So I was going to write up a featured artist journal, when all of a sudden a shitstorm appeared on the horizon and I got raided by a bunch of rabid feminists and their white knight bodyguards, on someone else's journal. Yep, not even my own page, they linked the journal on Twitter and a few other sites and then firebombed someone else's journal on adoption because they couldn't go through their obsessively paranoia filled day without stomping out a perceived threat to the hive. God forbid someone has a different view on life and the world around them, instead of towing some imaginary arbitrary set of beliefs.  These attackers attacked me personally and ranted on and on about oppressed women and how rape this and rape that and sexual assault this. Feminists are by far the most illogical and sex obsessed people I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. To them, its all about rape and if I may quote Feminist Frequency, "We [women] live with the constant fear of violence towards us on a daily basis." I mean who isn't? I mean men getting mugged on the street, shot/murdered and having our wallets stolen, car jacked, mugged, wrong place at the wrong time and murdered, who cares amiright? Carry a micro mace bottle, conceal and carry gun, or just fucking run and hope you get to safety, something, anything but obsess over your constant paranoid fear that every single man around you wants to violate your genitals. There exists entire industries devoted to making medication and supplying psychologists to help you deal with irrational fears and phobias. "If you can't get help at Charter, get help somewhere."  Now on with the story.

Synth is a pretty cool artist I found on Fur Affinity a while back and she posted a journal on adoption and she asked for opinions and I quote:

But I'm more interested in your ideas on the topic :3 PS! There are no wrong answers! So play nice ^-^

Now I was being nice and took her at her word. And in case you've never read one of my wall-o-text journals before, I tend to put a lot of thought, time and effort, and when needed research into most of the posts, threads, and journals I write. Sometimes things go well and I connect, and other times I fail miserably in connecting with my audience. But even when I don't connect, I put my honest thoughts and opinions into my work where appropriate, and as most if not all of my journals are opinion pieces, I have no remorse for sharing such thoughts.

Now I apologized to Synth for continuing to argue with these people, and I'm not linking to her directly because the poor gal went through enough already, but unfortunately irrational people can't be reasoned with. Therein lies the problem Synth experienced. Because I'm willing to speak out on what I actually believe and think, that exposes me to the occasional appearance of people driven by paranoid irrational fears lashing out at anyone that dares question or disagree with them. Unfortunately, it was her journal that got raided and ruined HER journal and the flow of ideas that was occurring on that page.

Here's what I said in response to the question, "Would you ever adopt?"

Given the complete and total domination and control over reproduction women enjoy, in which they and only they decide when, where and with whom they they have sex with and if conception occurs (most birth control and including the use of condoms are all female centric). As a result, any 'unwanted' child that occurs is based entirely on the whims of the woman. Or rather let me put it bluntly, any overt action I take that would involve me making an active choice on an unwilling woman would be breaking several laws and end up ruining my life. So the only way for a child to enter the system is for a woman to choose to make a long string of mistakes one after another. And that includes the ones that get taken away by child protective services for abuse and neglect. The only exception I can conceive is the rare occurrence of death by both primary parents.

So I'm of two minds on this:
Why should I take the onus of caring for someone else's mistake? While it is wrong to blame the child for the mistakes of the parents, I am always going to know that current law allows for the donar parent to resume contact and control at any time. Which means fighting a lawsuit or three to keep them away. A real kick in the nuts of, "oh thank you for taking care of him/her for me for all these years, I want him/her back now." Yeah, bullshit. On the other hand, adoption is going to be the only way I'm going to have children. That is assuming that the system isn't already rigged enough against single males. Because we're all paedophiles doncha know.

At the far end, you have abortion. I'll be okay with it just as soon as we stop government sponsored abortion. Let the poor and rich alike pay for their own mistakes. My pity ran out years ago. I say go for it. Do note however that there are a growing number of cases where the woman didn't want the child and the father did, but the father doesn't get a choice. Because its her body and forcing a woman to give birth to a child she doesn't want but he does is considered wrong. I don't know, I don't see a solution to that problem until enough men demand and develop the artificial womb.

