h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hi Kelli

Yes, it is hard to imagine a woman becoming pregnant and thinking she is in a 'consequence free' situation. With no responsibility.

Given the obvious, that she will carry the child, give birth and then care for it. For years and years.

Some on this thread would say that the fact that in the UK she is entitled to financial support from the man who fathered the child is somehow unfair towards the man.

I agree with Blues and Blicky that if the man had not wanted to father a child then he should have taken equal responsibility for contraception. I do not agree with Hoo that there are swarms of women out there just waiting to lie to men and *make* them financially responsible for a child. Sure, there are some women who might do this. There are also some men who are equally irresponsible.

The news about the new male contraceptive should make Hoo very happy indeed as it will make men able to take total responsibility for themselves and their sperm without fear of a woman lying to them and 'destroying their lives'.

az

Blues:

Kelli: "Women are entitled to consequence-free sex...with no responsibility at all..."
becoming pregnant isn´t what I´d call consequence-free ...that comment struck me as rather odd."

Blues observed that for men sex is a privilege, not a right, and that they are expected to take full responsibility for any consequences - consequences over which they have no control after the initial fertilisation.

I was merely observing that women, by contrast, in my experience view satisfying sex as a right. As for "consequence-free", I've said till I'm a superintelligent shade of the colour blue in the face - the choice of whether condomless sex leads to pregnancy is the woman's, not the man's - the man has NO rights to input. The choice whether any resulting pregnancy goes to term is the woman's, not the man's - the man has NO rights to input. The choice whether any resulting child is given up for adoption is the woman's, not the man's - the man has NO rights to input. So, after all that - given that the man has NO parental rights, can he, at any stage after ejaculation, choose not to take parental responsibility, as the woman can? No. Never. Women have choices at every stage. Men can choose to go without sex. Equality? I'm all for it.



Ferretbadger: thanks for the compliment, but that wasn't a machiavellian evasion, it was simple ignorance on my part - I just missed/forgot your questions. Doh! Thanks for the reminder:

"In Britain how many Lawyers, Judges, Politicians, Senior Police Officers, Newspaper Editors, Executives of large companies, Military Chiefs, University lecturers, School Headmasters ect are female?"

More and more all the time, is the answer. There's a long way to go, but women are catching up fast. I speak now from personal experience - an ex-colleague of mine was the very first female chemical engineer hired by Boots the chemists, ever. She started in 1986. Ninety EIGHTY six!!!

Yet when I started my degree, fully one third of the undergraduate intake on chemical engineering was female. More men dropped out than women, so the proportion graduating was even higher. One of the two firsts awarded in the year I graduated went to a woman. Engineering is a heavily male-dominated profession, but in the last fifteen years the rate of uptake of female engineers has been phenomenal.

As for your list of jobs - who is the most famous QC/judge in the UK? A woman. Politicians? We elected a woman Prime Minister 24 years ago. Senior Police Officers? You got me. Then again, you could say the same thing about race as gender in the police force - they're not a fair comparison, being so obviously back in the dark ages. Newspaper editors? The single most influential paper in this country is edited by a woman. Company execs? Same problem as engineers - the women are there, they're just not that far up the ladder yet. Ask again in ten years. Military chiefs? Come on - give women credit. They're FAR too intelligent to put themselves in harm's way when there are plenty of men willing to do their dirty work. University lecturers? Depends on subject. Engineering and science are all I have experience of, and that is fifteen years or more out of date and not representative in the first place. Can't help you. Teachers/headmasters? Now there's a profession where in my experience women are, if anything, heavily OVERrepresented, unless the schools you're talking about are the ones you have to pay to get into. Those have pretty much exclusively conservative customers, and they know which side their bread's buttered.

"Our society is systematically geared up toward the benefit of men."

How? Give me a concrete example. I've bored people rigid with my counter-examples already, come on, just ONE example of how society is "systematically geared up" toward my benefit to the detriment of women, rather than the other way round, because I'm sorry, I just can't see it.



