My sexy GGG husband and I fuck a “good friend” semiregularly. He’s hot, young, and game to fuck about every other week. We started out wearing condoms, but we’ve had the safe-sex conversation and our good friend isn’t banging anyone else, so we’ve moved to condom-free sex. A month ago, we had a hot threesome. Our good friend fucked me, but came on my tits. My husband fucked me, too—that night, the day before, the day after. Now I find out I’m pregnant. I’m 99 percent sure that it’s my husband’s, but a tiny part of me worries. What are the chances that it’s my sexy friend’s child and not my husband’s? Without our good friend coming inside me? And with all the semen left in me by my husband? Could our “other” sex partner’s pre-come get me pregnant? Please tell me it’s probably my husband’s! I’m freaking out!
Pregnant In Threesome
It’s probably your husband’s, PIT, but…
Pre-come can contain “live, viable, pregnancy-inducing sperm,” says Dr. Joel Maurer, assistant professor in OB/GYN and dean of admissions for the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. “Most [studies have found] that it contains very little, if any, sperm,” says Dr. Maurer, but the possible presence of those live, viable, pregnancy-inducing sperm cells means it could be your good friend’s child, not your husband’s.
It’s also why many—including Dr. Maurer—regard “pulling out” as an ineffective birth-control method.
“For every 100 women who use withdrawal correctly, four will become pregnant every year—this number jumps to 27 if not used correctly,” says Dr. Maurer. (For every 100 women who use condoms correctly, two will become pregnant, 18 if they’re using condoms incorrectly, which is why some argue that withdrawal is nearly as effective as condoms.)
Backing up: Pre-come is produced by the Cowper’s gland and some other gland whose name I can never remember, PIT, while sperm cells are produced in the nuts. Sperm doesn’t get mixed up in the seminal fluid—produced by the prostate and a couple of other glands whose names escape me—until the guy starts to ejaculate. So if your good friend didn’t have an orgasm shortly before he fucked you and he didn’t come inside you and there were no stray swimmers in his pre-come for some other reason, odds are slim that the baby is his. It’s possible, PIT, but nowhere near probable.
“A paternity test after delivery of the child is the safest advice I can give should it remain an important issue to her and her husband,” says Dr. Maurer. “An amniocentesis can make this ‘diagnosis’ before delivery, but the procedure comes with a small risk of pregnancy loss. As such, most doctors would consider it unethical to perform amniocentesis for the sole purpose of paternity testing without a coexisting medical reason.”
To all the other nonmonogamous straight couples out there: Not using condoms with your other is fucking stupid. Using condoms with others is important not just to prevent disease but, if your other is a dude, to prevent paternity scares like the one PIT is having. And you should be using condoms with your other, male or female, regardless of safe-sex conversations or assurances that your other isn’t banging anyone else. Unless your other lives in a cage in your basement—very hot, not very practical—you have no way of knowing for sure that your other doesn’t have other others.
After an impromptu sex session that left me feeling sleepy and sappy, my partner, who typically feels sleepy and sappy herself after sex, texted someone! The fury that arose within me could not be contained! Neither the text message itself nor its recipient were the issue (it was to a coworker about a work matter), the issue was that she couldn’t wait a few minutes to hug and kiss and say “that was hot” before sending a text?!? She thinks I’m overreacting and blames it on me being premenstrual. She has not apologized. How does she not get it? Isn’t post-sex texting tacky?
Wasn’t That Fucked?
Post-sex texting is tacky, WTF, and it’s thoughtless. I can understand why you were annoyed. I can also understand why your girlfriend has refused to apologize. If one ill-timed text sent your panties so far up your crack that it unleashed a “fury that could not be contained”—if you raged at your girlfriend for being uncharacteristically inconsiderate (it sounds like she usually makes with the postcoital hugs, kisses, compliments, etc.)—then yours was the greater offense.
Don’t get me wrong: Your girlfriend owes you an apology. But you owe her a bigger one, WTF, and yours should come first.
