A philosopher, a psychologist, and an extraterrestrial walk into a chocolate bar …. Jass Richards

Jane said, staring at her laptop, “did you know that Plan B is now available at drugstores without a prescription?”

      “The morning after pill? When did that happen?”

      “And why didn’t we know about it?”

      “I think I can tell you the answer to that one. Check out the major papers at the time it became available. Without a prescription.”

      Jane found one of the national papers, clicked on its archive, then on a specific date. She looked carefully through the entire news section, found nothing, then flipped past the section—an entire section—on sports, ditto cars, ditto stock market prices, before she finally found it. It had been given a few inches of column space at the bottom of page five.

      “In the Lifestyle section!” Jane was amazed. “Lifestyle!”

      “I think,” Spike ventured, “a man probably made that call. And didn’t consider rape.”

      “Or, worse, did.”

      That required a moment of silence. And more chocolate. From the bagful they’d gotten at the 7-Eleven.

      “If I ran a newspaper,” Spike said then, “I’d have all the politics, sports, cars, and stock reports on just one page. At the back. The Men’s Page.”

      “The Men’s Lifestyle Page.”

      “And wars,” Spike added a few moments later. “They’d have to fit on the Men’s Lifestyle Page too.”

      “I don’t think there’d be room for them,” Jane said. “They’d have to get cut.”

      “But then no one would know about all those heroes fighting to save us from—”

      “—whatever they’re told they’re fighting to save us from.”

      Jane stared out the window.

      “They should advertise it,” she said after a while. “Plan B.”

      “They probably tried. Magazines and television stations probably refused to run the ad. Like that Adbusters thing, remember? We prepared all those cool ads, and no one would run them because they were too contro­versial.”

      “Like endorsing alcohol and big cars isn’t?” Jane asked rhetorically.

      “We cannot accept any ad that criticizes or might offend other advertisers.” Spike had the response memorized. “Especially the big ones,” she added, probably unnecessarily, “because if they pull their ads, the magazine or whatever loses all that revenue.”

      “But what ‘other advertiser’ would be offended by Plan B?” Jane understood the policy, but was having trouble with its application to this case.

      “Take your pick,” Spike said. “Any conservative, right wing, fund­a­mentalist— Can’t you hear it? Plan B is murder!”

      “But it’s not! It just stops ovulation. And if perchance ovulation has already occurred, Plan B just stops fertilization. Which is like a guy ejaculating, I don’t know, not in a vagina. Is that wrong?”

      “Plan B: just like jerking off.” Spike grinned.

      “And if fertilization has already occurred,” Jane continued, “it just prevents implantation. Thus making abortion unnecessary!”

      “You know that,” Spike sighed, “and I know that—”

      “And if the papers actually gave it decent coverage ...”

      They drove on in silence for a bit.

      “You know what would make a good ad?” Spike started singing. “It’s my body, and I’ll choose if I want to, choose if I want to …”

      “… choose if I want to,” Jane joined her. “You would choose too if it happened to you!”

      Then, since the chorus was all that mattered, they sang it again.

      “That is so good!” Jane was furiously typing away. “And I’ll bet—”

      “What are you doing?”

      “Sending it to them!”

      “They won’t accept it.”

      “Sure they will! It’s a great idea! Don’t you think Lesley Gore would give permission? It’ll catch on, women everywhere will start singing it … It’s my body …” She started singing it again as she typed.

      “No, I mean they won’t even consider it. Their marketing department won’t consider unsolicited ideas.”

      Jane looked up, then over. “Well, how do we get it solicited?”

      “Haven’t figured that one out yet.”

      Jane stared at her laptop.

      “And Lesley Gore probably didn’t even write the song,” Spike added. “Some guy probably did. Because if it happened to me, at my party, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck.”

      “Are you sure?” Jane asked a bit later. Then clarified. “About them not even considering it?” Something had suddenly become very clear. “Remember my Boston Legal script? Are you saying—do you think—”

      “They didn’t reject it,” Spike said gently.

      “They didn’t even read it.” Jane sighed.

      “That was the one about some kid playing cops and robbers or something, and he jumps out at a man passing by, right? And the guy shoots him, thinking the kid’s toy gun was real?”

      Jane nodded.

      “It’s their loss they didn’t read it. It was good. And you had Alan Shore’s lines—they were so Alan Shore.”

      Jane nodded again.

      “Maybe we could send the idea to some Riotgrrls who do covers.”

      “Preaching to the converted. Fun, but …”

      “Speaking of Lesley Gore,” Spike said a short while later, “remember that video by the Clichettes? ‘You Don’t Own Me?’ They start all cutesy and sexy, and by the end, when they’re singing the ‘Don’t tell me what to do’ and ‘Don’t tell me what to say’ lines, all four of them are on their knees, just banging away, pounding their fists into the floor in frustration, and the audience just cheers like crazy?”

      “Oh yeah!” Jane smiled, thinking about it. “Must’ve hit a nerve.”

      “Ya think?” Spike grinned too.

      A while later, Jane mused aloud, “I wonder how many inches Viagra got.”

      “Surely, you don’t.”

      “Column inches,” Jane mentally poked Spike. “In the newspapers. When it was released.”

      “Ah. But as I recall, we found out about Viagra not so much because of the news but because of the ads.”

      “Hm.” Jane thought about that. “So do you really think the men who dominate the advertising industry made a conscious decision—”

      Spike glanced over with her eyebrows raised.

      “—not to give Plan B the same attention? Why? I mean, if you were a man, wouldn’t you want to have …” she trailed off, seeing where her reasoning was going to take her: to men against abortion. Men weren’t responsible, didn’t take responsibility, didn’t have to take responsibility, for the kids they created. So they didn’t look past the principles, to the consequences.