Category: choice is a beautiful thing

What it means to be pro-choice

Imagine, if you will, that the revolution has happened. It’s happened, and, in this scenario, it’s gone really fucking well. 

Suddenly, everyone is free. There’s no more poverty, no more working every hour imaginable just to survive. There’s no more capitalism, no more class system. We’re all equal, with time to spend at leisure as machines labour for us. We have everything we need to survive and live a good life. And this delicious standard of living is open to absolutely everyone. Inequality has been abolished in all forms. Racism is dead, the class war has been won, we’ve made our society accessible for people of all abilities, ensuring everyone can live in dignity.

Yes, even gender inequality. That’s a thing of the past. It’s such a thing of the past, the word is meaningless except to historians. All those intersectional problems have gone. Rape, abuse, harassment. They’re words that pop up in great art made about the Before-Times, but nothing relevant to modern life. They just don’t happen any more. Like I said, the revolution went really fucking well. 

The idea of family has changed, because how we conceptualise gender itself has changed. The rainbow of gender and sexuality is fully accepted, appreciated, embraced. Families come in all forms, children have any number of parents of all sorts of various genders and relationships with each other. And they’re raised with love, because everyone’s so fucking happy all the time. And every child is wanted, because contraception has been sorted the fuck out. It just works whenever the user wants, with no ill-effects.

Everyone’s well-educated in this beautiful, impossible future. They know what they’re doing. It’s all the necessary ingredients for making a choice that is free.

Now meet Qarmin, a character who lives in this world with a suitably futuristic name, and has been created to make a point. Qarmin has a female reproductive system. Zie lives with hir partners Xargrob and T’lara, whose names I made a little less effort with because they’re less relevant to this. Together, the three of them decide they want to have a child. Qarmin stops taking hir contraception, as does Xargrob (who has a male reproductive system), and soon Qarmin falls pregnant.

A few months into the pregnancy, Qarmin changes her hir mind. Zie doesn’t want to be pregnant any more. Hir body is changing, and zie doesn’t want it to do that any more. Zie visits an abortion clinic for advice.

Should Qarmin have an abortion?

If your answer is anything other than an unequivocal “none of my fucking business”, you might want to re-assess your pro-choice credentials. Ultimately, it rests on bodily autonomy. Even when you take away every single economic and social factor, and perfect foolproof contraception, the pro-choice position should–and must–rest on the right to do whatever the fuck you want with your own body. Abortion is something that must always be an option; no matter how perfect the world, there’s always going to be a reason for it to exist.

And along the way to building a perfect world, abortion must be available. safely and legally, always.

Dear anti-choice signatories

 

Remember that awful “ban abortions for disabled foetuses” letter to the Telegraph yesterday, which I took down here? Twitterer @jonanamary has done something rather brilliant. She’s written to all the signatories asking them what they actually do to help people with disabilities. The full text of her letter is below, and she’ll let us know if any of them bother replying. She’s not hopeful for any replies, and neither am I!

