Let There Be Judging

Today I came home in such good mood. I met with my PT, got a new leg program and I didn’t totally suck when doing it! PT is my personal reward for myself for selling my fabrics and general de-cluttering, so there’s this multilevel personal life development going on.

Well, then I opened Twitter and saw a comment about contraception idiots and there was a link to a blog post, labeled Contraception Idiots. I clicked, I read and that’s when my day went sour.

Trigger warning. You will be mad as hell and you really should be too.

Finnish blogger by the nickname Anne Blue Eyes writes about a recent experiences she had with two guys in two separate occasions. I’m quoting her full story here (the translation is poor but you will get the gist) and tell me what you think…

“Here’s the continuation to what happened last time. There I mentioned the contraception idiot I met but with my luck, I managed to find another one. It’s stupid that I feel I have to defend myself here. The guys will come across (in this story) as very stupid and arrogant, and I can’t help but to wonder why I hung out with them in the first place. But outside the bedroom both guys seemed rational, nice and polite men! The first guy’s worst quality seemed to be that he wasn’t very good at making decisions and the second guy didn’t seem to have time to see me. Drunkenness is not mitigating the circumstances but I’d like to mention that alcohol didn’t have anything to do with what happened.

My two latest sexual partners have been, if you want to put it nicely, total jackasses and to keep the text readable, I left out the curse words. There would be plenty and you will soon see why. (Too much information warning here too!)

The first story starts where we are in almost-ready-just-lacking-condoms. The man comes really close to me and whispers: “Unfortunately I don’t have any condoms but couldn’t we just a little, it won’t ma…” and mid-way speaking pushes in. He couldn’t finish the sentence because I was like whatwhatwhat. I didn’t have to clean curse words from this part because I was so upset that I couldn’t speak. You can’t do that! You can’t make the decision for another human being that it doesn’t matter. But this wasn’t all of it…

“Aren’t you on the pill?” It’s impossible to transcribe the tone he used but it was clear, that eating pills is the default setting. We haven’t had a conversation about it ever, the question wasn’t are you on the pill but aren’t you, carrying the message you should. His follow-up question was the noblest of all: “Why don’t you use contraception?“

Excuse me?!? Why I don’t use contraception?!? (This would be the curse word part!)

In this situation I was very upset about the contraception idiotism but I was also very annoyed that this whole thing would be falling apart because of this. Why, oh why, did you have to turn out to be a contraception idiot! The worst kind (before the next one…) because this really is it. I lost all my respect for him.

I know your expectations are really high for the next story. Let me introduce you, the King of Contraception Idiots, the jackass of all jackasses:

The situation was clearly leading to sex and having learnt from the previous experience and being in cautious mood, I brought up the condoms when we still had some clothes on. The man went to the bathroom and came back saying he was out. (My add…can’t translate the next sentence, but it comes clear that there was a moments silence). He figured out something and went to his closet and his toalet bag and found a packet of condoms in there. Woohoo!

Are you wondering what went wrong?

At some point we changed the position so that he was behind me. Amongst all the hassle, he asked something that I couldn’t here and I had to ask, what was it.

“I was just saying that I can’t come with condom but I promise to pull out before I come”. He had taken the condom off.

YOU CAN’T Do THAT! I can’t remember the last time I was so angry. I don’t care if both are clean, or if I was on the pill (which he didn’t know for sure, I hadn’t told me because were supposed to be using CONDOMS), you just don’t do that.

It is my decision to make who I have sex with, when, where, and how. If they don’t match with the other person’s opinions, then there won’t be any sex.

Did you think that was all? No!

In his warped, self created logic, condom is only for pregnancy prevention. So with the same logic, for me not using condoms is not okay (really no), because I’m afraid getting pregnant. How about anal? Can’t believe his thinking.

I should have told him off, just in case there was a chance that he would have understood. But I couldn’t. I was so upset I couldn’t breathe.

I got tested and I didn’t catch anything. I don’t want to think about the anger I’d have felt if these two idiots would have given me anything extra to remember them by.

The text is unbelievable. So were the comments. One woman had to receive therapy because she felt raped and this is the thing, I agree it is. She didn’t agree to sex without condom. According to Finnish law it’s not a rape but there are legal consequences if you transmit diseases knowingly. So if you say, you didn’t know, you are off the hook. I read all the comments (naturally) and there someone said the following:

This discussion makes me cry, even though I think it is very important and valuable. This story and these comments capture what sexual violence is all about. It’s not (in most cases) about someone jumping from the bushes and raping you violently but the perpetrators are normal, pleasant and generally come across as smart men who either a) don’t have even minimal understanding of the concept of volition or b) just blatantly disregard the whole matter. First one is changed with educating and raising awareness but the latter is much harder to change. I wish that in Finland the discussion moved on away from the violence and use of force to be more about the other person’s limits and breaking them even when there isn’t even slightest visual sign of physical violence.

What the commenter said really struck a chord with me. The person’s right to him/herself is the most important thing in the world. Because if you lose your money, you can earn it back. If your house burns down, you can build it up again. When your vacuum cleaner breaks, just get a new one. Those are external things. True, having no money is extremely stressfull, but once you lose the you, be it physical or psychological you and no matter how, that’s the ultimate loss and the ultimate theft. Even if it happens by proxy, those responsible should be responsible.

UGH. I have spoken. The original story, in Finnish, is HERE.

-Thrifty Finn-

P.S. Adding photo credits later. Me so angry.

P.P.S. Finland added sexual harassment to punishable crimes June this year. June. This year. 2014. Oh dear god.