choice | Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

In our current world of chaos and political trauma, is anyone else sick of certain groups trying to tell us how to live our lives?

Hey, I’m all for laws that prevent me from infringing on someone else’s rights or property. I’m all for laws that protect our planet, for the collective good. The laws I am talking about are more intimate and personal, like who we can marry or if we can get cancer treatment or not because we have a working uterus.

We have some states wanting to ban spicy romance books. I’m seventy, been married for over 48 years; I am a mom and grandma. When I was younger, I read my share of spicy books. Hell, I have written a few in my lifetime. You don’t like them? Then don’t read them.

In Texas they can regulate how many sex toys an adult can own. Seriously people, you spent taxpayer dollars regulating how many sex toys an adult can own? However, Texas has no laws regulating how many guns a person can own. Funny thing, I never remember hearing about a dildo shooting up a classroom of kids.

There are also folks talking about making birth control illegal. It is no one’s freaking business if an adult chooses to use birth control. I think some elected officials forget they were voted into office to work for us, not to regulate our sex lives.

It’s not always a lawmaker attempting to assert control over people when they don’t agree with someone’s life choices. Such as the person who insists on calling a trans person by their dead name. Those who defend this practice often say something like, “their birth name is their real name.” That is utter BS. They are just being intentionally mean and rude.

Non-trans people have been changing their names forever. As a little girl I was called Bobbi Ann, and then later dropped the Ann. My husband’s real name is Donald, and as a child he went by Donnie, and today he goes by Don. Non-trans people often go by nicknames or legally change their birthname for one reason or another.

It’s not just the overstepping legislators or those who go out of their way to ruin someone’s day. We have the Heritage Foundation working behind the scenes in an attempt to force us all to live their version of Christian Stepford Wife Utopia, where we all attend the same type of church, and the women marry, have lots of children and obey their husbands.

Here’s the thing, it’s my opinion—prove me wrong—the Heritage Foundation’s (and similar groups) views on how to live is nothing more than a sexual kink. Hey, I am not one to kink shame. If two consenting adults want to role play dominate and submissive games, that is their prerogative, but the entire country is not interested in joining you—I can practically guarantee that.

If an adult woman wants to talk in a keep-sweet voice, always look pretty for her man, and is willing to be on sexual call 24/7, while taking no birth control, with no anticipation her own sexual needs will be met, that is her business.

That is certainly something I would have never signed up for. My mama taught me sex is a perfectly natural and beautiful act between two people who love each other, and if not mutually enjoyed, he is not doing it right. Mom never said that last part, I just added it. But I don’t believe a man who loves his woman would ever—and I mean ever—expect her to have sex with him unless he intends to do his damnedest to satisfy her.

I suspect that’s one reason some of those states are trying to ban spicy books. They want women to see sex as a spousal duty, for the sole pleasure of her husband. A wife is supposed to submit her body, allow her husband to do whatever he wants, and don’t expect anything in return. If that is your kink, fine. Just don’t impose it on unwilling adults.

Their vision is a world where a woman is nothing but an object for a man’s use and for breeding without any real consideration for her needs. When having sex, it is about his pleasure, not hers. When breeding, there is no consideration for her health. In their world, she can be denied vital lifesaving medication—even if not pregnant—for fear it may interfere with a future pregnancy. She is to cook and clean and take care of the home and children. She could easily be replaced by a robot, if only they could figure out a way for a robot to incubate human babies.

We are each given one life to live during this time on earth. How we choose to live that life is our choice. If you believe in the Bible, then you believe we are each given free will—free will to live our lives as we want. If we go to hell for our choices, then that’s our business, not yours.

This would be a better country if people would respect the choices of other Americans. Well, maybe not respect them, but at least mind your own business if it is not hurting you. For example, if you hate nose rings and you see a pretty girl wearing one in the grocery store, keep your opinions to yourself. She didn’t ask for it, and she isn’t wearing the nose ring for you.

If you are sitting at the park and a stranger is sitting next to you talking on the phone in Spanish, don’t say something jerky like, “Speak English, this is America.” It is his freaking phone call, he is not talking to you, mind your own business.

If you see two guys walking down the street holding hands, don’t make some derogatory remark about how gays are shoving their lifestyle in your face. They are simply living their lives, just like the heterosexual couple you passed earlier, who were also holding hands, but with them you flashed a smile.

If someone else’s life choices don’t hurt you or others (which doesn’t include making you uncomfortable), then be a decent person, maybe even try a little empathy. Let people live their lives and be happy. If Jimmy across the street feels more at home wearing dresses, so what? It’s just clothes. Have you seen how the founders of our country dressed? Tights, lace shirts, and wigs.

Okay, that’s my rant for today. But before I go, in case this is the first time you’ve come across my blog, but you’ve heard about my Haunting Danielle paranormal cozy mystery series, I should probably warn you, it isn’t a spicy romance. It’s G-rated, and my characters keep their bedroom doors shut.

But, if you do enjoy a spicier read, you can check out the books written under my Anna J. McIntyre pen name. The Coulson Family Saga is a five book series spanning a century. It’s available in audiobook format—and the narrator did a marvelous job. Actually, I have terrific narrators for both the Coulson Family Saga and Haunting Danielle.

There are also four happily ever after romances under the McIntyre pen name.

How spicy are my McIntyre books? I suspect not as spicy as some of the romance books I’ve seen promoted over on Booktok.

I’ve been thinking of a conversation I had with my mother when I was just a young girl. We were discussing her two pregnancies. I remember her telling me how her and Dad avoided going to a Catholic Hospital to have either baby. She told me that at a Catholic hospital, if she was delivering a baby and something went wrong during labor, and the doctor had to choose between the life of the mother or baby, the doctor at the Catholic hospital would choose to save the baby.

I was utterly horrified. Not that they would let the baby die in a non-Catholic hospital (and I could have been the baby in that scenario) I was horrified that a doctor would ever consider letting the mother die in the favor of the baby.

From my child’s perspective (even knowing allowing her baby to die in order to save my mother’s life meant my sister or I would not be born) I felt from the depths of my soul the mother’s life should take precedent. I’ve held to that conviction since first learning women birth babies.

As a teenager the idea of pregnancy was frightening, yet not terrifying. When I was older and decided to start a family with my husband, I was no longer frightened. Yet, if I was a young woman facing pregnancy and living in a Red State after the reversal of Roe V Wade, I would be terrified.

Already the horrors of the irresponsible abortion laws snapping into place after the SCOTUS reversed Roe have surfaced, from a ten-year-old rape victim being denied an abortion, and forced to suffer additional trauma to seek a legal abortion in another state, to the woman suffering from a life threatening ectopic pregnancy, also forced to go to another state (reported by the Washington Post) and a Wisconsin woman who bled for ten days from an incomplete miscarriage because the emergency room wouldn’t remove the fetal tissue.

And it’s not just pregnant women who have to fear—it is all women who need a medication, such as for cancer or lupus, who are already being denied the medication because it could cause miscarriage. These women are not even pregnant.

Think about that for a moment. A non-existent fetus takes precedent over an actual, living woman’s health and life.

Members of the GOP are voting against bills guaranteeing the right for birth control and abortion to save the life of the mother.

This is insanity. I am pissed. And I am terrified for my granddaughter and all the young women in our country—even those in Blue States, because the GOP is working to make their draconian abortion laws nationwide.

Photo: My mother with my sister and cousin.

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