Dear Signatory
I am writing to you following the publication of a letter in today’s Daily Telegraph (link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9551209/Rigorous-exams-are-important-but-teachers-need-classroom-discipline.html) which was co-signed by your organisation.
The letter states:
“A special-needs child in the womb can be aborted at up to 40 weeks. But once he or she is born, we do a moral volte-face and become full of compassion.”
I was wondering how you square this assertion – that “we”, i.e. society, become “full of compassion”, for “special-needs” children – with the recent and extensively covered cuts to essential benefits and services for people with disabilities?
Here are just some examples of articles on cuts to services and benefits for people with disabilities:
I could continue. The evidence is clear that life for people with disabilities is difficult, and becoming even more so, as austerity measures target essential services for disabled people. The side-effect of this – the demonisation of people with disabilities in certain parts of the media – has led to a rise in hate crimes against disabled people (see BBC News article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19589602). This grim picture seems far from the “compassion” you claim disabled children are met with – although it should go without saying that there are still many good people, in the NHS and outside it, who do their utmost every day to help disabled children and their parents/carers.
It seems nonsensical to talk about the abortion of foetuses with severe abnormalities without looking at the wider economic picture which influences decisions regarding termination. I do not doubt that many parents making the agonising choice on whether or not they feel able to support a disabled child would opt to bring a pregnancy to term, were better support guaranteed to be available – and were the outlook for disabled people not so grim.
I am sure you agree that the truly compassionate act, in this instance, is to look to change societal attitudes about people with disabilities, and to support benefits and services which help make the lives of disabled people and their carers easier – despite the government’s counterproductive austerity drive.
I note that in your letter, you do not refer to the savage cuts causing havoc to the lives of many, many people with disabilities, as outlined in the links provided above. I am sure this is a simple oversight.
To this end, I would like to know if your organisation has:
  • campaigned for the protection of services designed for people with disabilities, including children;
  • spoken out against the cuts, because of the impact they will have on those caring for a disabled child;
  • lobbied the government to protect such services, publicly or behind the scenes;
  • offered economic support to charities and groups which offer care and support to disabled people;
and finally, if you are prepared to issue a statement or letter – similar to the one sent to the Daily Telegraph – which sets out in the clearest possible terms your opposition to the erosion and outright destruction of the support infrastructure upon which many people with disabilities rely on a daily basis.
Thank you for your attention. I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours [Jonanamary’s real name]
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20/9/12: A response has been received from Comment on Reproductive Ethics, reproduced below.
Dear [Jonanamary’s real name]

Thank you very much for getting in touch.

You raise very important issues which we are indeed aware of and some of the other signatories to the letter will no doubt reply to you and explain some of the specific things they have done and are doing to address the needs of children and adults with special-needs and disabilities.
The letter today is just intended as the first step in a long battle of raising public awareness as to the reality of our current attitudes to disability before birth, and I would encourage you to write directly to The Telegraph to add your comments to the discussion and focus on the inadequacies of support for those who do get past the birth hurdle.  There is already quite an extensive exchange taking place online.
LIFE, for example, has a particular focus on babies and children with special needs, and colleagues working in Down Syndrome Research UK are also searching for positive responses  to the specific special needs of those they represent, whether of a medical or a practical nature.
We work together on a number of issues and one particular initiative I have been involved in recently has been the creation of a directory of hands-on help for women in crisis pregnancy situations, which includes contact for positive help to face whatever problems lie ahead, which often includes advocacy for special-needs children and their families.   This initiative is being supported by a number of those who signed the letter.  This directory will be launched next month and we hope will be added to by others as it becomes known.
This is by way of an immediate albeit brief response to your letter, but I hope we can keep in touch and find ways of collaborating in the future.
Sincerely
Josephine Quintavalle

 

Anti-choice rhetoric: the dog-whistles and the overt

Two stories have cropped up this week, both being examples of a shift towards anti-choice rhetoric. They are both part of the quieter war on choice.

The first is overt, unreasonable and will doubtlessly succeed at anchoring the debate closer to the anti-choice position. A letter was written to the Telegraph, demanding a ban on abortions if the foetus would have disabilities as a person. The Telegraph have given position prominence. Oh, and apparently this is important because otherwise YOU’D BE ABORTING THE PARALYMPICS YOU MONSTER or something. Basically, it’s a desperate attempt to piggyback on the success of something that was on telly.

There’s a lot wrong with the letter. Most notably, it was not signed by any groups led by people with disabilities. Most of the signatories were the usual suspects for anti-choicers: groups like Life and the Pro-Life Alliance, and Catholic bishops. The one disability group mentioned was a research group for Down’s Syndrome, which is not led by people with Down’s Syndrome. The voices of people with disabilities in this matter have not been represented, which is rather distasteful since they’re the ones who would be affected by this, rather than a gang of uterus-obsessed fascists.

Perhaps people with disabilities don’t think this is the way forward because they’re busy campaigning to make life better for people with disabilities and fighting against a government that is determined to destroy their futures–a far more pressing concern. The thing is, that’s how the anti-choice lobby works. They don’t give a flying fuck about people, just control of women’s bodies.

As much as the anti-choice lobby may scream about eugenics, it is in fact they who still subscribe to this medical model of disability, while disability rights activists are focusing more on the social model. We need a society that is set up to make life easier for people with disabilities, not harder. We don’t have that yet, and it’s a long way off. If the anti-choice lobby really wanted to stop abortions of foetuses that might turn into disabled people, they need to work with the people who are already alive. And they won’t do that, because it’s all a smokescreen for what they really believe: destroy bodily autonomy.