I’m a submissive gay man. All anal sex guides stress that when done right, anal sex should cause no pain. But what if I want pain? Over three years, my boyfriend and I have proceeded from having lots of anal foreplay to lube-it-up-and-stick-it-in. I love it, and once it stops hurting, as it always does after a while, I have amazing orgasms. So does he. There’s a definite line between the arousing kind of pain and too much pain. But that line has moved closer to more intense pain, and I’m worried about injury. Then again, we’re not sticking progressively bigger objects up my ass, just the same object with less foreplay. Is this risky?
Boy Used To Taking
It depends, BUTT.
You can enjoy lube-it-up-and-stick-it-in anal without incurring too great a risk of injury so long as your boyfriend isn’t shoving his entire dick up your ass in one thrust. If he’s pushing his dick in you gradually but firmly, giving your poor butt a chance to relax and adjust as he “forces” his way in, then you’ll probably be okay. (Probably is the word of the day.)
That said, BUTT, while it’s a fine thing to enjoy a little pain during sex—or “sensation play,” as the kinksters have taken to calling it—making your asshole the focus of erotic pain isn’t a sensational idea. Anal fissures and tears take forever to heal, and even a small one can put your ass out of commission for months. A big one can put your ass out of commission for years.
There are plenty of ways your boyfriend can make you hurt during anal without brutalizing your hole. He can slap your ass, yank on a pair of tit clamps, pull your hair, crank up the juice on an e-stim unit. You’ve got nerve endings all over your body, not just in and around your hole.
I’m a gay man in my 20s. While I love reading your advice for red-state kinksters, straight married folks, and lesbians with hymens, I’m wondering where the gay has gone. Can we get a column or two with an assortment of questions addressing the problems facing gay men in their 20s? Something for gay boys at that stage of life that falls between “it gets better” and “it gets domestic”?
Feeling Left Out
Happy to—hit me with some Qs, gay boys, and I’ll dedicate a couple of columns to your issues and tissues.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
@24 – thanks for the suggestion! The docs did give me a nitroglycerin cream (it had to be made up out of heart pills by a pharmacist because there isn’t apparently a product on the market that is low dose enough – they gave me 0.5% – it’s supposed to be 0.2% so they just said use very very little) but the headaches are breathtaking, and even if I get past that after a few days of use they are always kind of still there, just not as painful, more of a constantly disoriented feeling. I’ve used it for a month at a time before, no help so I stopped. The doctor I talked to about it said the headaches were a big problem and didn’t really push use of it or seem to think it helped, but maybe I need to talk to a real compounding pharmacist about it (the place I got it from clearly hadn’t made it often).
@49 mydriasis,
Because I am a Marion Chesney fan (and a History buff in general), my time scale would be pre and during the age of antibiotics. If you wish to get your mad on, do so with all of humanity for squandering the precious resource of antibiotics with trivial overuse and underdevelopment of new antibiotics. Antiviral agents are less overused because of their limited scope (vaccines) and cost (anti-HIV drugs).
In North America the older generations are a majority, that is not the case elsewhere, so it isn’t all our fault.
Peace.
@ 51: GREAT Advice: “Unwavering support. No matter what your children have your love and care; don’t let your bitterness towards your CPOS husband enter your relationship with your children. Give your children a positive role model by doing your best, without overcompensating, during a difficult period of your life.”
VERY Wise. My brother and his wife divorced not too long ago, and to all our amazement, despite the relative acrimony between my brother and my sister-in-law, they *never* let it affect how their two kids (boy and girl) were loved by either of them. Their parents stepped up, dealt with this like true adults who love their children, but just happened to fall out of love themselves. It still amazes me that neither my nephew or niece ever had a bad time of it leading up to the divorce.
I even said to my brother one time, “I don’t want to pry or anything, but I just wanted to say that you and Beth are really doing something right, because Nick (nephew) and Taylor (niece) have no behavioral, etc. problems with the transition.
That was because their parents were honest, and they handled it all as best as they could, while never letting the kids feel responsible in any way about why their parents broke up.