Next: "(I assume in asking this that like me you are a WASP)"

Actually I'm a white, Anglo-Saxon self-obsessed, cultured, kitesurfer. Which by my reckoning makes me a wassock, but there you go.

"If you could change the group in society that you occupy (perhaps to become a women, or in a different ethnic grouping) would you do so in order to reap the benefits of the law being skewed in your favour?"

Excellent question.

"I rather guess that if you are as intelligent as you seem to be to me, then your answer will be an un-eqivocal "NO" because I a sure that you recognise that overall in life, if you are white and male in the UK then you get the best deal."

Good, but no cigar. My answer IS a "no", but it's very much an equivocal one.

A similar question would be "would you prefer to live in Sweden/the USA/Switzerland than the UK?". I'd look at the positives - better healthcare, beautiful women, fantastic scenery, stable moderate government/low taxes, high standard of living, wild variety of landscapes in a single country, good sitcoms/richest economy in the world, neutrality, Alps. Then the negatives - high suicide rate, high taxes, hypobloodythermia/the two party system, the death penalty, the NRA, the Bible Belt, practically everything on the TV except the half dozen good sitcoms/cuckoo clocks.

And I'd conclude that, all things considered, I'd like to stay as I am. Call it natural conservatism - most people are like that. How else do you explain the bizarre spectacle of the hordes of Iraqis and Afghans who had made it to the UK packing up and going home at the first chance? There was no rational viewpoint by which their lives would be better if they went home - but go home they did, happily. People just want life to be the way it has always been, EVEN IF the way it has always been is much, much worse than it could be. Humans are stupid that way, which is one of the reasons why, pace Bluesshark, we're all serfs.

And the thing is, even though the law is demonstrably skewed in women's favour at every level - I'd still rather be a bloke. But here's the thing - every single bloke I know would rather be a bloke. And every single woman I know would rather be a woman. In the words of Garth Algar - we fear change.

Hope that answers your questions.

H.

"The news about the new male contraceptive should make Hoo very happy indeed as it will make men able to take total responsibility for themselves and their sperm without fear of a woman lying to them and 'destroying their lives'."

You've misread me, I'm afraid. I am happy this drug has been developed. But look at it objectively. Women have had control over their fertility for half a century. And the lesson of this new drug is - they're not to be trusted.

The subtext of the development of this drug is:

"Hey guys! There are a half dozen ways a woman can stop you from becoming a father - but you can't trust them to use ANY of them. So we've worked for years and spent billions, just so women don't have worry their pretty little heads about any of that complicated contraceptive stuff. Now the responsibility really is ALL YOURS! Isn't that great?"

I'm honestly curious why women aren't more annoyed at being infantilised in this way. Society and the law treats you like children, and you don't protest - you lap it up and ask for more! Weird.

I'm not suggesting, by the way, that there are swarms of women out there hatching Machiavellian plots to become pregnant. Heavens no - I don't credit them with the wit. No, I'm suggesting that in a country where sex education is mandatory, family planning advice is freely available and contraceptives are free at the point of use, most women are just too damn stupid to use them, and then turn around and blame the men involved for not ruining the only point at which they're involved in the process at all by having sex with a marigold glove instead of a woman.

H.

Hoo,

<>

You should speak to more women, it would seem. I don't know any women who view satisfying sex as a right.

If you were indeed as super-intelligent as you seem to think you are then you could not say something like 'the choice of whether condomless sex leads to pregnancy is the woman's, not the man's'. Because both people are equally responsible for putting that thing on.

Again, I don't know any woman who will have sex without a condom, even if they are on the pill.

I think that sex is a priviledge and not a right for everybody.

az

Hoo,

<>

Sadly, I haven't misread you at all. There is no 'lesson' of this new drug proving to men that women cannot be trusted. It is now a new option for men to take more responsibility if they want to. Like when women used to take the pill, even though many had some rather nasty side-effects.

