“If you don’t wear a mask your germs are raping my lungs!” An internet stranger told me this. I am now a rapist because I want to breathe fresh clean air, instead of recycled CO2, which is not good for your body. I don’t care what anybody says. No amount of Yahoo click-bait is going to change my instincts on this. We were meant to breathe fresh clean air.
Depending on where you live, getting that may be hard, but we’re now likening breathing to rape. When someone tells me, “I did not consent to your germs penetrating my body,” the spiteful part of me wants to retort, “I do not consent to you breathing. You breathing is now rape.”
It’s a new breed of name-calling. It’s immature. It is a perfect display of how obsessed many people are with control.
I truly don’t believe that people consciously divide. It’s highly subconscious, but our society is obsessed with controlling other people because of our own fears. Especially regarding mortality.
When someone likens breathing without a mask to rape it sickens me. My mother is a rape survivor. A woman who has forcibly had a man pin her down and shove his dick inside of her vagina deserves a lot more respect than to have their horrific experience compared to the act of breathing. It is not the same as someone breathing next to you. It’s also not the same as someone looking at you in a way you don’t like, or saying something you don’t like. If you honestly think they are the same, please get some therapy.
Someone farting near you is not rape. You can say it is, but that just makes people less likely to believe rape allegations.
The fact that I even have to say this is laughable. Maybe it’s because I have a dark sense of humor, have survived sexual assault and physical abuse, or whatnot, but people who are obsessed with using alarming terms to try and control others are a joke.
Likening something to a much greater atrocity just to shut people up doesn’t work with those who actually hold strong convictions. It definitely won’t shut me up. Not ever. It may get you blocked, muted, or unfollowed online. I definitely prefer not to associate myself with people who lash out in undignified ways.
I am not a rapist. I don’t want to be a rapist and I never will be. Whether I cover my face or not doesn’t change that. Just the same as wearing a burka or not wearing one will never make me or any other person a lesser being or a monster.
Internet mobs everywhere have declared that if you don’t wear a mask you are a rapist, a murderer, or even worse: Hitler! It’s become a name-calling game of high school football where people shout obscenities from the stands because their team must win!
I was advised by my health care professional to NOT wear a mask because I am pregnant since it reduces oxygen intake which slows blood flow and brain activity, and breathing in recycled CO2 could have lethal effects on a growing fetus. I found plenty of information to back this up when first researching it and was satisfied (mainly because my instincts were to not wear a mask as well-and my instincts are never wrong.)
The CDC declared 2 months ago that healthy people do NOT need to wear a mask in public and then caved to popular opinion without reason. The WHO held their stance that mask wearing wasn’t necessary for healthy individuals. (Not that I trust either since both have been wrong before)
It’s not like the CDC just released a new report that coronavirus actually doesn’t easily spread on surfaces like previously thought and pandered to scare everyone into hiding… Oh wait, they DID haha
And so the recent political climate is now challenging everyone to divide and disrespect each other over a stupid mask. Saying I was advised to not wear a mask by a professional isn’t enough now. Everyone wants to waste my time asking me to send them research articles because “science” is God and the word of a doctor is no longer enough, nor is my word. Well, scientists and doctors make up a vast community of people who often disagree. There are plenty of scientists who have come forward to say that social distancing and shut downs are not necessary, but their videos and articles are taken down or buried. Just like most of the articles about the ill-effects of mask wearing on fetuses in utero have magically been replaced by Huffington post opinion pieces about how pregnant women, and all women, should wear masks. Also how it’s toxic masculinity to not wear a mask and that if you don’t wear one everyone is gonna die!
There are no sources sited, but I’m supposed to just take their word for it because it’s a headline from a major publication. I’m supposed to shut my mouth and be a “good girl” and do as I’m told by the media.
Only, I can’t. A distant friend of mine (we lost touch years back and only correspond on facebook now) who was also pregnant, like myself, wore a mask everywhere because she’s a “good girl” and did as she was told. Her ultrasounds and sonograms were all perfect, the genetic screenings said the baby was healthy as can be, but somehow magically at 16 weeks this little growing human’s heart just magically stopped beating and its circulatory system failed (right in the middle of the pandemic).
She had to deliver this stillborn and bravely shared photos with those of us who wished to see the tiny feet and hands of this very human, very dead baby. It was devastating just to see. My heart still aches for her loss. But I’m SURE lowering oxygen intake and exposing her body, and that of her growing baby, to heightened CO2 levels had NOTHING to do with this “mysterious” death. Fetuses just stop moving and growing all the time. It must be a curse or black magic. #Science
Didn’t everyone know never to question the status quo when life and death are being discussed? It was, after all, just a clump of cells, right? At least that’s what I’ve been told. It’s #Science.