Amazing. It can be done: you just want to want it enough out of overall, unconditional love for your children. Nice piece, Married In MA.
ok, my bad.. when i was studying biology in the late 90’s this was a popular theory, it appears however, my own observations aside, that the theory of paternal resemblance has since been refuted, next time i’ll check my sources..
Hi I was @7, my comment was pulled as “spam.” There is one jerky complainy dude here that doesn’t like that I sign my comments with my blog address. A TON of other people has said they are happy to hear from me. I a regular person engaging with others, not a automatic machine selling, like, asian brides or something. Can we reconsider? Here is what I wrote:
–I think we’re, like, seconds away from people texting during sex. Although if the texts are the same as regular ol’ during-sex talk, I’m predicting many text variations of “Oh my God, I’m gonna come.” Soon after shortened to OMGIGC.
jill
http://inbedwithmarriedwomen.blogspot.co…
I think we’re, like, seconds away from people texting during sex. Although if the texts are the same as regular ol’ during-sex talk, I’m predicting many text variations of “Oh my God, I’m gonna come.” Soon after shortened to OMGIGC.
I think we’re, like, seconds away from people texting during sex. Although if the texts are the same as regular ol’ during-sex talk, I’m predicting many text variations of “Oh my God, I’m gonna come.” Soon after shortened to OMGIGC.
ps. there, happy now?
@52 – yeargh, glyceryl trinitrate is nitroglycerin. Maybe you just built up a tolerance? Or it doesn’t work in all people? Just using vaseline or something I found to be as effective, which was not very. Ah well.
Not using condoms with a FWB-third seems like a calculated risk to me – the kind of calculated risk we all take in order to do things we think are fun, or hot, or worthwhile. For my part, sex without condoms is so much better that I’m willing to take certain risks for it, within reason.
Within reason.
One of the things I won’t do is rely on withdrawal for birth control. So, uh… what the fuck, PIT? You don’t think maybe that was kind of a stupid-ass thing to do? And a stupid-ass thing for your husband and your boyfriend to do?
Get a paternity test after the kid is born. If you know that having your boyfriend’s kid would just fucking detonate your lives, get the amnio and go from there. I guess if you really think that you can’t take the risk of having your boyfriend’s kid without horrendous divorce and resentment and related consequences that would make life miserable for the child, you could get an abortion. No kid should be unwanted; that’s no way to grow up. But damn, that seems like a stupid fucking last resort to me.
@53
I think you may be confused…. drug resistant STIs are largely caused by antibiotic treatment… of STIs. Though you could make a case that people treating their strep throat with antibiotics could very very indirectly increase the likelihood of drug resistant STIs…. I think that’s a tiny contribution.
The period you’re referring to: post penicillin, pre HIV led meant way less effort into avoiding STI contraction. If you look at the people who were at their STI-swapping prime during those decades, they were largely baby boomers.
That’s all.
It’s not all your fault, but mostly.
Don’t worry, my generation will fuck something up too.
@ Married
My snark was in response to snark. It wasn’t really meant to be directed towards you. Nothing makes my skin crawl like people who complain about condoms or call them ‘icky’. Do you know what’s icky?
This: http://www.avert.org/media/photos/syphil… is icky. What’s ‘cumbersome’ is dying of AIDS.
Those wacky generational differences…
“Unless there is going to be some obvious indicator that this isn’t your husbands kid (red hair, different race etc) I feel like you should just let it go.”
Um, isn’t that really the HUSBAND’s call. And the other man, who might be his father? And the kids? How nice if SHE let’s it go, but there are three other human beings with at least as much interest in the issue. More interest, in fact,
OT but funny:
http://www.disinfo.com/2011/12/rick-sant…
I second 31’s figging recommendation. It’s just about the lowest-risk butthurt you can dream up.
To everyone mentioning IUDs, they are actually not recommended to women with multiple partners, because multiple partners = higher risk of contracting an STD, and with a little string hanging from your uterus, a bacterial infection that would normally be just a minor inconvenience may turn into an infertility inducing pelvic inflammatory disease.
