Columns Jan 22, 2014 at 4:00 am

Great Pains

Comments

109
@funfunfun

Raising children includes part-time raising, you troll.

Genetics should never make a difference for men to decide whether or not to parent a child, is all I'm saying.

A child is a child whether genetically related or not, and being allowed by circumstances to raise a fellow human being, matters infinitely more to people who take parenting as it should be taken, as an altruistic task, than anybody's stupid egoistical success at reproducing half of its inherited genes.

Most men in misogynistic countries, and a lot of them in less inequal countries, act in fatherhood as if genes where worth more than actual living breathing human beings : that's bullshit.

And I'm calling them on it. Hey, hetero men, wanna be parenting ? Then parent whomever is born to the woman you've bonded with. Genetics won't make a child any more or any less your child. Attempting to act on society for it to restrict women's sexuality, just for you to be entirely sure you're a genetical father, is just assholish.

By the way, genes are a big reason why hetero conservatives viscerally can't admit that gay people be allowed to parent. "Those parents and children cannot be all genetically related, thus it's wrong ! The child is wronged ! I'm wronged ! If my way to procure myself bendable young minds through inseminating a woman coerced by society stops being the only way to parent, Sooner or later it'll be found out that I'm in fact not parenting in the best interest of the child, but making myself through my dick an army of followers or employees or a free workforce ! Owning humans (babies) through their genes is what I want, what God and the Bible have always gone for, shame slavery has been done with, it provided an amazing and free workforce !"
114
"lives and breathes the vulva and vagina"? Is there another way to express that?
115
@109: I think we may have had approximately this same conversation in the past.

" Hey, hetero men, wanna be parenting ? Then parent whomever is born to the woman you've bonded with. Genetics won't make a child any more or any less your child."

The paternity courts would beg to differ with you, as would the vast majority of women when it comes time to assess the child support obligations of the man.

You cannot on the one hand require men to be held strictly responsible for "You made it, you pay for it" while at the same time expecting them to casually accept, "Some other guy made it, but you pay for it anyway."

"Attempting to act on society for it to restrict women's sexuality, just for you to be entirely sure you're a genetical father, is just assholish."

Would it be better to make parenthood entirely voluntary on the part of the males of the species, so that only the ones who want to be parents get to be parents (i.e., have to be parents)? That would maximize freedom of conscience regarding sexuality on both sides.
116
Yes! I haven't gotten beyond the first letter yet. Thank you for directing her to NVA, and just to note, there are excellent clinics in the Philly area too! Tight, your vag is not tight, your pelvic muscles are - the ones you don't have direct control over. Get help now, or it will get worse. And be careful with the actitives you do engage in. Associating sex with pain can make this become psychological, but please don't think that it is right now. You need to treat the physical cause.
I love seeing that awareness of vulvodynia and related conditions is finally happening, even if it's too late for me to have benefitted. Thank you Dan!
117
Uck. And don't listen to #2, who didn't bother to go to NVA's website and has no idea what the V in NVA is.
118
Crinoline, vulvodynia (and vulvar vestibulitis, which is the severe form upon any touch that it sounds like this chick has), is not psychological. Please stop perpetuating the problem of ignorance that makes this condition virtually impossible to deal with, and don't say anything more till you've visited the NVA site in Dan's response (or at least read Dan's response?).
119
You cannot on the one hand require men to be held strictly responsible for "You made it, you pay for it" while at the same time expecting them to casually accept, "Some other guy made it, but you pay for it anyway."

Good god that's a disturbing conceptualization of parenthood.

I think I need a drink.
120
"Good god that's a disturbing conceptualization of parenthood."

It would be, if it were anywhere near a complete conceptualization of parenthood. It merely expresses one objection to the one concept: "Men, in a properly built reality you would have no business worrying about who actually fathered your child. Just step up to the plate and do your fatherly duty!"

Thankfully, most of us are capable of examining one particular aspect of an issue and, while recognizing that there is vastly more to the topic, not needing to bring in all the rest at this particular moment. Otherwise, my posts would be even more TL;DR than they are now.

Another aspect of the same issue is that if it is to be unimportant who the mother is having sex with in order to sire the child, then it needs to be equally unimportant who the Elective Father (as opposed to the biological father) is fucking on the side. If women are to be free to to choose their sexual partners independent of who they deem to be the stable family unit -- indeed, if it is is oppressive of women's sexuality to do otherwise, as sissoucat seems to be suggesting -- then men must be equally free to do the same.