<>

I'm honestly curious about your very unintelligent and insulting manner regarding women. Women have been protesting for years to obtain equal rights in the work place and various other rights.

We lap it up and ask for more? That is so beneath you. Maybe.

<>

Happily, that is just your own very sad opinion. Happily most men do not think like you do. Happily most women are not what you make them out to be.

You say you respect women and then you totally insult them in a nasty and generalizing fashion.

I no longer believe you respect women at all.

az

Blues, that's funny! Problem is, Hoo *does* seem to have a problem, and that's sad.

>sex with a marigold glove<

Ah. The old 'sock on my cock' argument *finally* rears its ugly head. Wondered when we'd get there.

Oh my lordy lord lord.

I was pointed in this direction by Az (sorry, I know the policy we usually have about me never saying that, but this is sufficiently controversial and you've made your views clear enough), on the grounds that Hoo is being a mysogynist who hates all women. Naturally, being interested in Hoo, I followed.

Now to lay my background on the line. I am sixteen. I live in the UK. Apparently I am guilty in every court in the world for the double crime of not only being a stupid white male, but also being a stupid white male /youth/ - possibly the most maligned minority on the planet, no?

(What follows is a true case - my life, of course - that seems so obvious and stereotypical it's almost unbelievable)

Four months ago I partook in a teenage abortion. I was having sex with a girl once a week or so; I was worried about the fact that we weren't using condoms but she assured me that it was okay, that she was on the pill.
Then the abortion happened; most my friends found out and, of course, they all blamed me. Eek. Also, I swiftly found that besides being universally maligned, I had absolutely no say in whether there would be an abortion or not. I argued for, nearly everyone else against. Then she had the abortion. (At some point around here I tried to commit suicide.)
Then she blamed me for her swiftly declining mental condition - she had been a junkie on many things before and after I met her (I foolishly believed I could help), and then I found out from one of her friends that the abortion might not have even been real - that it's possible she just did it for attention. And now she wants me to sleep with her again - but she's got a long-term boyfriend.

So you can see why I'm going to be pushed towards Hoo's side here. Sorry for the life story.

Now; I'd hate to be labelled a mysogynistic woman-hater (why is it that if women hate men they're radical feminists, but if a man hates a woman he's a chauvinist pig scumbag?)

Hoo said "I think I can guess, and it's more of that pathetic apologising for being male again." I don't agree with the idea that all women merely want to trap a male into paying for them, but as the result of one of the latest generations, I'm constantly having to apologise for it. I'm sure it'll settle down in the next decade or two, but currently reverse-discrimination is rampant - is it really right that major companies should have minority quotas?

"I agree. And if she chooses to exercise that right, she must take responsibility...for it. If nobody else has a right to interfere with that decision, nobody else should have to suffer the consequences of it. Fair?" See my life story.
The lesson is - women aren't all out to get us. But if a woman accuses a man of rape, he DOES barely stand a chance of getting away from that allegation; just because there have been a tiny tiny percent of rape cases in the world, the rules for the rapists have been extended to most persons. You know how you first felt when you realised that America and the anti-terrorist squad could kick down your door and lock you up away from your friends and family for your entire life without any evidence, guilty until proven innocent? Well, in a situation where women's rights come to battle against men's, that's how it is.

Oh, dear, got a bit carried away and came across as a chauvinist pig scumbag. Just trying to be balanced. The ACTUAL lesson is - you're both right. Better balance it out a little - Hoo HAS said some remarkable stupid-seeming things - like that Mike Tyson raping that woman was only getting what he wanted, like women throughout the ages have been getting what THEY wanted. There.

az: allow me to explain something you obviously misunderstood.

"If you were indeed as super-intelligent as you seem to think you are then you could not say something like 'the choice of whether condomless sex leads to pregnancy is the woman's, not the man's'. Because both people are equally responsible for putting that thing on. "

CONDOMLESS sex need not lead to pregnancy. And regardless of your personal experience and what your friends choose to tell you about their sex lives, the fact remains that there are women out there who prefer sex *without* condoms. That you personally don't know of any is irrelevant. They're out there. I've met them, unfortunately.