The second story is less overtly anti-choice on the face of it. A woman has been jailed for eight years for self-inducing an abortion at 39 weeks of pregnancy. The reporting of this has been absolutely terrible, screaming lurid details about the woman’s life: her previous pregnancies, her affair. As Twitterer @MarthaRRobinson put it, if one changed the gestation dates, all of the news stories could have easily been from 1910.

And even people who would normally call themselves pro-choice are falling over themselves to demonise the woman, using logical somersaults to try to justify themselves by saying it wasn’t really abortion because of the dates, or whatever. Yet it was abortion, and it was a desperate woman with no other options and no support. She is now in prison, serving a longer sentence than many serve for molesting a real, living child.

To be truly pro-choice, we must empathise with her, rejecting jail sentences for what happened to her, and working to build better services so nobody has to go through what she did. We must not hang her out to dry.

We pro-choice people must stand firmer than ever against these assaults from the anti-choice camp. The two ministers responsible for women’s reproductive health are both already moderately anti-choice, and will likely use any shift in discourse away from choice as an excuse to legislate their way into our uteruses. We must not let this happen, and we must be loud and united in our support of the right to bodily autonomy.

The war on choice: with Maria Miller and Jeremy Hunt making decisions, be ready

The government has reshuffled, and it’s generally bad news because everyone’s a craven shit. If you happen to have a uterus, or know someone who has a uterus, the news is even worse.

Jeremy Hunt has taken over as health secretary, and Maria Miller has taken over as minister for women and equalities. Both of these politicians have a terrible track record on abortion. Hunt voted to reduce the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 12 weeks. Miller voted to reduce the limit to 20 weeks, and also voted for Dorries’s amendment which would have stopped people who know what they’re talking about providing counselling about abortion.

Both of these politicians are responsible for making decisions which directly affect abortion. Their previous behaviour suggests a disdain for the right to choose.

A war may be coming. They are smarter than a declaration of outright aggression, but instead they will chip away, eroding our rights. We must be ready, we must be vigilant. We must look out for what they try to fiddle and change and be ready to respond. They cannot be allowed to strip away our choice.

Republican says more stupid shit: are we missing the point when we respond?

Another Republican politician has said something remarkably stupid and offensive about rape and abortion. This time, the blandly-named Paul Ryan has referred to rape as “a method of conception“, clarifying that rape isn’t really a pressing concern for him, as he’s more interested in prodding around in uteruses. Obviously, there’s been a bit of outrage and a few people calling for his resignation, but really, that seems to be missing the point.

The US is embroiled in an all-out war on choice. It is carefully stage-managed, and, as I noted the last time some Republican said some stupid shit, fits in with a complete rejection of women’s bodily autonomy, which also allows rapes to happen. It’s not enough to seize upon some specific words someone has said and call for their individual resignation from politics/public life/the human race.

It’s a systemic set of beliefs we’re fighting, not just some awful people saying some stupid shit. It’s  culturally ingrained that women shouldn’t have the right to do what they want with their own bodies. Sometimes it manifests in the anti-choice rhetoric, the desire to force women into a chronic medical condition to keep the population up. Other times, it manifests as a society which facilitates rape by repeating myths about blame and attempts to redefine rape to benefit rapists. And these beliefs can be articulated at the same time because it’s all part of the same myth: women shouldn’t control their bodies.

And so we need to highlight this system every time the opportunity arises. Rather than cry out for the Akins and Ryans (and, indeed, even the Dorrieses) of this world to go and fuck themselves, we need to point out how unoriginal they are, how they are merely replicating cultural lies.

It’s that we need to attack if we are ever going to win, not the individuals.

Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment is smarter than it seems

Trigger warning: this post quotes some horrible rape apologism and anti-choice rhetoric

Republican Senate nominee Todd Akin seems to be going for gold in the Offensively Stupid Shit Said By Politicians Awards. In one short sentence he has managed to say something so awful it’s almost impossible to work out where to start. When talking about abortion in the case of rape, he said:

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing [pregnancy] down.”

