HPV and the Good-Girls-Get-it-Too Argument

As a female blogger I feel somewhat duty-bound to comment on the HPV Vax (partially because I think there are some matters well-meaning, left-leaning male bloggers aren't necessarily comfortable covering).

First off, there's Michelle Bachman flat out making up a bullshit anecdote. And yeah, I'm not even going to pretend that the "concerned mother" actually exists. This imaginary mother, who felt so compelled to have her story heard that she tracked down Michelle Bachman, could be on every morning talk show and cable news program going - and yet, where is she? Also, two bioethics professors offered more than $10,000 for the medical records of the fabricated mother's imaginary daughter - still nothing. So, I just don't believe she exists (and, by the way, Bachman isn't the only whack job Republican making up "data").

So okay, everyone can talk about that stuff (which is, in part, why it is being talked about so much). But what everyone might not feel comfortable talking about is the slut shaming that inevitably creeps into any political discussions about sexual health.

With respect to the HPV Vax, it's the argument - an argument the religious right just loves - that the vaccine encourages promiscuity. To put it bluntly: so fucking what if it does? We're talking about cancer. CANCER! And this argument - not hidden, just right out front - is that we'd rather have more people get cancer than encourage promiscuity. The paper-thin, verging-on-text subtext is that only sluts and fags will get cancer (and, in their morally bankrupt world, that's a good thing).

And for me, this is as far as I need to go. I definitely - DEFINITELY! - support mandatory vaccination. Because this sex-phobic, bullshit argument - the argument that a vaccine will encourage promiscuity - is also an argument that will compel fundie parents not to have their own children vaccinated. So yes, I think the government should step in to protect the children of these religious fanatics (not to mention the rest of the population, who will come into sexual contact with these nut job's progeny).

Also, I completely agree with Amanda Marcotte that we should all - once and for all - decide that STIs are like any other infection and that multiple sexual partners pose an increased risk like any other increased risk:

I think the most important conversation this country needs to have is one about how it's not a big moral deal if you get an STI. Viruses and other infections aren't moral agents, casting judgment on your sluttiness. They're just germs. That your odds of getting an STI go up the more people you sleep with---all other things being equal, that is---is as remarkable as pointing out that your odds of getting the flu go up the more people you shake hands with. Part of the problem is that sexual shaming has been an aspect of STI public health campaigns in the past. What we need are public health campaigns that treat it as completely normal that one would have more than one partner in a lifetime, because you almost certainly will. A lifetime is a long fucking time, you know. It's not enough to promote condom usage. We have to treat someone who has a lot of partners with the same moral neutrality as we'd treat someone who gets a job in a public school around a bunch of kids who can give them the flu. They have an elevated risk, but that's part of the price they pay to live the life that they want.

While I completely agree with Marcotte's call to separate crazy Christian, sex-centered morality from public health, I do not support an argument Marcotte highlighted in a separate post - namely, pointing out that there are virtuous women who got HPV from their husbands. Yes, I realize this debunks the idea that only sluts get HPV. But what if only sluts did get HPV? Are we honestly not going to challenge this blatant misogyny?

It reminds me of the days when the media used to show only people who got HIV/AIDS from blood transfusions (or anything other than gay sex) and the reporters would emphasize that the profiled individual got HIV/AIDS "through no fault of their own." There are NO people who deserve to have HIV/AIDS and there are NO people who deserve to have HPV or cervical cancer. The good-girls-get-it-too argument implicitly accepts the odious premise that the sexually promiscuous and deviant deserve cancer or HIV/AIDS. And that is a premise we cannot accept.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.