All posts tagged "Hpv Vaccination"

I think I'm mildly obsessed with the HPV vaccination and the resistance to it.  The whole thing is a perfect storm of important issues for me: science and skepticism, feminism, public health policy, sexual health, religious delusions, the power that folk beliefs have over human choices, emotional vs. rational decision-making, and the ideological conflict between reality-based policy and aspirational policy.  (Not that I think that conservative aspirations towards a sexual system where every human being has one other they touch in a sexual way---including hand-holding and kissing---and no more is a good aspiration. It's creepy.)  I wish the conflict over this vaccine got more attention from wonky sorts, who I think are mildly wary of the sex thing, because it's really a perfect example of the various forces coming into conflict in our culture. I wrote about it again today for XX Factor, and was pleased to finally see a criticism of my point of view that wasn't coming from a place of squeamishness about sex, weirdness about preventive health, or just illogic.  KJ at XX Factor argued that we shouldn't rush into making the vaccine mandatory (she does think it should be mandated eventually), because there would be a backlash, and that if we wait until it's become more normal, it will be easier to pass mandates.  That's a reasonable position and she may be right.   That is a typical pattern for many vaccine roll-outs, though not all of them. I tend to think that the HPV vaccine's reputation as the "sex shot" may make it a special case, and that we need to address often unspoken fears about female sexuality as much as we do unwarranted fears of the vaccine's safety. Some times what it takes to get over these fears is seeing with our own eyes that positive choices about sexual health in minors don't result in more sexual risk-taking.  But I admit that we're all just guessing here; I've never seen any empirical proof either way that mandating a specific vaccine erodes opposition to it faster than an education campaign can. 

[rebelmouse-image 24750250 original_size="250x306" expand=1]As all the hubub over the HPV vaccination has demonstrated, the Christian right has a big time Lolita obsession.  I wasn't thinking about that per se when I pitched this piece about the right wing shit storm over the Girl Scouts of the USA, but I'd say that the article has perfect timing in that regard.  After all, the Girl Scouts hysteria comes from the same place as the hysteria over the vaccination: lurid right wing imaginations applied to young girls and sex.  It's all very icky, but I think an important factor in understanding the Christian right worldview.  So check out my article "The Girl Scouts Allegedly Radical Feminist Lesbain Agenda". Spoiler alert: Girl Scouts do not  have a radical lesbian feminist agenda, but they are pretty pro-girl, so I can see why you'd make that mistake. 

It's painful for me to write this, because I don't like criticizing people I generally admire, but if I'm going to get on the right for sex-phobia and anti-science thinking, I have to do it for the left, too. I hinted at my frustrations in my article about the reproductive health panel at WAM, but truth told, I was banging my head against my desk in frustration when a handful of anti-vaccination types absolutely destroyed any science-based, productive conversation by making the entire discussion about how Merck only invented Gardasil because they enjoy profiting off killing people. It's one of the most frustrating illogical habits of the left, to assume that because someone makes money at something, that action is almost surely immoral and probably actively evil. You definitely get that every time someone tries to make a scandal out of the fact that liberal and feminist bloggers have advertisements, and you get it in the anti-vaccination hysteria.