Posted by Amanda Marcotte October 25, 2007 in Asides, Signs of the Non-Apocalypse
If fundie dudes really imagine vaginas like this, then no wonder they’re so scared of them. That seems about ten times as painful as stubbing your toe.
These “pro-life” assholes have a page dedicated to talking people out of getting their daughters vaccinated against cancer. Better dead than de-diamonded, apparently.
66 Responses to “If your hymen’s made of diamonds, I’d think that’s all the protection it needs”
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“…But square-cut or pear-shaped
These rocks don’t lose their shape
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend…”
What if your hymen is [gasp, horror!] only rhinestone??
There’s diamonds in there? The wife and I will be having a long talk tonight, that’s for sure…
And we laughed at the world
They can have their diamonds
And we’ll have our pearls
It’s all about the bling, huh? And a man is supposed to spend 3 months’ pay for the admittance fee?
And my dad told me the one about “why buy the cow when the milk’s free”.
Dairy`= Diamonds??
All these silly ass analogies can give ya a headache. (which I have found is sometimes cured by SEX…)
I’m pretty sure they’re making some sort of reference to the diamond you get for getting married, which in itself has its own slimy connotations (hey girls, don’t have sex for free when your future beau will buy it off from you with a precious stone!)
I’ve heard anarchists (Emma Goldman, Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed) and radical feminists make the link of marriage to a form of prostitution, but I love it much better when the right-wingers are the one who make the connection.
If you lose your diamond, you can always have it replaced. With a bigger, better one!
Wait, so the guy is supposed to pull the diamond for your engagement ring out of your vagina? How does he get up there if you’re not supposed to be having premarital sex?
So confused.
From their web page:
A Pap smear can only detect the virus after the woman has been infected and changes in the cervical cells are already occuring. Condom use reduces the risk but does not eliminate the risk because HPV is spread through skin-to-skin contact, I belive. Condoms don’t cover the entire genital area.
The vaccine can prevent the infection can occuring. A vaccine to prevent cancer? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
I kinda wonder if they are trying to imply that girls who have sex before marriage aren’t worth marrying, ie they won’t ever get a diamond.
I think BlackBloc is right. Women are guarding their future engagement ring, since sluts don’t get rings.
(which, btw, is manifestly untrue. slutting it up is what “caught me a husband”)
It’s all about the bling, huh?
That reminds me of a billboard I saw a few months ago. The left side had a picture of a male left hand and a female left hand. Hers had a big, shiny diamond on the ring finger. The right side had a picture of a woman’s ring-less left hand on her very pregnant belly. The caption: “Wait for the bling!”
So, the answer to your question is yes, apparently it is all about the bling. Who knew?
It’s all about the bling, huh?
That reminds me of a billboard I saw a few months ago. The left side had a picture of a male left hand and a female left hand. Hers had a big, shiny diamond on the ring finger. The right side had a picture of a woman’s ring-less left hand on her very pregnant belly. The caption: “Wait for the bling!”
So, the answer to your question is yes, apparently it is all about the bling. Who knew?
Their slogan, prominently displayed on their home page, is “Character, not condoms.”
Character, not condoms! These people crack me up.
Have sex for large expensive gifts. Love it.
Actually I asked my daughters docter about her getting the HPV vaccine. My daughter is 11. The docter told me to check with my insurance company before we did it as only about half of them were paying for the vaccine.
As Badkitty mentioned …
When did a diagnostic technique become effective in *preventing* a medical condition?
Or this one:
Comparing a vaccine (preventing of disease) to a pain killer (treatment of pain from an existing disease) is a lot like saying, “I like pasta because my house is made of bricks.” There is a COMPLETE logical disconnect going on here.
Unless the vaccine turns out causing young girls to suddenly sprout a third eye, or something, surely the prevention of a known, painful to treat, often-fatal disease is worth the risk?
Oh, wait. Silly me. They’re just *girls*, after all, and everybody knows that if girls get protected from an STD, why they’re just going to go out whoring ASAP - like at age *11*.
Dumbasses ….
I much prefer blue sapphires.