Then again, this wouldn't be a thing if there wasn't demand. [link] [link] [link]

I thought I put it rather well actually, I made no bones about my concerns and worries about the process and what it would mean to me. Now, I'm going to cherry pick from the flame war, because I didn't screen cap it and Ms. Synth deleted all the comments. Sorry, that was my fault, I should have responded faster, but its hard to react properly fast enough in the midst of a thread meltdown.

Apparently someone took offence and instead of reading it and moving on with their life, they felt the need to go straight to the nuclear option and raid the journal by posting it on Twitter and other websites. Suddenly I was being accused of calling a woman a mistake because she was an orphan, accused of misogyny, being blamed for rape, coercion, molesting women, the patriarchy that causes women to be ashamed of their bodies, shame of giving birth out of wedlock and even the abandonment of babies in dumpsters.  You read that right, I'm personally responsible for women abandoning babies in dumpsters outside of hospitals (where no doubt the baby was recently born) because its "men like me that made her life growing up hard." Fuck you, you selfish bitch, yeah fuck you.  A part of being a grown up is dealing with fears and insecurities. You had a bad time, boohoo, guess what you aren't alone in growing up in hostile environments, disadvantaged, made fun of for being adopted, or any other petty and cruel things people and especially children and teens do to others to exclude and ostracize them. You know what happens when you grow up to be an adult, you suck it up and move on. The world is a cruel and harsh place filled with people that are going to find any reason what-so-ever to make your life miserable. Spending time obsessing over and nursing your insecurities isn't going to get you anywhere. And to top off your amazing luck where you, and I paraphrase, "adopted by very loving and caring parents who not only were looking for a little girl to adopt, they ALSO just happened to be in the same hospital getting treated, AND ALSO HAD BEEN ADOPTED CHILDREN AND WERE LOOKING FOR ONE OF THEIR OWN TO ADOPT." That's an incredible crazy super duper nuts odds you just beat. Holy shitballs, do you know. I mean really, do you know how many children get abandoned in less hospitable locations, left to die and only days or weeks later do people find the bodies? How many children survive being abandoned and then spend the rest of their lives with severe psychological trauma feeling like they are mistakes, abandoned to the world and unloved by their parents, always questioning why they had been thrown away like trash, and then lashing out at the world, drifting from foster home to foster home? You didn't just win the lottery, you broke the bank. I'd take you to Vegas if I had any money.

Instead of responding to my rebuttal that it was her biological mom that made the mistakes (a lot of them in fact), she instead creates a completely (and she admitted as such), fictional tale of how maybe her mom had been raped and was too ashamed/pressured into abandoning the baby (in a dumpster no less). Yep, there you have the first exposure of how instead of blaming the woman who made the choice to abandon her "in a dumpster outside the hospital," she instead creates an entirely fictional hypothetical scenario of rape. Thank you ma'am I know your true measure now. Because I guarantee that if the biological mother that "abandoned you in a hospital dumpster", had had any sense of responsibility you wouldn't have been put in a situation where you were adopted by "caring and loving parents."  I don't know what era you were born into, but hospitals when I was born had staff and nurses and psychologists on hand to help mothers adopt instead of abandon. Hell, I remember a newspaper article (god that dates me right there) where the local hospital was opening up a "drop chute" where mothers could just drop off the babies to encourage them to stop putting them in garbage bags and throwing them away. Pardon me for a second, but what kind of irresponsible inhuman monster puts newborns in heavy duty garbage bags, ties them up, and puts them in dumpsters? I don't know what definition of "mistake" you're operating with, but I think that counts as one. But no, it MIGHT have been man that MIGHT have raped your mom that MIGHT have MADE her feel shame and abandon you. FUCK. YOU.

Oh and it got better. So there was another woman that grew up in a multi-divorce household where her mom raised her children supposedly against her will. This argument didn't end well either. So here's what she said her mother did. "She [the mother] didn't want to have children, but did so to save her marriage, because that's what her husband wanted." Her husband "coerced" her to have children, despite what she wanted because she wanted to save her marriage. The marriage failed anyway and she tried it again with a new husband with the SAME RESULTS. Guess who she blames? Go on, I dare you. The fathers, because they "convinced against her own desires/coerced" (same thing, but whatever) her to have children anyway. Firstly, how did...fucking hell...how the bloody fuck did these people not know what the other wanted?  I can only imagine things went like this, "honey bun, I love you, but I want children." "Well I don't, lets get married!" At some point this woman chose to marry a guy that wanted children when she didn't. Usually its the male that gets the shotgun treatment, but I guess somehow the gun was to her head and she was forced to marry TWO men that wanted children and she didn't. What type of moron do you think I am?