YES, YES, YES…DADT IS DEAD!!!
2 women share the traditional first kiss upon the return of the USS Oak Hill from a tour of duty!
Peace.
@62: “Nothing makes my skin crawl like people who complain about condoms or call them ‘icky’. Do you know what’s icky?”
Self-righteous safe-sex zealots who harbor a secretly sex-negative side, and who seem unaware of their own neo-Puritan tendencies and are secretly pleased at other people’s venereal misfortune? Those are pretty icky, IMHO.
You’re basically saying that we’re not allowed to acknowledge reality, to wit: condoms make sex smell and taste bad. They turn PIV into an experience comparable to eating dinner after a Novocaine injection. They make men lose their erections, and because of that, generally encourage a rushed, half-felt attitude towards the sexual act. They’re unpleasant, malodorous, and can come damn near to ruining sex.
They’re ALSO a very good (though far from perfect) means of preventing STD transmission. And you know what? Admitting everything in my previous paragraph doesn’t change that. It doesn’t make condoms stop working to acknowledge that they suck, and make sex less fun and less pleasurable. It doesn’t cost us anything to acknowledge that men’s feelings, men’s pleasure, men’s experiences are valid. Denying reality doesn’t make men wear condoms; it makes them suspect that safe-sex advocates are lying to them.
(And in fact, safe-sex advocates aren’t 100% honest about risks, partly because they’re afraid that if men realized how much lower the rates of FTM HIV transmission are vs. MTF HIV transmission, they’d start refusing to wear condoms and throw women to the wolves. So they play coy with the actual odds, making a guy think he has a 50% chance of getting AIDS from a blowjob when he’s more likely to get struck by lightning.)
So in the holiday spirit, I’d like to give a big, hearty “fuck you” to your sanctimonious self. People like you are a LIABILITY to the safe-sex “movement”, such as it is. Reading your self-congratulatory prose makes me want to have unsafe sex, and encourage my friends and colleagues to do the same, simply out of spite for your smug, patronizing tone. It makes one feel as though anything that’s the opposite of what you want, and what you advocate for, must be a good thing.
@68, you missed the point, which is that all that bitching and whining about condoms you just did is fucking obnoxious.
I do think it’s funny that you respond to being reminded that condoms are a a good thing by being a giant baby. A bloo bloo bloo, your warnings make me feel bad, watch me ~rebel~
You’re ridiculous.
edit: my response was to 68, not 69. 69: Thank you, I couldn’t agree more.
Actually, the point is that telling a person to shut up, and that his feelings and experiences are irrelevant, is a great way to breed hatred and destruction.
Oh, and also that most safe-sex advocates are fucking obnoxious, and their constant preaching makes people roll their eyes and ignore them.
And that maybe more people would use condoms if people like mydriasis were less self-congratulatory and sanctimonious, and more sympathetic and genuine.
And that people like mydriasis think they’re motivated by trying to do what’s right, but really it’s all about the pleasure of the high horse, though they’ll never admit it.
@51, @54: Thank you for the kind words. I am striving to approach this in the way that you advocate, and in fact, although separated, the dissolution of my marriage is not a foregone fact yet. We are trying to work it out.
What I was specifically seeking advice for was this situation: during his affair, my husband used our three children as a means to spend time with his — uh — mistress. They were, as Mr. Ven noted yesterday, an accessory to adultery. I am concerned about their reactions as they grow older and are better able to grasp the truth of the “playdates” etc. I am concerned about my older two children, especially, who are 11 and 13, and I think on the cusp of being able to understand exactly how their father used them. It’s disgusting, and I think it will be hurtful and confusing for them. Mr. Ven noted that he had been in a similar situation as a child and I was seeking his insight as to how he processed that knowledge as an adult. Did he discuss this with his parent? Was he asked for his forgiveness? Did he offer it? Is there anything I can do now or in the future to mitigate their pain when they realize this ugly truth?
