A man has choices
Betrayer0fHope said:
A women has COMPLETE rights over a MAN'S baby(and a woman's too). Explain that to me, if she wants to abort, ok, if she doesn't, ok. How the fuck is THAT fair?
• • •
Are you really comparing pain with such a thing as loving your (unborn) children? A man should be able to make a choice just like the women can.
Two general points about sex, pregnancy, and choice:
• Have you, personally, ever had another man's semen inside your body?
Have you ever had it
on your body? In your mouth?
For comparison, a certain stereotype we might find in movie dialogue would be the guy who sees the cute chick in a bar, hits on her, gets shot down, and then calls her a bitch or a dyke. You know, orgasms are fun, and so, usually is the stuff leading up to them. Most women I know° would agree about orgasms in specific, and probably with the stuff leading up to them. Certain women I know would pointedly ask, "
Whose orgasms?"
Now, my former partner (the mother of my child) liked orgasms. And she liked some of the stuff that led up to it (receiving oral sex). She pretended to like other things (sexual intercourse), though only she knows the truth of that. And, for the most part, while she openly and repeatedly rejected condoms, she didn't really want the ejaculate anywhere near her.
That stupid stereotype in a bar is upset that a woman is a tease. Well, maybe she's not trying to appeal to
him specifically. And, maybe, it's not so much that she's a dyke, but rather that he disgusts her and she doesn't want his load spilled anywhere in her proximity.
The point is to introduce or remind the idea that, for men and women, certain perspectives such as sexual intercourse are based on different factors.
• How many men have ever carried in and delivered from their own bodies a baby?
It's not just pain. Pregnancy can wreak havoc—sometimes irreparable—on a woman's body. Delivery is often excruciating, and sometimes requires surgery. Caesarian section is the obvious one, but—and I'm loath to conduct a poll this issue for, hopefully, obvious reasons—we might wonder about how men would feel about having their anus professionally sliced open? These procedures require prolonged recuperation, and in many cases, that recovery is never complete.
Pregnancy and childbirth can—independent of the fact of parenthood itself—permanently alter a woman's life. It is not something we men can fully comprehend; the best we can do is the academic and the abstract.
When it is
your body and
your future, it becomes
your choice.
However—
Why would the father pay the woman for a child he has nothing to do with other than providing sperm for?
—you
do have a certain choice. If you're not willing to take the risks, don't hop on the ride.
Imagine jumping out of an airplane. Sure, it might suck when you realize that your chute isn't going to open, and that you're about to die. And, certainly, it sucks to realize that, for the rest of the fall, you don't have any say in the matter. But you
did have the choice, and that was whether or not to jump out of the airplane in the first place.
And while one of our associates raises the proposition of a woman tricking a man, well, some—myself included—still wonder why my partner lied and schemed to stay close to me, and only bothered to tell the truth
after our child was born, when she decided I was an impediment to her ability to go get loaded at the bar every night.
Especially whent he question was put to her directly
six years before she admitted the "truth". But the question is academic now. I'd like to know because I have a fascination with the idea of human nature. My daughter
rocks, so I ought
never wish a chance to do those years over. In the end, though, no matter how much scorn I might pour upon my former partner's behavior, neither can anybody account for my decision to stay in the relationship, either. Okay, we can be superficial, if we want, and point out that it had a lot to do with sex and drugs. But that's the thing: at some point the quality of one's partner reflects something about oneself. So if a woman tricks a man, yeah, that's really low. But it does not excuse the man from considering his own judgment and choices insofar as he got himself into the situation with a person of such poor character in the first place.
Lastly, I must dispute with our neighbor Orleander, although the issue is not tremendous. Specifically, condoms are not insufficient. I would suggest that the only safe choices as such are to get a vasectomy, abstain from sex altogether, or go find yourself a nice, healthy boy-toy to tap on a regular basis. Which, of course, brings us back to the beginning.
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Notes:
° Most women I know — Human diversity inherently rejects any claim I can make that "every woman I know" likes orgasms. I would not speculate as to which women I know would lie to me about it, but, in truth, there are some women with whom the subject will, likely, never come up. While I could easily devise a movie scene to the other, I can't say I expect, or, particularly ever want to partake in, a conversation in which my mother expresses her love of orgasms. You know, just ... for instance.