sex, 99% have ever used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning”  Are married women who use birth control sluts in Rush’s world view? Most married women only have one sexual partner, not exactly a slut.

And of course his last ridiculous statement simply made to get press more than anything else. –

Since “WE” are paying for it, these women should video tape their sexual encounters.  According to the proposed legislation, the health insurance providers or the employers would be paying for the birth control, NOT the tax payer.  And even with that insane logic, then Rush might as well start producing some of his own tapes, after all a health insurance plan most likely helped pay for his Viagra.  So everyone paying a premium to the same insurance company better start demanding videos of his erections, just because they helped pay for them.

And if he is going to make personal attacks – Rush Limbaugh – married four times, yet has no children, three of his wives were of child baring age, so either he is sterile, or someone was using birth control.  No one knows this for sure, perhaps he successfully used the rhythm method for each wife and through some miracle no one got pregnant.  Rush who has had problems with abusing prescription drugs himself, was caught entering the country with the erectile dysfunction drug Viagara.   So is it acceptable for a health insurance company to pay for a drug that certainly would increase the sexual capacity for a man, but not for birth control for a woman?  That seems like ridiculous hypocrisy to me and most Americans would agree, in fact according to A Kaiser Family Foundation survey nearly 2/3 of American Adults favored Obama’s birth control policy.

Rush Limbaugh is a blow-hard who says crazy things to get attention and press.  He might have finally gone too far.  Attacking half of the adult population directly is not always the best method for winning over converts to his cause.  But we shouldn’t tell him that, let him alienate half the voting population.  Seems like a winning strategy to me!

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