The CHOICE of whether condomless sex leads to a child is *entirely* the woman's. And it is a choice - different varieties of pills, hormone implants, coils, diaphragms, morning after pills, blah blah the list goes on, right up to termination of pregnancy. All choices women have, and all choices that are completely beyond the control or even usually the influence of the man whose life they hold in their hands.

So men now have a choice. Woohoo. Excuse me if I don't crack open the bubbly. Finally, after fifty years in which women have had all these options available to them, fifty years in which they obviously haven't bothered actually engaging their brains at any stange and the abortion and teenage pregnancy rates in the UK and other western countries have soared, finally MEN are to be offered the chance to take back control.

Do I think it's a good thing? I think it's fantastic.

Do I think men will take on this new choice and exercise it responsibly, leading to the sudden and dramatic fall in the rate of unwanted pregnancies we SHOULD have seen after the introduction of the contraceptive pill?

No.

Because the vast majority of men are just as witless, irresponsible and shortsighted as the vast majority of women. And a good thing too, or the population of world a hundred years from now would be about the same as the current population of Mauritius, and we'd be the most endangered species about.

H.

Hoo,

To set the record straight, I thought Malaclypse would be interested in this thread because of his personal experience. I have not ever called you a mysogynist who hates all women. What I said was that I don't feel you respect women.

az

Since the early 1980s, groups opposed to abortion have attempted to document the existence of "post-abortion syndrome," which they claim has traits similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) demonstrated by some war veterans. In 1989, the American Psychological Association (APA) convened a panel of psychologists with extensive experience in this field to review the data. They reported that the studies with the most scientifically rigorous research designs consistently found no trace of "post-abortion syndrome" and furthermore, no such syndrome is scientifically or medically recognized.1

The panel concluded that "research with diverse samples, different measures of response, and different times of assessment have come to similar conclusions. The time of greatest distress is likely to be before the abortion. Severe negative reactions after abortions are rare and can best be understood in the framework of coping with normal life stress."2 While some women may experience sensations of regret, sadness or guilt after an abortion, the overwhelming responses are relief and happiness.3

In another study, researchers surveyed a national sample of 5,295 women, not all of whom had had abortions, and many of whom had abortions between 1979 and 1987, the time they were involved in the study. The researchers were able to learn about women's emotional well-being both before and after they had abortions. They concluded at the end of the eight-year study that the most important predictor of emotional well-being in post-abortion women was their well-being before the abortion. Women who had high self-esteem before an abortion would be most likely to have high self-esteem after an abortion, regardless of how many years passed since the abortion.4

Psychological responses to abortion must also be considered in comparison to the psychological impact of alternatives for resolving an unwanted pregnancy (adoption or becoming a parent). While there has been little scientific research about the psychological consequences of adoption, researchers speculate that it is likely "that the psychological risks for adoption are higher for women than those for abortion because they reflect different types of stress. Stress associated with abortion is acute stress, typically ending with the procedure. With adoption, as with unwanted childbearing, however, the stress may be chronic for women who continue to worry about the fate of the child."5


A

Hoo,

<>

No it is not! It is an equal choice between the man and the woman whether to have sex without a condom or not. End of discussion.

And of course I do know that condomless sex does not always necessarily lead to a pregnancy. Which was why I used the words 'may lead to' in another posting.

If you felt intimidated or thwarted by a woman asking you to have sex without a condom, well, that was your experience with certain women.

You have shown so much disrespect towards women here recently. It's quite appalling. And then you jokingly (?) say I am morphing into Andrew or Andrea Dworkin (couldn't make up your mind?) just because I am speaking my mind as a woman? How silly and childish.

Hey, I have been beaten, and raped, and hurt and various other ways abused by men in my life that you would probably think I should be some sort of man-hater by now. And before you make the same stupid jokey and unfeeling comment you made to Adele - that she should have known better the second time around - I was a child when all this happened.