Guard your diamond? Wait, are these blood diamonds we’re talking about?
Oh dear. That’s just….beyond words.
Save your sexuality, b/c you can use it to bilk some poor horny idiot out of 2 or 3 months’ worth of salary! Real women only give it up for diamonds! And not, you know, because sex is nice and feels good–that would be all immoral and stuff.
Well this brings a new meaning to vagina dentata
I’ve heard of virginity as “being a jewel beyond price” but this is ridiculous.
I kinda wonder if they are trying to imply that girls who have sex before marriage aren’t worth marrying, ie they won’t ever get a diamond.
They’re not implying it.
Of course, that means that 95% of girls aren’t worth marrying, but as we all know, these rules apply to other people. Not my Suzy — she’s good even though she did have sex that one time.
j, do they suggest how to get this ‘character’ product inserted firmly enough to form a barrier to pregnancy and disease?
If you have to press it to fit over a diamond–I’m picturing clinging plastic wrap here–that could be uncomfortable.
OTOH, the mere idea of a diamond in there makes me wince. I have very sensitive hands, or so I’m told. Ow!
a vagina isnt like a diamond. a clitoris is more like a diamond; & diamonds are made to be buffed.
I believe the accompanying metaphor (for hard-on), on an escalating scale of hardness is “diamond cutter.” I’ve only heard it a few times. I don’t know whether it’s an anomaly that accidentally pertains to this one, a regional dialect or some old timey phrase being being dusted off.
If it’s something concocted by the diamond trade, wow, those ad execs really thought through that market-creating strategy.
well, if nothing else, it may still be idiotic as fuck, but hey!
it beats the “play-doh and bacon” comparison
On a bit of tangent, I hate the word “character” when its used in relation to raising children. It has always seemed eerily superficial - as if “character” is really code for adherence to indoctrination and unquestioning adoption of your parents’ cultural identity. Maybe the word means something a little more substantial outside the Bible Belt, but I’ve learned to steer clear of anyone who wants to teach kids “character.”
Well, I’m 30, sexually active and unmarried. Apparently my diamond is now worth a cubic zirconia.
There has to be a vagina dentata/diamond-tipped saw joke in here somewhere, but I can’t think of it.
This sounds like a “schmuck” factor / family jewels metaphor; a translation traveling into English and the spore transported to thrive where it normally wouldn’t. Diamonds are more recently valuable but erotic references to rubies and stones in the red / pink color family must be abundant.
I assume there are different quality grades of hymen diamonds as well? clear vs. yellow vs. blue; flawless vs. included? Since it seems necessary for these people to constantly compare women, and their anatomy, to inanimate objects would have hoped that they would have come up with a better comparison. After all diamonds are not particularly fragile; yet, the keep insisting virginity is. . .
a vagina isnt like a diamond. a clitoris is more like a diamond; & diamonds are made to be buffed.
Actually, a diamond is cut down, faceted and occasionally splintered into several different pieces. How are you with extreme body modification?
What really gets me is the name of the organization: ULTRA Teen Choice.
They’re promoting abstinence-only edumacation, as far as I can tell. Which gives you a very meager set of choices: either you live in constant avoidance and fear of premarital sex or you suffer the consequences with terrible plagues of STDs, guilt and babies.
“ULTRA Teen Choice: Deciding, so you don’t have to.”
My comment appears to have been eaten by the Angry Forum Demons ™… second attempt.
What really gets me is the name of the organization: ULTRA Teen Choice.
They’re promoting abstinence-only edumacation, as far as I can tell. Which gives you a very meager set of choices: either you live in constant avoidance and fear of premarital sex or you suffer the consequences with terrible plagues of STDs, guilt and babies.
“ULTRA Teen Choice: Deciding, so you don’t have to.”
“Comparing a vaccine (preventing of disease) to a pain killer (treatment of pain from an existing disease) is a lot like saying, “I like pasta because my house is made of bricks.” There is a COMPLETE logical disconnect going on here.”
It’s not a logical disconnect. They’re just kinda-lying and hoping nobody catches on.