To be clear, I am not trying to point this situation out to them or ruin their opinion of their father. I don’t want them to suffer any more than they have. But they are intelligent and observant, and they are already aware of the basic facts of the matter: their father had an affair and they know and have spent time with that woman and her children.
@quarter to three
Are you over the age of 50? Because most people I know under the age of 50 are safe-sex advocates. Most of them (us) won’t have sex with you if you are unwilling to play safe.
You are absolutely free to roll your eyes and expose yourself to as many women as will let you. It means not a thing to those who practice safe-sex, so therefore will never sleep with you.
Of course, that would be silly and stupid, but its your choice!
@51, @54: Thank you for the kind words. I am striving to approach this in the way that you advocate, and in fact, although separated, the dissolution of my marriage is not a foregone fact yet. We are trying to work it out.
What I was specifically seeking advice for was this situation: during his affair, my husband used our three children as a means to spend time with his — uh — mistress. They were, as Mr. Ven noted yesterday, an accessory to adultery. I am concerned about their reactions as they grow older and are better able to grasp the truth of the “playdates” etc. I am concerned about my older two children, especially, who are 11 and 13, and I think on the cusp of being able to understand exactly how their father used them. It’s disgusting, and I think it will be hurtful and confusing for them. Mr. Ven noted that he had been in a similar situation as a child and I was seeking his insight as to how he processed that knowledge as an adult. Did he discuss this with his parent? Was he asked for his forgiveness? Did he offer it? Is there anything I can do now or in the future to mitigate their pain when they realize this ugly truth?
To be clear, I am not trying to point this situation out to them or ruin their opinion of their father. I don’t want them to suffer any more than they have. But they are intelligent and observant, and they are already aware of the basic facts of the matter: their father had an affair and they know and have spent time with that woman and her children.
Ms Crinoline – Sorry to keep you in suspense; it was not deliberate. This is my first chance to get over here today. I almost explained, but I thought it would be too obvious, and therefore insulting. This is why there is only a vague rumpour that one person has ever solved any of the acrostics I’ve composed without assistance.
Of famous Gertrudes, I’m quite sure Hamlet’s mother would make the top five, if not the top three. And I expect that, of all her lines, the one that most people will associate with her is (apologies to those who have heard or read it differently; there are variations):
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Wouldn’t that be a grand criterion for a regular Award?
Just for giggles, I’ll guess that the line people most forget was another of Gertrude’s is Sweets to the sweet(: farewell) from Ophelia’s funeral.
@76:
I don’t know whether I can answer your questions, as my parents’ marriage is intact, and to the best of my knowledge, neither one ever had an affair.
But my childhood best friend’s mother had an affair with the husband of the family that were family friends and the kids were often around for cover, and one of my oldest and dearest friend’s ex-husband had an affair with a woman who worked for him and who had cozied up to the young son, establishing a friendship. Still another close friend had a husband who used his time driving the carpool to have phone conversations with his mistress, assuming either that the kids were too busy talking with each other to pay attention to his phone conversation or that the talk went right over the kid’s heads.
What ultimately seemed to matter was the direction the affair took after it was discovered.
My friend’s mom married the family friend, and the two have now been married over 30 years. The daughter went to live with her mom and new stepfather, as her dad was irresponsible (part of the reason for the mother’s marital discontent to begin with). She very quickly got past any feeling of having been used and came around to thinking that her mother and step-father were meant to be. She was 12-14 when the affair was going on, btw.
The girls whose dad had talked to his mistress when they were in the car felt guilty at having picked up on something weird going on that they didn’t report to their mom at the time. They also disliked the mistress and their father who made as clean a getaway from his role of husband and FATHER as he could with the divorce. It wasn’t until he broke up with that woman that the father-daughter relationship began to repair itself. But now they get along well with him and really like his current girlfriend. They adore their mother’s second husband. They were 8-9 and 11-12 when this was going on, btw.