You know since we're all speculating and coming up with fantastic stories, here's my theory of what really happened.

1) The mother was mid to late teens, gotten knocked up, and had a child. Scared out of her mind, she abandons the newborn infant in the dumpster outside the hospital and runs away.
----Further supposition: I can't even begin to speculate what or if her parents did that could have pressured her to throw the baby away in the garbage, but I can only imagine the people around her (and/or parents) would have noticed that she suddenly returns home and she doesn't have the baby with her. ----The user that told me this tale, said that the news on TV reported a story about the abandoned baby, and that's how her adopted parents found out about her. Therefore, my final supposition is that this young mother couldn't return to recover the baby even if she wanted to because it was all over the news and she would have been publicly humiliated had she tried.

2) The marriage in story number two was most likely already failing. In order to protect her lifestyle, ie. "preserve the marriage," she convinces her husband to either not use birth control, or to have a child, or even goes as far as to lie about taking her own birth control and conceives a child to force her first husband to stick around or face child support. Now, don't get me wrong here, this is theory, there are a lot of men out there that would love to have children and therefore convincing this first husband to have a child might not have been hard at all. But lets step back a moment. She said that her mother didn't want children, and given as how she ended up divorced TWICE means the relationships failed. I've been told repeatedly growing up that the single most important reason why relationships fail is a breakdown of communication and trust.  I cannot believe that this marriage would have even existed had both partners been aware of the other's wants and needs. She wanted stability and a way of life afforded to her by marriage but not children, and he did. The "do you want children" is one of those questions that you hear when you want to try to take a relationship to the next level.
----Lets play one last what-if with this story. She said that the mother was convinced against her will to conceive, because he wanted a child, and she wanted to save the marriage. Whose interests are really being served here? Whose choice was violated? She chose to give this man a child despite her own wishes, because SHE'D be inconvenienced by having a divorce and therefore having to start all over again with someone else. What sane man, who wants children, marries a woman who has expressed disinterest in having them? I'd say this was a fluke, and maybe they thought this would work, or maybe she lied to him. But she did this at least one more time (divorced twice and had children with both men). I'm sorry, but I just don't buy into this sob story about how these evil men, that she chose to marry, forced this woman to have children and then divorced her and left her to care for them. WAHT?

Patriarchy fucking what? Both of these women made horrible mistakes that even I can see. At some point these women chose to make the decisions they did. Life sucks, not all choices are between good and bad, sometimes the choices are between bad and worse. But I don't get all whiny and  make up wild tales blaming women for my problems. I chose to go to school in hopes of making a new life for myself after the economic crash. I had nothing, was living out of my parent's house at 29, and I'd lost everything from my car, to my apartment and furniture, and savings. I had nothing. I took the risk of massive school debt (that can't be bankrupted away), to get my Bachelors of Science degree and try to something, anything to make my life better. Fighting depression, near suicidal, feeling like a complete failure. No social skills, few friends, and no one to talk to. I have a job now, and I hope to hell I keep it. I got really freaking lucky and finally got a job interview that landed me this job. I worked my goddamn ass off in college to make it this far, and still had a setback early on in college where i failed all my classes one semester as a result of that blasted swine flu that hit hard in 2009 and again in the spring of 2010 and taking way too many classes. Alas the withdrawal date had already passed and I failed every single class. I didn't give up, and changed majors to something I could graduate with faster, because I was already good at it, before my financial aid window lapsed. I made many many mistakes rebuilding my life, learning to make friends, learning better socialization skills, and in general interacting with society in a productive manner these last four years, but I never once gave up. I stood up to my mistakes, apologized and moved on. This is what it means to be an adult. Owning up to your mistakes and failures and still carrying onward. Not blaming other people for your problems, sitting around not going anywhere or doing anything. Like popping out babies just so you can continue to live in some dude's house. Or weaving stories of imagined rape to excuse away your mother abandoning you in a dumpster.



PS: I'll have that Featured Artist Journal up by the end of the week.