Natural Processes

I think nature is very unnatural.  -  Bob Dylan

Two questions this time:

What’s your opinion on the social implications of the male contraceptive pill?  I think it may have as big an effect as the female contraceptive pill on relationships, male/female interaction, etc. I can certainly see more women annoyed and angry that men can control when they become fathers.

I’ve never written on the “male pill” that I can remember, but I think you’re absolutely right in saying that it could have profound effects on society.  Obviously, guys will still be on the hook if their wives decide to leave them after having a planned-for baby, but a man who takes proper precautions will not have to become a father in the first place if he doesn’t want to.  I’m sure you’re right in saying that some women will not at all like men having that kind of control, but I think more enlightened women will recognize it as a step toward real legal equality of the sexes (since right now reproductive decisions are almost completely in the hands of women).  The only drawback I can see is that while women are naturally infertile roughly ¾ of the time, and hormonal contraception works by imitating that perfectly natural state, there is no natural point at which post-pubescent men are infertile.  In other words, hormonal contraception for women creates an analog of a natural state, while the same for men would create a state which was not at all natural, which is why just about every one tested so far causes a loss of sex drive or even more pronounced effects.   Current research is concentrating on a chemical designated JQ1 which seems to have the ability to make a man’s testes temporarily “forget” how to produce sperm, without any detectable side effects.  But even after the drug is pronounced “safe”, I think men should do their research and weigh the pros and cons before deciding to use it when reversible vasectomies are already available.

Are you familiar with the claim that one out of every five women who have been raped report orgasms from the act?  I haven’t been able to lock down any definitive data sources on this and thought you might know something.

Orgasm during rape isn’t all that uncommon; I don’t know if it’s 20% or some other number, but it’s enough of a fraction to be noteworthy.  In fact, orgasm during rape can be a major cause of rape trauma; because women have been fed nonsense about rape being due to “hate” and “power” and all that malarkey instead of biology, women who orgasm during rape feel there’s something wrong with them.  If I don’t want to eat at a particular restaurant because the place is filthy and the owner is a dick who exploits his staff, does that mean my mouth won’t water and my stomach rumble if I’m forced into the place?  Of course not; some people even salivate at the smell of blood, despite the fact that they have no real desire to drink it.  In other words, the reaction is a biological one which has NOTHING to do with what the person might want.  But because of all the dogma that rape is “cultural” rather than biological (despite the fact that it has been observed frequently among our closest relatives, the chimpanzees), a woman who orgasms during rape may feel as if she’s committed some political crime or religious sin (in the words of Sheila Jeffreys, “eroticizing her own oppression”), when in actuality she had no more control over it than some men have over premature ejaculation.