In the order it appears in the sentence, we have the rape culture myth that some rapes aren’t actually rapes, anti-choice rhetoric and a huge honking misunderstanding of how biology works. I’m not convinced he would have come across as more profoundly misogynistic had he just flat-out said “By the way, I hate women.”

The thing is, while it appears at face value as some completely ill-informed woman-hating, what Akin is actually doing may be much, much smarter than that. It could be a very well-constructed way of dragging discourse into a more misogynistic direction.

In the US, the war on choice is going strong, and a rather common battleground is the discussion surrounding “abortion only in the case of rape”. This position does not represent a fully pro-choice perspective, but it’s quite common among moderates and is frequently brought out in debates in a bid to get the anti-choice camp to concede some ground. Akin’s comment is his way of shutting down this particular avenue.

At the same time, rape culture thrives on the belief that rape is a stranger in a balaclava leaping out in a bush and violently taking the virginity of a good girl, and that’s all there is to it. There’s “rape rape” and there’s the stuff that isn’t really rape, which is perpetrated by powerful men like Polanski, Assange and Strauss-Kahn, and survived by sluts who were asking for it somehow. It’s a very pervasive belief, and one which benefits an awful lot of rapists.

What Akin has rather effectively done is say something which is difficult to argue against concisely without giving way on one of these two points. One can throw around statistics about just how many pregnancies are the result of rape, or one can argue that there’s no such thing as a “non-legitimate” rape, but it’s very difficult to do both at once.

What obfuscates matters even further is the very tempting distractor of the anti-reality terrible science. It’s a low-hanging fruit wherein it’s very tempting to say “THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS, FUCKNUGGET” without drawing attention to everything else that is wrong with the statement. Because that’s not how human biology works, and it’s gratifying to see that everybody is aware of this (except Akin, who didn’t even bother drawing attention to it in his non-apology).

In fact, Akin’s non-apology allows him to further elaborate upon his anti-choice, pro-rape culture position; while claiming he “misspoke”, he doesn’t acknowledge why there’s no such thing as a “legitimate rape”, and further espouses his view that women shouldn’t have control of their bodies.

The interesting thing is, his comment does lay bare how neatly the anti-choice position slots into rape culture. At their crux, both issues are about a complete disrespect for women’s bodily autonomy. People who want to force women through pregnancy and childbirth are less likely to be fazed by other violations. Again, though, this is a difficult position to argue concisely, particularly when the dominant cultural narrative is so heavily set against  bodily autonomy.

Far from being another Republican saying something else silly, Akin’s rhetoric may prove to be more dangerous than expected.

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Thanks to @JamesGraham for a brilliant Twitter conversation which helped me collect my thoughts on this issue.

German court rules non-consensual genital mutilation as assault: what will the future hold?

A bit of news I missed from last week: a German court has ruled that ritual circumcision of boys amounts to grievous bodily harm,  and ought not to be practised on children unable to consent.

The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled on Tuesday that the “fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents”, a judgement that is expected to set a legal precedent.

“The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised,” the court said.

This is a big victory for bodily autonomy here, placing this right above any others, including carrying with it the implicit assumption that parents do not always know best for their children.

In an ideal world, of course, we would not need to be having this discussion: people would just know it was a bad idea to lop bits of genitals off someone without their consent because it might have been a good idea among a desert-dwelling nomadic people in the Bronze Age, and they would not do it. It is unfortunate that it requires state intervention to get this message across.

Using state intervention to rule for the essential right of bodily autonomy is problematic. Firstly, it has caused outrage and accusations of persecution from those who practice ritual circumcision, who view this risky and unconsensual procedure as an essential part of their cultural heritage. This may provoke tensions.

Secondly (and relatedly), state intervention does nothing to address the root causes of ritual circumcision: the genuine belief among many that this is what ought to be done because a possibly fictional book says so. Due to this rather dangerous belief, I am concerned the practice will continue anyway, in back rooms or by crossing borders to every other country in the world that fails to respect bodily autonomy. As for those boys whose parents followed the law, what might be their fate? The court has explicitly protected the parents’ “right” to “educate”, suggesting that these boys will be bombarded with “information” about why their bodies are dirty and disgusting and they should undergo a procedure that carries risks as soon as the law will allow it.

