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January 15 - January 20, 2024
For those who want to effectively reduce abortion (or outlaw it altogether, as many states have done), this focus on women is a fundamental mistake for two reasons: 1) because there is clear data that abortion bans are ineffective and 2) because, again, men cause all unwanted pregnancies.
An unwanted pregnancy doesn’t happen because people have sex. An unwanted pregnancy only happens if a man ejaculates irresponsibly—if
We treat ejaculation as something that happens at random, that is unintentional, that is impossible to anticipate or predict. And we treat ovulation like it can be pinpointed well in advance and easily predicted. Somehow, we’ve confused the two.
Based on what we know right now, birth control is riskier than any of the COVID-19 vaccines. And yet, it is prescribed daily without hesitation,
Men, consider what your girlfriend/wife/partner is doing for you. She’s fertile 3 percent of the time and addressing her fertility 100 percent of the time, whether she has sex or not.
most everything about birth control is overly complicated and difficult, and men in power are largely responsible for these complications.
Is this asking too much? We expect women to use their birth control perfectly, to remember to take the Pill daily, to keep up with doctor’s appointments and prescriptions. Why shouldn’t we expect men to use their birth control methods perfectly as well?
we’ve been told (in books, in movies, in memes) that it doesn’t feel as good as sex without a condom. (Meaning it doesn’t feel as good for men. What it feels like for their partner doesn’t really enter into the discussion.)
You might think women would be angry at men about all this. But mostly, we’re not. We’ve been raised in the same culture as men. We’ve been taught the pleasure and convenience of men are paramount. We’ve been taught to diminish our own pain.
The thing is, the Husband Stitch doesn’t actually make a vagina tighter. The man who requests the stitch or is happy about the stitch may get satisfaction from the idea that his partner’s vagina is “tighter,” but he won’t actually feel a difference. His psychological satisfaction is prioritized over the women’s physical pain.
When the choice is between maximizing men’s pleasure or minimizing women’s pain, society will predictably choose men.
When men choose to have condom-less sex, they are putting a woman’s body, health, social status, job, economic status, relationships, and even her life, at risk in order to experience a few minutes of slightly more pleasure. It’s horrible to type it out.
When masturbating, 95 percent of women orgasm. In first-time hookups with other women, they orgasm 64 percent of the time. But in first-time hookups with men, they orgasm only 7 percent of the time.
Why are we talking about unwanted pregnancies? Because 99 percent of abortions are the direct result of unwanted pregnancy. And we need to understand very clearly that women enjoying sex does not cause unwanted pregnancies and abortion. What causes unwanted pregnancies and abortion? Men enjoying sex and having irresponsible ejaculations.
Why would a woman ever need to ask a man to wear a condom? Why wouldn’t it be the default that men should provide their own condom and put it on without a request?
Men assume women will do all the work of pregnancy prevention, that a woman will take responsibility for her own body and for the man’s body, and women assume women will do it, too.
So we can see that this focus on men is a practical decision. This is a one-way street, and we’ve been driving the wrong way.
Don’t ask: Why don’t women pick better men? Instead, ask: Why are there so many abusive men? And: Why don’t we teach men not to abuse?
Patriarchy teaches us that sex, for women, is a giveaway, while for men it is a takeaway. She saves herself, gives herself to the right one, and then her virginity is lost. In this equation, there is nothing in sex that’s for her to take. Whereas he takes and scores and there is nothing in sex for him to give. When her mind is programmed to give, she struggles to say “no.” When his mind is programmed to take, he struggles to accept “no.”
Two things can be true at once: Pregnancy and childbirth are mind-blowingly glorious and miraculous, AND they’re some of the most dangerous and damaging things a body can experience.
Going through pregnancy and childbirth in the United States is nearly 1.5 times as likely to kill you as traffic accidents
Worldwide, maternal death rates are falling. At the same time, in the United States, maternal mortality rates are rising—they have more than doubled over the last three decades. These deaths are disproportionately of Black women, making it significantly more dangerous for Black women to experience pregnancy and childbirth.
The leading cause of death for pregnant women in the United States is homicide, usually at the hands of an intimate partner.
Men famously can’t handle the pain when connected to a menstrual cramp simulator. Men wouldn’t accept the side effects from a male birth control pill. Yet men expect women to experience pregnancies that routinely maim them and can even kill them.
I think it’s safe to say that if sex were as risky for men as it is for women—with an unwanted pregnancy potentially leading to loss of social status, loss of career, a disruption of their education, physical disability, death, and the permanent responsibility for another human—that men would insist on having a choice in the matter.
Motherhood is hard, and demanding it for others, while being unwilling to do it yourself, is not okay.
The United States in particular is a difficult place to be a mother. It has inaccessible, expensive healthcare; no paid leave from work; crumbling infrastructure (including public schools); and little by way of a social safety net when things go wrong.
no child should exist as a punishment!
People ask: Instead of getting an abortion, have you considered adoption? As if these are two comparable options. But based on these statistics, pregnant people see these options as unrelated, not as alternatives to each other.
One woman who had relinquished a child and then later had an abortion said that people who claim that abortion trauma is anywhere near as bad as the trauma of relinquishment have no idea what they are talking about.
Men make up 85 percent of child support providers, and only 43.5 percent of parents report receiving the full amount of child support due. And an estimated $10 billion in child support payments go uncollected each year.
Our society is set up to protect men from the consequences of their own actions. Our laws and policies could not be better designed to protect men who abandon the pregnancies they cause.