I do certainly understand how abused women can fall into very low self-esteem patterns so that they find it hard to get out of abusive relationships. Happily this has never been my problem as an adult.

I do not colour all men with the same brush. I know that there are some men out there who are nasty. And yes, some women too. People are sometimes not at all nice.

But I've had some very good relationships and lots of long lasting friendships with both women and men.

I do not think that men are 'out there to use me'. Though you seem to hold this opinion of women.

Too bad for you.

az

"The news about the new male contraceptive should make Hoo very happy indeed as it will make men able to take total responsibility for themselves and their sperm without fear of a woman lying to them and 'destroying their lives'."

Quote Hoo
You've misread me, I'm afraid. I am happy this drug has been developed. But look at it objectively. Women have had control over their fertility for half a century. And the lesson of this new drug is - they're not to be trusted.

I always felt that the pill had been developed for women because there was an attitude from men in science (at that period in time) which basically equated to "bugger me, i am not sticking that crap in my body it is the womans problem". Of course, i am sure there was a much more scientific reason for it?

However, what you might call women having the monopoly on controlling the contraception method ie the pill, has been seen but nothing as a chore and health risk (DVTs, etc etc) for many women.

just to clarify as i missed off the quotes - only the first paragraph of text following quote Hoo was indeed doing so.

Hoo made some bizarre assertion that if *everyone* was responsible regarding contraception, the world would have the population of Mauritius, and humans would be endangered.
He (and many others) tend to judge by their own attitudes, and assume (a) recreational sex is *everyone's* most devout wish
(b) That nobody wants children!
When the pill became generally available, I found that my right as a girl (which I was then) to decline to have sex, was gone.
The guy's answer (often said with great fury) was something along the lines of: "Whaddareya? Frigid or something? You can get the pill, ya know."
My thoughts, which I didn't speak, were often something along the lines of 'No, I'm not frigid, mate, I am choosy. I don't have to rut like a stoat with every beery drongo I meet!'
Regarding (b) - don't judge everyone by yourself! People who want children and are in caring and genuine relationships, are in the majority in the world, peoples' bad experiences notwithstanding.

>> When the pill became generally available, I found that my right as a girl (which I was then) to decline to have sex, was gone.

>> The guy's answer (often said with great fury) was something along the lines of: "Whaddareya? Frigid or something? You can get the pill, ya know."

Your *right* to decline to have sex wasn't gone at all. (Indeed, I assume you still exercised it.) Your ability to use the risk of pregnancy as an *excuse*, rather than telling someone you didn't want to have sex with them might have been lessened, but that was all.

Certainly, being honest about your feelings might well carry more risks than being diplomatically dishonest, but that's not really an issue of rights as such. Besides honesty, I'd have thought there were various other possible softer refusals still usable even once the pill had arrived.

Well said Adele on both points.

Why be negative about all women/men because of your bad experiences with the opposite sexx Hoo/Adele.

Why bemoan the opposite sexxes attitude to contracption when there have always during both your lifetimes been options available to both of you.

OK you both have had bad times with relationships to one degree or another. Yeah you are both aware of how the opposite sexx's power/position/legal advantages can work in their favour, but face the facts it IS a world of "swings and round-a-bouts" you have advantages that the opposite sexx is envious of. You may not be aware of them because for the most part they have been there all your life like the nose on your face they are equally as difficult to see.

Vive la differance.

Hoo one final word. It all depends on how you do things. I have never seduced or chatted up a woman and not once have I had to ask for the privilide of dancing the mattress mambo, I have always been asked. Women may hope for, expect or even demand gratifying games of hide the sausage as a "right", but when it comes to getting it from the Badger it is always a privilidge.

Please excuse the idiosycratic spelling it is down to my poor typing and the very prudish filter on the system here. I also missed half of the last page because the filter censored them out. Someone must have posted a rude word or term.

Oops, one small slip and damn, here we are back in Shaft/bad gangster movie land again.