In this situation, is it really any more consensual than hacking a bit of penis off a baby?

And this is the thing that really needs to change, a shift in thinking from archaic tradition to a respect of bodily autonomy. It is one thing for someone to decide to remove their foreskin because they like the way it looks, or it’s a kink. It is quite another for this procedure to be performed on someone without their consent, or under conditions of coercive misinformation. Religion has an ugly habit of poking around in our pants and, as with issues such as clitoridectomies and abortion, it needs to stop.

Perhaps the use of state intervention will promote discussion of these issues, awareness of the absolute deal-breaker that is bodily autonomy. Perhaps it will provoke a slow shift towards religion relaxing its grasp on people’s genitals. This is the route that thought must go, rather than reaction and backlash and searching for loopholes.

What a person does with their body must be a free choice.

Where’s the politics in Julie Bindel?

Note: This makes more sense if you read this first.

What makes some of us uncomfortable with Julie Bindel? Is it because she she feels the urge to dictate who bisexual women are supposed to sleep with?

In today’s post-modern, queer-focused world, political lesbianism is being promoted to bisexual women as the latest regressive trend. This has resulted in sexual liberation, namely feminism, being passed over for repression, where the only thing that matters is a form of outmoded ideological purity. Similarly, heterosexuality is sold to bisexual women as some type of respite from the odious sin of sexual attraction to people of any gender. It is seen as “a phase” or “an abomination”.

It is more ideologically pure to have sex with a woman if you are a bisexual woman, as you are then doing what you are “supposed” to do. Julie Bindel, the most famous “completely wrong” lesbian, has written reams about how bisexual women are actually big blacklegged scabs who are letting down the side, if indeed they exist at all.

Those of us who grew up in a time and context where there was a political analysis of sexuality were able to make a positive choice to be a lesbian. I believed then, and I believe now, that if bisexual women had an ounce of sexual politics, they would stop sleeping with men.

Is Bindel really so set on increasing the pool of available women to sleep with that she is resorting to cheap manipulation.

But many women, all of them called Sarah, believe that Julie Bindel and her ilk have got it all wrong. One study of women called Sarah, which draws on data from over 400 Sarahs, found that all of them think Bindel is wrong, and that bisexual women exist and that’s none of her business.And that’s just the Sarahs. There’s probably some more people who aren’t called Sarah who disagree fundamentally with Bindel.

Whatever our views of alternate sexuality may be, we cannot deny that since the 1970s, women have been coerced and manipulated into political lesbianism under the veil of viable political ideology. They are demanded to become fully available for lesbian sex.

When I write about making a positive choice to fuck who I like, I am accused of letting down the cause. That is nonsense. I personally feel that sexual freedom can and must be a part of feminism, and that includes nobody telling who I can and cannot fuck.

When I write about sexual freedom, the way most people approach sexuality is that they identify as straight, gay or somewhere in between, completely rejecting binary notions of gender. For queer people living under the tyrrany of kyriarchy, choosing to shake off the shackles of the dreaded pincer of hegemonic heterosexuality and oppressive political lesbianism can be a liberatory act.

Those of us who grew up–or are still growing up–with a political analysis of liberty and a rejection of coercion, are able to make the positive choice to express their sexuality in any way they choose. I believe that if human beings had an ounce of politics they would stop reading Julie Bindel.

Julie Bindel, I can fuck who I like. You can go and fuck yourself.

Julie Bindel is largely famous among feminists with decent politics for her continued commitment to transphobia. Perhaps she has a bigotry bingo card to fill in, but it also transpires that she expresses some fairly staggering levels of biphobia.

In an article in the Huffington Post, Bindel presents a somewhat intellectually incoherent argument which veers from “bisexual women don’t exist” to “bisexual women shouldn’t exist”.

First, Bindel’s “evidence” that bisexual women don’t exist: almost 20 years ago, some lesbian and bisexual women were interviewed, and some self-identified bisexual women doubted bisexual women existed. “Some” is a useful quantity in the hack counting system, denoting a figure larger than one and smaller than “many” to inflate a small numerical fluke into a soupçon of pseudoscience for a column. This is aside from the fact that the notion of a bisexual woman doubting the existence of bisexual women is paradoxical enough to make Bertrand Russell stop worrying about who shaves the barber.

