Beware of Wolves In Men's Clothing

A few days back, I heard a man on CNN talking with Soledad O'Brian about so-called "men's rights" with respect to pregnancy. I was rushing around trying to get ready for work, so I only caught snippets from the program. From what I gather, the man was discussing a scenario in which a man impregnates a woman, and the woman wants to carry the fetus to term and keep the child, while the man does not want her to do so. He doesn't want to have a child, so he doesn't want her to have one either. Sounds a little juvenile, doesn't it?

According to the man, allowing the woman to keep the child, where the man who had impregnated her did not want to be a "father," would be an infringement upon the so-called "men's rights" of the impregnator. To protect the impregnator's rights, the man argued that the woman should be forced to both (1) carry the fetus to term and (2) give up the child, upon its birth, for adoption. This takes infringement on reproductive rights to a whole new level. It's not enough to force women to carry a baby to term, and deny women rights to abortions in South Dakota. No! Now, some men want to force women to give up the baby as well so that their male consciences can be eased in some way!

Never mind the fact that despite adoption, the man in this scenario would still be a father. He would be a father of a child who had been adopted and to whom he did not legally owe financial responsibilities, but a father of a child nonetheless. That my friends - money - is the crux of it in my humble opinion. This jackass wants to be able to have sex sans risk. He's figured out that birth control is not 100% effective, so now he wants a guarantee that he will not have to pay for the consequences of his ejaculations for the next 18 years of his life. This would be fine, except that his guarantee comes at the expense of a woman's bodily integrity, not to mention the well-being of future children.

In addition to being completely and utterly BONKERS, and riddled with logical flaws, this argument is based on an overreaching sense of male entitlement and a dehumanizing and utilitarian view of women. It would be quaint and pitiable that this man thinks of women as disembodied wombs that should be forced to incubate a fetus against their will, as well as stripped of their biological rights to motherhood according to the whims of men, if it wasn't so damn scary. How is it that he didn't get the memo that the "Handmaid's Tale" is a dark and twisted distopia? Distopias are visions of the future that society should not want to happen. That book was published in 1986 (shocking for us 80's babies) but that is twenty years ago!

The feminine mystiqe has long since been thoroughly demystified, yet still, to this day, basic conceptions of gender equality continue to elude the masses. Between the persistant signs of gender inequality, the war in Iraq, mad cow disease resurfacing again (the result of turning herbivores into unwilling cannibals!), President Bush, and everyone and their mother running around trying to build nuclear weapons, I feel increasingly as if the world is going to hell in a handbasket. (Where does that phrase come from?) Somebody, help.

Here's a solution that this man clearly overlooked in his demented rationalization for risk free sex: Don't have sex. Pretty simple. Or alternatively, if you feel the need to ejaculate, do it in your hand and not near a woman's vagina. The funny thing about sex is that it has a high propensity to create zygotes, which develope into embryos, which turn into fetuses, which after 9 months pop out of the birth canal as miniture little humans. You can't send them back, and the truth is that by engaging in sex, you created them. The audacity of this man, who doesn't want to take honest responsibility for the consequences of his actions, is astounding. That he would add insult to injury by then trying to control and dictate the life decisions of the women who might be so unfortunate as to enounter his sperm is incredible.

Thank the Goddess he went on CNN and blithered about all of this nonsense in front of the cameras. At least now, women know what he looks like (sorry I don't have his name), and can avoid sex with him at all costs. Ladies, beware.