One in ten teenage girls has been forced to have sex, according to a recent CDC report. The perpetrators sometimes believe the sex was consensual, often because alcohol use leads to misreading of signals.
Every woman I know has received unwanted/inappropriate sexual attention. When I was a teenager and for some time before, there were multiple times that men exposed themselves to me while I walked my dog. It stopped being shocking but was always creepy and scary.
Fraternity brothers from Yale once marched through campus changing “No means yes! Yes means anal!”
We need to teach boys that “manliness” includes respecting women, not controlling them; we also need to teach them to take responsibility for where they put their sperm.
Women are expected to prevent unwanted pregnancies which – to a point – makes sense, as they are the ones ultimately responsible for the child, depending on how much the father steps up (and many do).
But look at it this way: EVERY SINGLE unwanted pregnancy is caused by a man ejaculating irresponsibly. And women too often deal with the consequences alone.
Want to put an end to abortion? Teach boys and men how to have real relationships and to be responsible for their sperm. Why is this also a men’s issue?
· Women are capable of becoming pregnant about 24 hours a month. This time period is difficult to predict.
· Healthy sperm is ALWAYS fertile, and can live for 5 days inside a woman.
· Ovulation is involuntary. Ejaculation can be controlled and directed.
· Birth control for women can be hard to access and hard to use. It requires a prescription, parental consent in some cases, and your employer can refuse to cover it on your insurance plan. And Clarence Thomas is hinting that the Supreme Court should re-examine our right to it.
· Hormonal birth control comes with side effects, such as depression, fatigue, blood clots, weight gain, bloating, and high blood pressure. And you mustn’t forget to take it!
· IUDs can cause significant increases in bleeding and cramps.
· By contrast, birth control for men is easy to access and easy to use. To sum it up: use a condom. You can buy them anywhere, even on Amazon, for about 50 cents a pop.
· Condoms are 98% effective at preventing pregnancy, AND they prevent STD transmission. Women’s birth control doesn’t.
According to men who use condoms regularly, they make very little difference in terms of pleasure, once they find the right type and are used to them. Don’t like condoms? Get a vasectomy – they’re safe, effective, and 90-95% reversible, and are simpler and less risky than tubal ligations.
Here’s the shocker: Men cause all unwanted pregnancies. Women have no control over when they ovulate. Men have pretty much total control over WHERE they ejaculate.
So – all women need to do is insist a man wear a condom, right? But why does she even need to ask? The gentlemanly thing to do is to have one and use it. But sometimes women need to not only ask, but resist pressure to have sex without a condom. In some cultures it’s considered a conquest to get a woman to have sex without one. Who raised these men?
Abstinence programs don’t work well, and often turn teens loose to deal with raging hormones and with no information about birth control and STDs (syphilis is rising in that population, by the way). And abortion bans don’t work; they may not even lower the rate of abortions and they certainly make them more dangerous, and cause more maternal deaths.
Want to end abortion? Here’s what we need to do:
1. Teach boys to respect girls and women. Model this in your own relationships.
2. Teach adolescents that, if they want to have sex, they must care about their partner and figure out how not to make a baby before they’re ready to raise one. Tell them how and that you’ll help with this.
3. Talk to kids about sex early and often: that it’s natural, should involve communication and pleasure for both parties, and that it comes with responsibilities: both emotional and physical. Tell them it’s best to wait until marriage if that’s your belief, but don’t make them afraid to talk to you, and teach them about condoms in case they slip, as so many do.
4. Talk to boys about ejaculating responsibly – into a condom until they’re ready to be responsible for a child. Make free condoms available at high schools; this doesn’t increase the rate of teen sex. It just decreases the rates of pregnancy and STDs.
I hate the term “toxic masculinity”, but the ideal of masculinity touted by locker room talk and porn (from which most boys say they learn about sex) is toxic TO boys; it bases masculinity on sexual conquest and emotional suppression. Boys grow up in a “man box”, where any but the acceptable emotions -happiness and anger – are walled off.
Sex education must go beyond plumbing and “no means no”; kids need to learn about healthy (and sober) relationships. Boys report they actually prefer sex with someone they care about, but the public face of masculinity too often focuses on multiple, disposable partners.
We need to see and love our boys, and to teach them to be the best men they can be; this includes being responsible for their sperm.
To say you’re against abortion without addressing these issues rings hollow.
Diane Miessler, Nevada City
Discovered on: 2023-04-26 07:00:00
Source: Ideas & Opinions – Diane Miessler: Want to end abortion? Let’s teach our bo…