Perhaps even Bindel realised that this assertion was a bucket of distended haemorrhoids, because she then goes on to say this: “if bisexual women had an ounce of sexual politics, they would stop sleeping with men.” See, apparently, queer women who fuck men are “living under the tyrrany of sexism” and for “liberation” we need to “choose” to be lesbians.

I fail to see anything remotely liberatory about having some hack with bad politics dictating who I can fuck. It comes in an ugly pincer manoeuvre: on one side, the conservative hets think that my gulps from the furry cup are somehow corrupting their children. On the other are the radfems, who think I’m being oppressed by the cock.

And both lots can fuck off. Removing the autonomy to choose who one can and cannot fuck is not feminism and it never can be.

To respond to Bindel’s rubbish, the brilliant Deborah Grayson has decided to match the 400 women–some of whom doubt the existence of bisexuals–with 400 women who believe bisexual women exist. Because it would be a piece of piss to find that, Deborah’s made it a little harder: they need to be called Sarah. So if you’re a Sarah and outraged by what Bindel’s been saying, join up. If you know any Sarahs who might have an opinion on the matter, invite them.

It is fortunate that the argument Bindel puts forward has little currency. It’s time to kill it completely.

How Prometheus could have worked: an attempt at salvaging a train wreck

Warning: this post contains major spoilers for Prometheus. If you haven’t seen Prometheus yet, don’t bother.

I love the Alien films. Both of them. I therefore spent the best part of this year buoyant on little guffs of excitement that its prequel, Prometheus, was on its way and OHMYGOD IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME. I was delighted that Ridley Scott was back in his rightful place doing an Alien film and OHMYGOD IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME. I yelped with glee on discovering its cast consisted of some of my favourite actors all together in the same film and OHMYGOD IT’S GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME.

About half an hour into actually finally getting to see Prometheus, the crescendo of crushing disappointment began. It had absolutely none of the subtle brilliance of its predecessor. It was trying to do too much, far, far too much. It was an incoherent arse-splatter of special effects with a bunch of cardboard characters doing stupid things that made no goddamn sense whatsoever.

Ultimately, perhaps, its biggest undoing was its budget. Alien was magnificent due to its shoestring budget forcing it to be all about reaction rather than action. Aliens, while more a straight-up action flick, managed to be great as it was still within the constraints of the special effects of its time.

Meanwhile, Prometheus felt like Ridley Scott looked at his cheque and said “OHMYGOD THIS IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING AWESOME! I’m going to have a jars of alien-juice and aliens in someone’s eyeballs and a man possessed by zombie-alien-rage and some aliens that look a bit like snakes and an alien in someone’s tummy and gigantic white different aliens and a massive fuckoff facehugger and fuck it, let’s show a whole alien because we can do it with CGI and it definitely won’t look shit.”

Well, Ridley, thanks to all that, your film was a complete pile of shitting arses. And the CGI alien did look like shit.

The thing is, though, there were ideas in that film that could have worked. There were scenes that could have worked. Had Scott been constrained, he might have actually had to think about ideas rather than various high-budget body horrors happening to people we didn’t really care about.

In a conversation with Mediocre Dave–who possibly humoured me in any attempt to salvage that film because I paid for his cinema ticket–I began to think about how it could work. I will sell this pitch to Hollywood for a complete refund of our cinema tickets, a written apology from Ridley Scott for Kingdom of Heaven, and an evening in the company of Michael Fassbender. It will be much better and much cheaper than Scott’s Prometheus.

The premise remains the same: Noomi Rapace and her boyfriend who is probably a famous actor too find another cave painting and persuade some rich dude to let them go to a far away planet to find their ancestors. On this ship are also Idris Elba and Charlize Theron and android-Fassbender (who was by far and away the best thing about that film), and the rich old dude, who can actually be played by an old dude, because I’m not sure why they bothered with covering Guy Pearce with prosthetics. We don’t need to worry about any of the rest of the characters, and Old Rich Dude isn’t hidden away in a box, there in the open, having co-opted Noomi Rapace’s misson for his own, like he did in the film except without some shitty attempt at a plot twist.