Finally, the boy whose father’s girlfriend had insinuated herself into the family and especially had buddied up with the boy 11-14 or thereabouts was the most hurt. He felt humiliated and betrayed, lied to, and manipulated. He was probably as badly hurt as the wife, and felt betrayed by both his father and the girlfriend. He was furious with his father, and refused to have anything much to do with him. But time passed (he is about to turn 18), his dad didn’t press but stayed a presence, and the dad and girlfriend ultimately broke up. Now the son and his father get along much better. The son likes dad’s new girlfriend just fine and loves mom’s boyfriend.
Kids heal. They have an enormous capacity for love and forgiveness and they also feel a slight more than adults do!
Take the high road–they’ll be able to see for themselves how their dad used them–or maybe they’ll see it as something else, more like they were incidental to his affair. Their natural desire will probably be to protect you, so if you appear to hate this woman and to blame her, they will, too.
Ms Sad – Sorry to be so late, but paperwork that usually takes less than an hour for me on a Wednesday took over six!
My case is a bit bizarre. My father occasionally used to take me away for weekends for several years (about ages 6-11) in the interest of a perfectly respectable pursuit. That I’d be left alone in hotel rooms on Saturday nights never bothered me. Or being taken to Sunday dinner in someone’s home and left alone in the library for nearly an hour gave me a good chance to catch up on my reading.
By the time a bit later on that I figured out what had been going on, my parents had found common cause in a new interest – getting me into conversion therapy against my will. Defeating conversion therapy took most of my effort and energy for some time. By then I’d become disenchanted with both of them. As my mother, who went in for the other two As (alcohol and abuse), was rather the primary mover in the therapy, I basically just declared a pox on both their houses and never said a thing.
It took them ten years more to separate and five after that to divorce. My father has never said anything directly or indirectly. My mother eventually would throw out hints and seem to wish that somebody else would bring the subject up or mention particulars, but I never felt moved to oblige her. Still, at least now, I have limited contact with either of them, and on my own terms, so that it’s all very civil.
It does, though, make for interesting hearing. It was strange listening to the Podcast yesterday. Hearing Mr Savage tell the college student with the homophobic and manipulative family to love them struck the alien note that concept always has.
Sorry if this post seems dreary. But at least for some time now I’ve only had to engage with their better selves and in very limited quantities, so that I actually wouldn’t have anything differently.
In most, maybe all, States there is a presumption that a child born during a marriage is the child of the husband.
The issue would only arise if the ‘real’ father sued to see the kid and pay support.
Legally and morally the child would be the husbands and that should be that- unless the baby comes out like Earl Junior in ‘My Name Is Earl.’
Praise the Lord that WTF is a lesbian as it takes away any possibility of my being in a relationship with that really incredibly melodramatic bitch. Tacky sure. But the fury within me could not be contained? Really scary.
For BUTT I have a suggestion. Use piping hot enemas and then follow it with capsaicin and hot sauce. If that is not enough then oxygen delivered by a long thin tube up your butt will cause so much pain you will be rolling around in agony.
@PIT: sperm can live in the vagina for up to a week or more, so… If you had unprotected sex with the friend any time that month (the month you ovulated and became pregnant) it could be his child.
@79 vennominion,
I know it is none of my doing, but I wanted to say I’m sorry for what happened to you vis a vis conversion. Here’s to a future where that kind of therapy may not exist.
Peace.
WTF– The problem with expressing all that fury, however justified, is that it puts all the attention on you when, if you think about it, it’s in your best interests to want to know what’s going on with her. She used to get sleepy and sappy after sex. That time she didn’t. What’s up with that? Is it a one-time aberration? The start of a new trend? Did she not come? Is she falling out of love? If she weren’t now on the defensive, she could feel free to explore those questions with you. If you weren’t calling her tacky (and she was tacky), she could talk to you about how she felt. If you weren’t demanding an apology, you could find out.
So now you have to figure out what’s more important to you. Do you want that apology, or do you want to find out what would possess her to feel so removed from sex with you that she’s distracted seconds after? Do you want her to feel strongarmed into cuddling despite not really wanting to, or do you want her to share that in-the-moment feeling?