With regard to both of these aspects, one cannot get there by halves.
121
It would be interesting to consider a world in which men are still held strictly responsible for procreating, but other men are only too happy to take on the duties of fatherhood. In that case, I imagine the state would ensure that child support payments were taken from those who participated in initiating pregnancies, and paid directly to the benefit of the child they helped create -- in other words, paid to the family, consisting of Mother, Child, and presumably an Elective Father, who was only too happy to get a financial boost from the guy who provided the sperm.

Believe it or not, that actually sounds to me like a pretty good system, both in terms of making sure that children are very well provided for, and also serving as a strong deterrent against random procreation. When one knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that one will be financing a family, including the whole fatherhood experience for some other guy, one might be a little more careful about whom one impregnates.

By way of contrast, that seems to point out the very problem with the current system: that if you can get some other poor sap to take on the responsibility that you created, you are off the hook.
122
@121 While I see your points and agree with them completely in some aspects, I do have one axe to grind. Calling men who choose to take on another man's child a "poor sap". My brother is just such a man and has had to be put through the ringer by nearly everyone in our family for it. So while it obviously isn't an ideal situation or a situation a woman should needlessly or carelessly throw a man in; I think still think the ones who go through with it deserve something better than "poor sap".

That being said, I wonder if you feel the same way about stepmothers?
123
@122: My personal assessment is not that these guys are literally "poor saps." No, they are altruistic, stand-up guys. Anybody who adopts or otherwise steps up to the job of being a parent is doing a huge service. The word Hero is not out of line, as far as I am personally concerned.

But there is something kind of lopsided about the way the system currently works, that makes it look like under certain circumstances they are being seriously taken advantage of. It seems kind of skewed towards the alpha-male, spread-your-seed-as-widely-as-you-can-get-away with, make-someone-else-clean-up-your-mess attitude. It doesn't seem right to just call on people to happily take on even more responsibility for the other guy's irresponsibility. That's just piling on even harder.

I was using "poor sap" to represent the way society treats the person in this role.
124
@123 I apologize for over reacting. I could see where you were coming from in your previous comment and probably should have just over looked that part of your comment. Thank you for taking the time to clarify.
125
Good luck Auntie Griz.

@Hunter #78 - not only in the mammalian world. I've seen a funny video clip in which dung beetle male #2 on the scene upends dung beetle #1, and proceeds to excavate and eat the fertilized eggs of his vanquished rival. Unfortunately for him, while he is busy committing infanticide, sneaky dung beetle #3 slips in (so to speak) and mates with the lady waiting in the wings. Except dung beetles don't have wings. But you get my drift.
126
"It doesn't seem right to just call on people to happily take on even more responsibility for the other guy's irresponsibility. "

And which "people" are you referring to?
127
Re TT. Both sites that Dan links to were worse than useless when I was seeking answers. They seem like they'd be comprehensive repositories of knowledge on vulvar pain, but neither described my problem at all. I hope the LW doesn't try to self-diagnose from reading online. Get to a gynecologist WHO SPECIALIZES IN DIAGNOSING PAIN (hint: if a gyn yells at you to stop squirming away from the speculum, jump off the table and run way!). Find the gyn that normal gyns refer to when they're stumped and go see her! ('Nuther hint: she probably won't also be an Obstetrician.) In the Philadelphia region, see: www.pelvicandsexualhealthinstitute.org
128
@69: Undead Ayn Rand, that article is not relevant to this situation. The stereotype of black men having big cocks is not in play here. Everyone involved knows exactly how large this particular cock is. And even if the article were relevant, social psychology is rife with pseudoscientific nonsense. It would be foolish to believe that article on blind faith when such a politically charged issue is involved.

Them making reference to the guy's race would be easier to interpret as racism, but a racial attraction or fetish is not necessarily negative.

All this nonsense about terminology threatens to distract well-meaning people from the truly important issues of racial injustice. While you're arguing about whether a term is PC, Republican-controlled Florida is removing everyone named Washington from the voter rolls.
129
If TT has no pain when masturbating, but does when a guy just rubs her through pants, then it's clearly psychological, no? Repressed memory? A therapist is in order.
130
@99 EricaP and @125 Still Thinking: Thanks so much for your kind support! My first appointment is this Friday. Here's hoping I don't need to have a hysterectomy (hysterical-ectomy?), that the shorter, sweeter, non-invasive and to-the-point procedure (called Nova Sure) will do the trick, and that my monthly Annie Wilkes days are indeed over with.

