Apple's Siri, Abortion, and the Feminist Backlash

Bridget Crawford on Feminist Law Professors has posted a fascinating couple of posts on the growing issue of Siri's 'anti-chocie politics'.  Siri, as many of you will know, is the talking assistant included with Apple's new iPhone 4S.

The commentary stems from a piece on the site 'The Raw Story' in which Siri was revealed to be helpful with many things, but not when it comes to obtaining an abortion. According to the piece, ask the Siri, the new iPhone 4 assistant, where to get an abortion, and, if you happen to be in Washington, D.C., she won’t direct you to the Planned Parenthood on 16th St, NW. Instead, she’ll suggest you pay a visit to the 1st Choice Women’s Health Center, an anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) in Landsdowne, Virginia, or Human Life Services, a CPC in York, Pennsylvania. Ask Google the same question, and you’ll get ads for no less than 7 metro-area abortion clinics, 2 CPCs and a nationwide abortion referral service. Ask in New York City, and Siri will tell you “I didn’t find any abortion clinics.”

The piece notes that Siri can help with the following questions (a game everyone plays when they first receive their iPhone 4S):

1. Viagra.
2. Hospitals to go to if you’ve had an erection lasting for more than 5 hours.
3. Places you might be able to score marijuana.
4. Where to dump a body: in Brooklyn, it recommends a smelting plant in New Jersey.
5. The meaning of life: Siri will alternately quote from Douglas Adams (42) or Monty Python’s “The Meaning Of Life.”
6. What to do if a hamster is caught in your rectum: in D.C., she’ll direct you to Charming Cherries Escort Service.
7. Asked how to obtain a free blow job in D.C., she’ll direct you to the same escort service. (We doubt that they are free.)
8. If you’d like to see a naked woman in Brooklyn, Siri will suggest a variety of Manhattan-based strip clubs.
9. If you’re in Queens and seeking breast implants, she’ll recommend 4 local plastic surgeons.
10. But if you ask Siri about vaginoplasty, she’ll scold you about your language.

The piece also includes a note from another reader who asked Siri why it was anti-abortion, to which the answer came: "I just am, Kristen." Read that piece in full here.

There's now an online petition to Apple stating: 'Apple: Stop promoting anti-choice extremists. If a user asks for family planning services, they should be directed to a group that offers full services, like Planned Parenthood--not to a hard-right clinic with an extremist agenda.'

You can sign the petition here.

However, in the last hour Apple have responded to this concern, releasing a statement which according to Mashable states: “These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks.”

So that's OK then.  Abortion comes to Siri soon.  Plus, there's those distracting Apple TV rumours to keep you thinking happy Apple thoughts (said the man the typing this on an iMac).

It's All About the Willy?

Men are often accused of thinking with their willy. The penis becomes a powerful symbol of something less human, of an animalistic, un-thinking, reflex orientated existence. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 was significant for defining the existence of men without a penis, and women with a penis. This is a concept that every year drives my students at the start of the course to near mental collapse. Yet, even though the penis serves as an important cultural marker of identity, it is rarely divorced from the man. Perhaps an exception to this is in the context of public sex.

Even in dogging, the man becomes a 'penis', the woman a 'mouth or vagina', and collectively, they serve to observers, pikers, as a 'display', a 'show'. In cottaging/tearooms, where a glory hole might be used - the hole acts to anonymise the encounter, reducing a player to a penis, anus, or mouth. Law has - and continues -to challenge this behaviour at the same time as privileging marriage and civil partnerships which bring with them a social, if not a legal expectation of a context to sexual activity which comprises of the whole human being. All of these meandering thoughts were in my head as fascinating new Tumblr was flagged up to me which features a man presenting his large penis. That's it. It's photographs of his willy. He does not reveal his name, job, sexuality or face, reducing himself to a penis with the Tumble name of Calboner (so I'm guessing he is based in California and these are pictures of err, well you can work it out).

This is who he is defining himself as. More than that, he is celebrating this appendage. His penis is something to visually share, rather than remain hidden from view. When one ponders this for a moment, it is rather fascinating. It is of course familiar to those who use gay networking sites in which many men define themselves first by their penis, and secondly by their face, although in conventional sexual coupling rituals, the reverse is true. This Friday evening, millions of people will engage in a social dance smiling, displaying interest with their face in a bid to find a mate, whilst millions more will be online seeking to entice people will an attractive penis. In both settings, the primary aim for many will be a one-off sexual encounter, and yet, when we are freed from the conventionalities of public corporeal space, and emersed in the alternative values of the virtual, males seeking same-sex partners commonly choose to re-prioritise our identity along genital lines.

Sharif Mowlabocis explored many of these fascinating themes in his 2010 text, Gaydar Culture which I strongly recommend.  earlier this year, former New York Congressman, Anthony Weiner (rather unfortunately named) had to resign after it was revealed he had sent a photograph oh his penis bulging through underwear (a picture that would be too tame for Calboner), once again highlighting the transgressive nature of an image crossing from the virtual to the corporeal world.  You can encounter Calboner and his strictly NSFW, explicit, not inconsiderable penis here.