At the risk of getting all touchy-feely on you, do you want to be happy or right?
@30, 36, 37, 55: The paper supporting this assertion referred to appearance at age 1, not at birth, and was a brief article in “Nature”:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v37…
(Christenfeld & Hill, Nature, v. 378, p.669, ’95)
and the most recent study I found backed this up for toddlers:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art…
(Alvergne et al., Evolution & Human Behavior, v.18, pp.135-144, ’07)
But this isn’t my area of study. Did you find anything more recent that puts this in doubt?
Dear Auntie G
You’ve just proven that you can not read, understand what you read, count, or have faulty short term memory. To begin with, snarky is a perfectly legitimate english word in and of itself. The only Latin used was Latin enumeration (counting for the illiterate).
Second, if you are going to quote someone, use the full quote. “Once they eliminated condoms, just what can the men do to prevent a pregnancy. Limit the sex to only oral and anal?” Perhaps I should have included hand jobs as well. To the best of my knowledge the only effective male birth control method is a radical vasectomy (something more invasive than just snip, snip). Every other method is based on the female. Are you so paternalistic that you would require male supervision of the female forms of birth control (insertion of the IUD or female condom; use of a spermicide, the pill, morning after pill; the rhythm method; checking the consistency of vaginal mucus; did I leave anything out?). I can understand the menstrual cycle being relevant to a discussion on how to avoid pregnancy, but just how is the human gestation period relevant to that discussion (and nine months is such a crude and imprecise approximation). Men (who are scum) can simply walk away from a pregnancy (the consequences of that come later). Pregnant women can’t just walk away. So yes, women, more so than men, have a primary and vested interest in avoiding pregnancy.
Lastly, your post at @43 referenced your own post @18. From your use of invective and name calling I would take you to be a typical loathsome, neofascist, fundamentalist, republican. (I can engage in name calling with the best of them, but that distracts from reasoned discourse)
Merry Xmas, happy Hanukkah, yule and every other greeting appropriate to the winter solitice.
Excuse me, I left out abortion, forced miscarriages, and infanticide as things men can do to deal with an unwanted pregnancy.
I should also have referenced your post @42.
Beth R
In a fair world yes, but in the real world the consequences of any pregnancy are greatest for the woman. There are still places in the world where a pregnancy (for medical reasons i.e. obstetrical death) is a potential death sentence for the mother.
“Unless your other lives in a cage in your basement—very hot, not very practical—you have no way of knowing for sure that your other doesn’t have other others.”
Same can be told of your “regular” partner, though. They can definitely cheat on you. It becomes a matter of trusting them not to, and that if they do they’ll use condoms THEN. Otherwise, use condoms for every one then (or other forms or protection when no penis is involved).
I find it more stupid that they had the safe sex talk and presumably all the tests that go with it, stopped using condoms, and never thought about pregnancy. Either she didn’t want to get pregnant and should have used birth control (which doesn’t have to be condoms. Pills, IUDs, diaphram, implants, there are LOTS of birth control options that leave you fluid bonded) or she was trying with her husband and should have used condoms with her other, or stuck to non-reproductive sex.
Also, I’m not sure why it matters whose semen produced the baby. Presumably you’ll raise the kid with your husband so it will be his kid. I guess it might matter to the other, but I’m not sure why it matters to you. I mean either way you’re sure it’s your kid, after all.
@Mr Ven, I’ll add my name to the list of those who are saddened by your parents’ forcing you to submit to conversion therapy. I’m glad you defeated it, and I am with those who hope that this kind of therapy will eventually end.
@80- Noooooo! Forcing oxygen, or any kind of gas, into your rectum is a better way of making yourself leak feces for the rest of your life (or bleed to death, for that matter)then anything the letter-writer wrote in about. Seriously, think about the properties of a gas. Gases expand. The less space they are given to expand in, the greater the pressure. Inserting a gas is like inserting a toy that neither you nor anyone else has any control over, or any idea what it’s going to do.