131
Sending you warm thoughts that the short & sweet procedure hits the spot, and that you have an easy recovery afterward.
132
@131 EricaP: Thanks so much! You rock the house!!
I'm pretty sure that the Powers That Be would all love
my "cock-a-doodie" days to be over, too.
I keep hearing a deep sigh from heaven; obviously my mother.
My dad's rolling his eyes.
133
@avast2006

I've been away and I regret it...

Men are of course entirely free to fuck anybody on the side. I may show a European bias or French bias, but when was claiming or proving that your husband cheated on you ever met with anything other than laughs and scorn at the cheated-on woman ? No French divorce court will award anything more in terms of custody of the children or money to a woman, just because she was cheated on.

As for "paying for the children you didn't sire", French divorced fathers are notorious for not paying for their children. There is a state-provided alimony to women who are suing the fathers who don't pay what they were condemned by the divorce court to pay. In exchange, the State is supposed to sue those guys to recover the costs. Only... there are so many who don't pay, that it would cost too much to sue every and each one of them. So fathers who don't wish to pay (and are not State employees) just don't.
134
@CWYWF: Maybe someone already suggested this and I missed it, but have you considered that your husband may be asexual? The Asexual Visibility and Education Network website has forums that include many discussions about partnerships in which one member is sexual and the other asexual. The discussions offer a variety of strategies that many couples find workable, as well as the knowledge that you are not alone. The website, www.asexuality.org, appears to be down, but hopefully that's temporary. There also appears to be a Facebook page.
135
To TIGHT: When I lost my virginity, I was 18. I had a lot of sexual hangups, and a really insensitive partner. Foreplay was usually him spitting on his palm. After sex, it burned so badly, I cried when I peed. He told me my clit was smaller than other girls he'd been with; that they had all been satisfied, maybe it was me. When I suggested lube, he simply said, "It feels kind of good when you're a little dry." I would tense up, a condition known as vaginismus, because I anticipated pain with intercourse. He would then get angry or frustrated after his attempts to force it in were unsuccessful. Of course, being an 18 year old idiot with hangups, I didn't leave him because I didn't want to be thought of as a slut. Sex was excruciating for the first six months I experienced it; after that, it became about as exciting as a finger in my ear. No sensation of pleasure, just friction.
I learned to relax my muscles and accept the penetration because it got over more quickly that way. Sometimes a joint helped. I had never had an orgasm except through masturbation.
Long story short, I had hangups, low self esteem, and on some level thought I didn't deserve better. With age and experience came wisdom; I learned about the joys of vibrators, I made sure I told my partners if I was uncomfortable. I guided them in the proper technique, pressure, etc, and if they didn't respect my cunt as much as I did their cock, they hit the road. You deserve to feel good too, and no one who has any decency will continue with the act if you are hurting. Learn your body yourself, get a second opinion, and believe in the power of some good indica to loosen you up literally and figuratively. You don't need penetration to cum, and you should just focus for now on what does feel good. When you get more comfortable, you may be able to relax and enjoy penetration. Good luck.
136
Creampie: The key is to have her FORCE you to eat her creampie. Have sex with her on top and after you cum, she should scoot up and settle down on your mouth and ORDER you to suck the cum out. She should make it clear you have no choice in the matter and she won't get up until she's satisfied.
137
As a physician-in-training and someone who has had their share of medical problems, gynecological and otherwise, it irks the crap out of me when a patient goes to a doctor complaining of a life-diminishing, legitimate, most-likely-diagnoable-AND-correctable problem, and the doctor says, "You're fine, go away." She's not fine. She's miserable. And you could help her if you pulled your head out of your ass for two seconds and actually LISTENED to your patient for once.

I went off hormonal birth control a year and a half ago because I thought my waning libido was due to that. When it didn't get better, and actually got worse, and I didn't menstruate, I went to an OB/gyn who said I had no libido because I was in a long term relationship. And the fact that I didn't lubricate or menstruate? Eh, irrelevant. Riiiiiiight. I went to another doctor when a few months later I STILL wasn't menstruating and whaddaya know? He listened to me, and diagnosed me with a hormonal condition (which we're still working on fixing, sadly - but at least I have an answer, AND a doctor who gave a crap about the fact that I had a legitimate, diagnosable, and correctable problem!)

Oh, and I get vulvar pain too, and once had a gyn say to me, "Now I KNOW I'm not hurting you." Nice.
138
Thank you Dan, for your response to CREAMPIE.

I'd add (though you probably wouldn't go as far) that fetishizing people for their race is gross as hell. Just because it's part of someone's sexuality doesn't mean it's not racist.

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