Most things are a spectrum of grey. Politics, economics, environment, even free speech all have a grey scale.

But there is one that is soooo black and white, either good or bad. And it’s the one we have the most trouble with.

Bodily autonomy. The idea that any and every single person on the planet has the right to do with their own body whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t harm another living, autonomous human being.

This idea that ownership of ones body is flexible is the reason for drug laws, prostitution laws, abortion laws, slavery, the prison system, torture, rape, executions, child abuse, domestic violence, human trafficking, “honor” killings, and a whole host of other horrific things. We come down hard on people using their own bodies for survival (prostitution) or self medicating their own bodies in the only way they can (drug abuse) while ignoring or excusing the thousands of ways we allow people to abuse another body with violence, abuse or exploitation.

You either believe that your body is the one true thing that any of us ever get to own in this world, or you don’t.

It is the most basic of property rights. You don’t have to be rich, or have good credit, or be educated, or straight, or white, or male, or able-bodied, or even an adult. As soon as you are born, as soon as you no longer require another person’s body as a life support system, you have the right to your own body. But before that, you are relying on the good graces of your mother, because she gets the same rights to her body as you get to yours, once you are born.

It’s black and white. There is no middle ground on this. The middle ground means that there is justification for rape, for child abuse, for slavery. The middle ground means there are enough good things that come from these atrocities to make it okay. And there isn’t (if almost 40 years of the War on Drugs hasn’t shown you that criminalization is a racist means of control minority populations then you’re a hopeless idiot).

People who don’t understand this fundamental right are the people who kill doctors, or bomb buildings, or make new categories so that they can claim they have a sex life and not a rape record. People who don’t get this explain child abuse as discipline. People who don’t get this treat women like children and take away the availability of medical procedures. People like this are always coming up with new reasons to justify their own violence.

But they almost never apply those same justifications to themselves. For whatever reasons, they believe that they are more autonomous than others.

I’ve been watching a lot of crime tv lately. I saw (back to back) a show about Fritzel, the fuckwad in Germany who held his daughter in the basement for decades, and another show about a rich American who also held several different women in an underground dungeon for years at a time. Neither one of them thought what they were doing was wrong. I saw another guy, who raped his stepdaughter, who didn’t think he was as bad as his cellmate. What he did was okay, but his cellmate raped little boys and that was really wrong.

And I think about the talking heads like O’Reilly, who spout off venomous attacks on others, inciting violence and even stalking opponents. They don’t think what they are doing is wrong either. Because, just like those horrible men mentioned above, they believe that some bodies are not fully autonomous.

But they are just trying to find a shade of grey in a black and white issue, and there isn’t one. Ever.