77 Vennominon– I’m generally pretty up on my Hamlet, but the only Gertrude that came to mind when I saw comment 10 was Gertrude Stein. (I also thought of a distant cousin’s aunt.) In the play, I usually think of her as the Queen. To avoid future confusion, I suggest the “Doth Protest Too Much Award.”
@66 – they debunked that. Turns out it’s fine.
Re: Texting after sex– I think the vast number of difficulties in the sex department come from the confusion over what’s physical, what’s a choice, and what’s a tendency towards one or the other with the possibility of overcoming the tendency.
For a lot of us (me definitely), there’s something about sex that gives me that affectionate, sappy, sentimental, sleepy, stupid, warm feeling. I don’t know the science explaining it, but I’m convinced that there’s something physical behind it, that it’s not just a habit or something culturally induced. Of course, I could jump up and send a text if I had to, but the desire to strikes me as particularly unlikely.
So it occupies a middle ground between something I can’t help and something I can. If I had a partner like WTF’s girlfriend who didn’t feel the same way, I’d be confused too.
Hey all, happy longnight!
@61 mydriasis,
Your examples in particular are, of course, correct, but in terms of antibiotic resistance in general, not so much. I won’t waste text here when a quick trip to wikipedia’s entry on antibiotic resistan… will work beautifully. If the only source of antibiotic exposure for selecting resistant strains of bacteria were inside of humans, the negligent overuse of antibiotics would be bad enough. That doesn’t include the vast quantities released into the environment via animal feed for cattle and other livestock, all of which provide developmental pools to originate the transmissible genetic elements that can become combined in the “super bug” MDR bacteria, like the strain cultured from the throat of a professional sex worker in Japan.
And, for the record, I will set my pre-antibiotic mean at 1900, and the age of antibiotics starting in 1940. The potential loss of antibiotics for the prevention and cure of human disease should be an issue that terrifies us all, our possible junk rot notwithstanding. Add to this problem the vaccination dodgers and you end up with the huge headaches facing public health officials in a time when budgets are dropping, and politicians are willfully ignorant.
Peace.
@93 (Crinoline);
that sappy, sleepy, warm feeling is caused by a huge release of oxytocin. Interestingly, even though the body makes and releases oxytocin at orgasm, the levels of it are higher if the orgasm is reached with another person present–even if the orgasm is achieved through self-stimulation.
Messrs Married/Ank – Thank you both. It would be an improvement for the world, certainly. I do feel a little sorry on Ms Sad’s behalf that it’s not a history with a more uplifting moral, but at least she can take comfort in my having come through something on the same page as what her children are facing. I certainly wish them all the best, and think they may have better odds.
Mr. Ven:
I am also sorry that you were the victim of forced conversion harassment. And that you were used as an accomplice to your father’s affair. I hope you found yourself a better family to support you.
I also agree that when you say “Gertrude” I don’t think of Hamlet. There could be a Hamlet award, but there would be too many contenders for what it’s for!
Mr. Ven: thank you for taking the time to respond. I too am sorry that your parents were so insensitive and bullying to you and I am glad you have risen above their awful behavior. It does give me hope that my kids will eventually be all right.
@88: “Also, I’m not sure why it matters whose semen produced the baby… I guess it might matter to the other…”
Or to the husband, which might fuck up their relationship.
“…but I’m not sure why it matters to you.”
Because it might matter to the husband, which might fuck up their relationship.
Ms Crinoline – DPTM is always a possibility. I was thinking that Gertrude is one of the more Savagerian characters one might find in Shakespeare. I’m not particularly expert on Shakespeare, but off the top of my head I’d nominate Twelfth Night as likely the most Savagerian play, although perhaps that might even outdo Mr Savage and maybe we should stick with Othello or something else.
PIT, it’s totally your husband’s child. Absolutely. Don’t even worry about it. Seriously. You know it is. It’ll have his ears. Wait and see. Hugs!