Merck made Vioxx, Vioxx was dangerous, ergo Merck makes dangerous products. Oh, and Merck makes Gardasil….You’re supposed to conclude that Gardasil is going to kill you/your daughter without them having to actually say it and make themselves vulnerable to getting sued out of existence.
And even if you don’t buy the argument yourself, at least you have something more than “If she’s going to disobey and have sex when I tell her not to, then maybe she deserves cancer” in response to pro-vaccination arguments, right? It’s not like it matters if the response is reality based or sincere so long as you can save face.
Do these people realize how dangerous it is to teach young people to attach such a gargantuan amount of their self-worth to their virginity, or do they just not care as long as they can stand around at the church picnic saying, “Well, my daughter’s not a slut!”
Wait for the bling? Wait for the bling?
I think there are going to be some very lonely and dissapointed women out there if this ever takes off.
“Guard your diamond.” Is that this old sexist idea that a woman’s value and worth is solely/largely determined through chastity? That chastity is all in the hymen? That a girl’s body isn’t a part of her self, but an object that needs to be kept perfect or she’ll nevvvurrrr find a …umh, buyer? “Damaged goods”?
…says pompous bigot Mary in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Austen has her protag “lift her eyes in amazement” at this. I think that’s probably the Regency equivalent of throwing china.
Not just fundies use the diamonds metaphor.
I think I like Rapper Amanda Blank’s interpretation:
http://tinyurl.com/2r4n2f
Not just fundies use the diamonds metaphor.
I think I like Rapper Amanda Blank’s interpretation:
http://tinyurl.com/2r4n2f
hmmm. if this were a parody i’d ask for a bit more cleverness, like a more catchy slogan: “ladies, guard your diamond; don’t let him break your hymen!”
but since this is for real, i think i’m just going to throw up. i wonder, who is in charge of appraising these diamonds? i mean, some *have* to be worth more than others…
Some have gold
and oil and diamonds
all we got is Mary J
(Legalize it, time to recognize it)
But seriously, does that mean I have to call penises the Pink Panther? Are they advocating the insertion of a laser security system and a couple of security guards? And what the hell do we do if Muppets show up?
They’re liars, too. Their anti-HPV vaccine site says:
That statement is false. Pap smears are for early detection, not prevention.
Just to add to the absurdity:
Theu are after all advising to keep diamonds under lock and key
http://www.tollyboy.com/
“And what the hell do we do if Muppets show up? ”
*spits coffee everywhere*
Godless Heathen wins!
I can’t help but think they misunderstood a stanza of Maya Angelou’s [i]Still I Rise[/i]. I’m pretty sure _those_ diamonds aren’t meant to stand for a hymen.
Obviously hysterically funny and also, obviously, downright fucking dangerous.
How will these “godly” parents explain to their sick daughter some years down the road that “gee, sweetheart, we could have prevented this horror with a vaccine, but we were so afraid you’d start having sex at age 6. Ok, you can die now, knowing just how much mommy and daddy loved you.”
Smacks of child abuse to me.
The meassage is more ambiguous than it seems. The tagline would imply, “Secure your lifelong financial dependency (diamond) by guarding your hymen,” but the graphic shows a diamond under lock and key, as if the hymen is a diamond. Or the diamond is a hymen. My analysis is rhymin’. (Please feel free to chime in.)
I’m actually turned on by this logo image. I mean, the chain, the lock, the key. It reminds me of role playing. I’m in. I really can’t see it any other way.
Well, I’m 30, sexually active and unmarried. Apparently my diamond is now worth a cubic zirconia.
deep6, would that be a pubic zirconia?
*ducking*
WF
That has to be one of the most bizarre, squirmy-cringe inducing sexual metaphors I’ve ever seen. “Diamond”? Shee!
From Mnemosyne: “Wait, so the guy is supposed to pull the diamond for your engagement ring out of your vagina? How does he get up there if you’re not supposed to be having premarital sex?”
Let me work on this:
1. Girl is made of carbon.
2. Diamond is also made of carbon.
Okay, so I guess the girl creats the diamond by doing ALOT of Keigel exercises! (makes “blood diamond” a bit icky, though…)
If she gets sand in her bits, does she make a pearl like an oyster???