Several themes will be explored in this version of Prometheus, many of which I suspect Scott was attempting at doing if he hadn’t got all overexcited by the myriad ways he could literally ram xenomorphs down people’s throats. It will explore patriarchy, a robot’s attempt at understanding human emotion and the perils of curiosity.

We’ll keep the scenes of the android studying languages, playing bicycle basketball and learning to be human from old films, because they were cool. The aesthetic of the ship, though, should be less swish, as should all the technology: recall this is taking place before Alien, after all. We don’t need any fancy drone-ball things. And when the humans wake up, it would be nice if they could establish some relationships with each other.

So then they all get to the planet, and Noomi and Boyfriend and Space Stringer Bell and Robo-Fassbender go and explore the big creepy Ancestor-Cave. Old Rich Dude and Charlize Theron stay aboard the Prometheus, with Old Rich Dude barking orders of where to go and Charlize Theron being pragmatic. Our characters have a poke round the cave, realise it’s terraformed and start taking off helmets while Charlize Theron perhaps suggests that this is a terrible idea.

But they do it anyway, probably with Old Rich Dude egging them on.

Down in the caves, they realise Something Is Terribly Wrong and the ancestors are all horribly deaded, and the water’s moving, and they get the fuck out of there. Unfortunately, by some accident, Boyfriend ingests some water.

Back on the ship, everyone’s very disappointed, except Robo-Fassbender who is kind of baffled by this. Crucially, though, they never leave the ship again, thus radically reducing the film’s budget and adding some dramatic claustrophobia. Also, this neatly does away with the utterly ghastly “meeting the creators” theme which never works, as is beautifully explained here.

In this version of Prometheus, Noomi’s infertility and the impact it has on her relationship with her boyfriend is better explored and discussed in more depth than a few lines before they have a misery-fuck. In general, there’s a lot more character development and dialogue other than “AAAUGH IT’S BREAKING MY ARM”. But, nonetheless, Noomi and Boyfriend have their misery-fuck.

Trapped miles away from any safety, Boyfriend realises Something Is Horribly Wrong when he notices Alien Eyeball Worms. Naturally, everyone freaks the fuck out over this (except, probably, Rich Old Dude, who is fascinated and curious), and pop him in Magical Medi-Pod, which gives him a once-over and reckons he’s all right. Charlize Theron is sceptical about this. Boyfriend and Noomi are terrified. Space-Stringer just wants to get the fuck out. Robo-Fassbender is politely baffled by mortality and sickness.

Naturally, Boyfriend gets progressively worse, and our characters continue to freak the fuck out as Something Is Dreadfully Wrong. Eventually, this all culminates in him shoving Noomi out of the way and getting flamethrowered by Charlize Theron. Who then airlocks him for good measure, which obviously rather upsets the people who are closer to him.

They check themselves for contamination, and Robo-Fassbender announces Noomi’s pregnancy to Noomi, who, of course, freaks the fuck out. Robo-Fassbender is befuddled, knowing about her upset about her infertility.

Off she goes to the Medi-Pod which is only configured for treating men, and therefore cannot give Noomi the abortion she desperately needs. With the right set-up, this can suddenly be metaphorical for patriarchal access to medical care: my Prometheus has already shown a bit of men exerting their dominance with Rich Old Dude and Boyfriend. And obviously, it’d be better set-up than what I puked out in a late-night blogpost. So she goes for the excruciating abdominal surgery and attempts to immolate the facehugging foetus.

Unfortunately, all this is in vain, as the bastard gets loose and crawls around the ventilation ducts generally causing a menace. We never get a good look at it, we don’t want to.

Ultimately, our characters realise what they have to do. Their ship lacks weaponry, and they can’t survive to tell their story because that’d fuck up the rest of the Alien canon. They discuss this. Perhaps Robo-Fassbender with his confused emotions proposes it. Eventually, they take the decision.

The film ends with the ship exploding and the “last transmission of the Prometheus” playing in voice-over.

In this slice-and-dice, I attempted to preserve as much of Prometheus as possible, while hacking out the very worst. Were I to cut any further, it would be two minutes of Robo-Fassbender walking round a spaceship.