But wait, science can also debunk itself. Like the prediction models that determined how “deadly” and ‘Terrifying” COVID-19 would be. They are 13 years outdated and built on random algorithms that have been inaccurate before. #Science
I trust actual science. Not moderated political media science heightened with hysteria and incorrect models. I’m sorry, even if I weren’t pregnant, my lungs belong to me. It is #MyBodyMyChoice after all, isn’t it? Or is that just a cheap slogan manufactured to support one side of one argument instead of the entire spectrum of issues that life presents?
It’s laughable how quickly people force each other to pick a side and I will have no part of it. My lungs are my business and I will or won’t wear a mask as I see fit, just as I support you in choosing to do what you decide is best for you.
But your fear of death does not trump my right to go on living my life and properly prepare for the life of my youngest child. Some of you will hate me for this purely because you cannot control what I say, think, or do, and that’s a scary thought when our lives are full of immediate returns where we pick and choose what to believe.
Rational human beings still walk outside and recognize that the world hasn’t exploded; people are not bleeding out in the streets. Last time I calculated it (which was last week so it may be slightly skewed), only .0039% of the world’s population has died of coronavirus. Not even a percentage of a percentage.
But if you present this as good news plenty of people will argue, because that’s what we’ve all been trained to do and it’s their right. And I applaud that right so long as they don’t resort to petty name calling or comparing breathing to rape.
This is not the plague. More people die of tuberculosis and hunger every year. More people die of pollution and radiation poisoning.
So no, I don’t care if you wear a mask or not. I believe in everybody’s right to do what they choose for themselves. YOU get to determine what you wear. YOU get to determine what you do with yourself.
Yes, viruses spread. Viruses also mutate and change. Once a virus takes hold it doesn’t go magically go away just because you cover your mouth and hide in your home, which may actually weaken your immune system.
The best way to ensure survival is to drink water, eat vegetables, and get plenty of sunshine and fresh air. There have been no known transmissions of this virus outdoors. None.
If you want to protect yourself from COVID-19 get natural vitamin D. You don’t have to be around people. Go hiking in a forest or park and keep away from others if you’re concerned or compromised, but expose your body to germs and build your immune system. Keep a trim figure (obesity is the main cause of COVID deaths), and help everyone achieve herd immunity.
It’s easier for those of us who live in areas with lots of space. People who are crammed into apartment buildings have much less control, so eating well is even more important since they share ventilation systems with their neighbors. Maybe THAT’s why New York and L.A. were harder hit. When people are shoved into buildings full of other people, disease is more likely to breed.
Our skin also breathes AND the virus can be transmitted into your eyes. Unless you’re wearing a mask, goggles, and a hazmat suit (which I don’t recommend because it’s not good for your mental health to deplete oxytocin levels-which are maintained through touch), you’re going to have to take your chances.
And that’s life. This is how life works. We live and we die. Our systems help us survive until they are no longer able and then they fail. Modern medicine can prolong the inevitable but good health starts with good life decisions. Not living in fear.
Viruses by nature exist to control populations. It’s sad. Nobody wants anybody to die, but we are all going to die someday. I personally would rather die than watch my children’s right to wear what they want and control their own bodies be taken away.
Honestly, at this point, it’s not even about being right or wrong, it’s about respecting my right to politely disagree with you without pretending that I’m evil just because I don’t want/need to live the way you decide I should. It’s about respecting everyone’s freedom of choice and diversity of thought. It’s about letting go and accepting that we cannot control each other, no matter how much we try.
Helpful resources with varying information (updated 11/23/20):
On Coronavirus, We Must Not Allow Politics to Dictate Science
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-sheds-early-in-disease.html
https://www.ccn.com/coronavirus-less-deadly-than-we-thought-time-to-end-lockdown/
https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-need-for-healthy-people-to-wear-face-masks-2020-4?op=1
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1435/rr-40
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-04-masksdangerous-health.html
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/covid-19-when-should-you-wear-a-face-mask/
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/18/how-blind-faith-in-scientific-expertise-wrecked-the-economy/
https://my.theasianparent.com/n95-masks-not-suitable-for-children-and-pregnant-women
https://mcr.health/2020/03/17/what-should-pregnant-women-know-about-the-coronavirus/
https://www.today.com/parents/what-parents-need-know-about-coronavirus-t174887
https://www.icnl.org/post/analysis/anti-mask-laws-covid-19-and-the-first-amendment
https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-masks-there-no-settled-science#disqus_thread
Expectant Moms Forced to Mask-Up to Work; Unborn Babies at Risk
Jessica Marie Baumgartner 
Your sharing is interesting. I read it and it came wisely. this was a warning to me. thank you. I’m following. with love.
that’s wonderful. We’re all connected.
🙂 ❤