The pregnant body is the most political image on earth. The pregnancy of Bristol Palin, the daughter of the gun toting, bible thumbing, baby popping, Republican V. P Candidate, Sarah Palin finally motivated me to write.
Why is it surprising, or even interesting that Bristol Palin has sex – I mean pregnancy is generally the sure-fire way to know that one is having sex, which is really why this pregnancy is show-cased. The real news here is that the daughter of moral values America is having premarital sex (along with 40% of American teenage girls). The official statement by Sarah Palin actually suggests that Bristol might be having a shot-gun wedding – Morally Majority indeed!
Bristol Palin is not the only daughter of the Moral Majority who is engaging in premarital sex – She however, will be the only one on cable news, the only one that requires official statements. Her body is not hers anymore, it belongs to body politic and for this I am incredibly sad, and sadder still because the bodies and sexualities of young women are routinely co-opted because they are universal targets that are made to bare opposing ideology upon their shoulders.
The sexuality of young girls is always understood as someone’s failure. For the progressives Bristol’s pregnancy is the failure of the abstinence only sex ed. For the abstinence camp, by having the baby she is taking responsibility for the moral failure to closing hers legs tight, until she sells the right to her sex to some dude. Either way, what is going on here is a failure.
There are no interviews anywhere to be found, no statements of any kind from Bristol herself – we are told she choose to have the baby (choose!!), we are told she will marry the father. Her voice is gone. The image of her holding her baby brother – is shockingly prophetic, and thus ironic. I wonder why she was holding her brother (the woman & future mom) instead of Sarah Palin’s husband.
Is it always a failure for someone to fuck? - Young women, poor women, drug addicted women, retarded women, genetically inferior women, lesbian woman all these women ought to keep their fucking secret and never ever, flaunt it in the face the body politic by actually becoming pregnant, and continuing their pregnancy to term – there is no greater sin against the social order.
In this way, abortions (while must absolutely remain legal), are actually not some radical departure, abortions are maintaining the social order. Bristol only has only thing going against her – age, and thus while scandalous, we can forgive her the pregnancy, if of course she promise to marry the father and thus her sexuality will again be safely possessed and controlled – if her parents couldn’t keep her chaste, perhaps her husband will achieve the proper results.
Now Imagine that Bristol is not only young, but she has one or two other notch from the list above. Better yet, imagine it was not a mistake, imagine that Bristol (still 17) paid one of her high school friends for his sperm, and injected herself with the sperm, or better yet her lover injected herself with that sperm. Then what would we think? Abstinence Sex ed. cannot be blamed any longer, nor the promiscuity of the youth. Who will we blame then for the radical act that is pregnancy.
However, for the women that are the opposite of the list above – older, educated, health, wealthy, and wise – for them the failure to conceive is just as heretical as is the choice to be pregnant for other women.
The pregnant body is the most political image on earth.
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Baby popping? Who are you to criticize Gov. Palin's choice to have the number of children she does? Why does that choice warrant a pejorative?
I could be wrong but I think playingagirl was being sarcastic and lumping "baby popping" in with all of the other characteristics possessed by Sarah Palin which maker her the pinnacle of female virtue according to the right.
Thank you! I am so sick of people ranting about how Bristol's pregnancy is indicative of Palin's failure as a mother or moral guide. (Like it's any of their business to discuss and judge!) When I heard that she was pregnant I considered it a sign of hope: that someone from such a sexually repressive and restrictive family could feel comfortable enough with her body and choices to have sex.
Shit, I was having sex at 17 too (as were most of my friends, and we didn't feel particularly sinful and evil about it). And if I had gotten pregnant, I wouldn't have the entire world taking a personal investment in my uterus!
If Paslin was pro-choice she would see it our way as well. However, shes not.As her political career now rests on her choice to publicly exploit the anti-choice omittance of control over ones own reproductive life this is what she induced on her own child.
Thank you playingagirl. You make brilliant points that will assist many in the discussion of this odious topic of exploitation. (And hypocrisy.)