Interestingly, when I was doing Mother Goose classes with my then-infant, the “diamond” ASL sign we used when we sang/signed “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” was - OOPS - the sign for “vagina.” We had to change that one.
(insert sienfeld voice here)
“Who was the advertising wizard who came up with this?”
I once described someone as being such a tighta** that if you fed him charcoal, he’d sh*t diamonds.
This takes it to a whole new level.
Apperntly Goddless Heathen has never witnessed the hilarious horror that is “Let My Puppets Come”
It took me a full day to have a reaction to the logo, but my eventual reaction was disgust. With my own ring. I know all the arguments about the sexism inherent to engagement rings, and while I mildly agree, I still wear the ring my husband gave me. He picked it out without my input, presented it to me without my foreknowledge, and I always figured it meant more to him than it did to me, and it didn’t hurt me to wear it. After all, the man does more than half the housework, listens to me rant about choice, and when we first started dating and I expressed horror that he didn’t vote, went out and registered as a democrat just to make me happy. What’s a diamond compared to that.
That logo made me feel like the ring was a symbol of prostitution for the first time. I was never shamed by Goldman and LeGuin because, while I agree in the larger picture, I’m also aware that my husband and I are products of our society, and it’s not our fault we’re not perfect. I’m ok with not being a flawless feminist.
Somehow though, the implications of the right tying the diamond to my marriage makes me feel slimy.
I’ve been struggling with this more often lately. I love my life. I love being a stay at home mom. I love cooking dinner for my husband. But sometimes it really pisses me off that, other than my donations to liberal organizations and volunteering for a pro-choice group, I’m exactly what the right wants a woman to be on the surface.
Does it never occur to these idiots that faithful wives can get STDs from unfaithful husbands?
Ray C,
If those faithful women had satisfied their husbands, the men never would have strayed in the first place. So the STDs are their deserved punishments- it’s all the wife’s fault.
/snark
And my dad told me the one about “why buy the cow when the milk’s free”
“Why buy a pig when all you want is a little sausage?” (h/t Antigone)
Hmm, well the thing about diamonds is that they’re supposed to be valuable.
So that means they must be valuable *for* something, right? For example, you can sell them for presumably a useful amount of money, which makes it sound like they are trying to tie some weird virginity-until-prostitution/marriage knot.
But then diamonds are also useful for grinding the daylights out of something. I think I just sprained my brain.
BadKitty
October 25, 2007 at 4:32 pm
The vaccine can prevent the infection can occuring. A vaccine to prevent cancer? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The no brainer to me is if you wish to prevent this type of cancer the best way is abstinence.
“The no brainer to me is if you wish to prevent this type of cancer the best way is abstinence.”
Bernie, a woman can still get it from her husband, even if she was a virgin. The vaccine is still a better choice.
Why take the risk of getting a bad cancer when there are ways to try and prevent it in the first place?…
Guard your shining trapezohedron! –I never saw a diamond cut like that in the ad…
Abstinence is a no-brainer to Bernie? You could knock me over with a fucking feather right now.
When in junior high/high school, I went to a local youth group a few times with one of my best friends. I remember a talk given by one of the speakers they had in who described virginity (and this talk *was* aimed at both boys and girls) as like a big, fancy necklace…each jewel representing one of the things you’d never done with somebody else: kissed, held hands, etc etc up to sex, which was the big diamond in the center of the necklace. This necklace was the gift you were supposed to give to your future spouse on your wedding day–and of course, you wouldn’t want to give them a shabby gift with few or no jewels on it, right? Right?
MikeEss
October 27, 2007 at 11:32 pm
“The no brainer to me is if you wish to prevent this type of cancer the best way is abstinence.”
Bernie, a woman can still get it from her husband, even if she was a virgin. The vaccine is still a better choice.
Why take the risk of getting a bad cancer when there are ways to try and prevent it in the first place?…
Mike,
You are right of course… I believe when I wrote that I was still stuck on the birth control pill issue for junior high girls…
my error
b