Tue 24 Jun 2008
Wombs & Brains
Men have been accused since time immemorial of only thinking with their, uh, oh, let’s speak euphemistically, with their, um, little heads. Implied was that women, the noble sex acted with the restraint and wisdom, placing them on some higher, more ethereal plane than lowly ol’ men. I’ll explain what women actually think with later in this essay.
By now you’ve heard of the infamous Gloucester 18. Eighteen mainly sophomore girls out of the Gloucester, Massachusetts High School pool of 600 women decided to get pregnant and keep the fruit of their wombs. A typical school year would have four girls becoming pregnant. So why the incredible increase in fecundity?
The controversy surrounding this story includes fertility pacts between the girls to “all” become pregnant, high fives when some “lucky” girl actually confirmed her pregnancy and alleged breeding with a homeless man.
Boy, I can’t wait to see the fall program on FOX. Heck, I can see a weekly series: Steamy Sophomore Sex! See endless, mindless Massachusetts high school sex all presented in glorious HD and brought to you by disgusting Washington Liberals! All for you on FOX this fall! Can’t wait.
Getting pregnant in high school and taking the pregnancy to term is, to me, about the most idiotic choice a woman can make. The equivalent idiocy for young men? Oh, enlisting and dying in an unnecessary, ill-advised, “immoral” war. I would counsel my children to fervently resist both. I simply do not understand. Having sex I get. Having a baby as a youngster I do not get.
My daughter was born in 1970 and from the time she understood language and biology I talked with her about her body, how it works and the concept of anatomy as destiny. I informed her it was women who got pregnant and in this world, today, the responsibility for family planning fell squarely on her shoulders. No ifs. No ands. No buts. None of, “I didn’t understand.”
I literally gag in movies when I hear some “doofus” saccharinely announce, “We’re pregnant.” Baaaaarffff! If that is the case, I’ve been pregnant three times, had months of morning sickness, watched my body blow-up into something nearly unrecognizable, miraculously passed something the size of a bowling ball out of my body without the benefit of anesthesia and then got up exhausted for days and months to feed the little amoeba. Women get pregnant. Women have babies. Couples become families.
Oh, it is reported, these poor Gloucester dears were bored or lacked “X” at home or needed meaning in their life or required “something” to love them unconditionally. Their mothers needed to slap such silliness right off their infantile faces. Infantile minds. Fertile bodies. Great combo.
Regarding the need for unconditional love. Girls, I hate to disabuse you of any notions you have about child rearing but unconditional love is something you give your children not something you necessarily get. If that is your motivation, unconditional love, get a dog.
I had children in my home for 33 years. Some may return. How can we so fail as a culture to clearly describe the responsibilities and obligations of parenting? These little twits needed to be enrolled in an age-appropriate sex-ed class from first grade. Oh, I can hear the sanctimonious moans of piety now. Teach our children about their sexuality!?! That’s the family’s sacred responsibility. Un-huh. The Gloucester families did such a good job on that, huh? Remember Voltaire’s tongue-in-cheek line, “We live in the best of all possible worlds?” Well, we do not.
We live in a hot world of sex. Of evolution, genetics, chemistry and hormones. Arguably, our only goal in life is to get our genes into the next generation. And boy, is that an easy thing to do. Mercy! About the easiest. We’ve evolved to do exactly that! Most humans, I believe, would willingly describe (define) sex as “the” most pleasurable of human experiences. (Reading a distant second. Ha!) We are hot, hot, hot. And fertile.
Now you can preach chastity all you want. Recall St. Augustine’s fervent plea, “Lord give me chastity—but not yet.” And that was from a saint! I didn’t preach chastity to my children. It is, indeed, an option. I argued responsibility. Responsibility and respect for yourself. Women (and men) do not bring babies into this world that they are not capable of sustaining themselves. Why? Well, just look around.
Actress Tuesday Weld said of sex, “When grown-ups do it it’s kind of dirty—that’s because there’s no one to punish them.” That’s simply repressed idiocy speaking. Punishment for adolescent sex? Yes, there actually is a punishment and it is America that bears the scars and the results (costs) of so many unplanned, adolescent pregnancies.
I wish it took a modicum, even a smattering of brains to have sex. Alas. Although I’ve thought great sex (ironically?) is all between the ears.
I asked what it was that women think with? Sigh. It ain’t their brains. Why should they be any different from men?
06.26.08
June 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
From Chappy:
My gawd, Jepson! I’m lost with your illusions and euphemisims. Small head? Do you mean the infamous one-eyed trouser monster?
You often use “box of rocks” to describe the stupid among us. These girls are just that, dumber than a box of rocks.
All I say, it’s a damn shame youth is wasted on the young.
Hookin’ up with a 24 year old homeless man?
Heaven save us, if that’s how it’s gonna be.
You ask what women think with? And then you don’t have the cojones to answer.
You liberal weenie!
Forever Chappy
June 24th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Ok Chris,
There is little to argue with in your missive, nevertheless, I take issue with the role of men in this equation. Yet, I wish to acknowledge the sad fact that girls and young women must, for their own sake, shoulder the responsibility for birth control. When I speak to girls in the classroom I counsel them that sex with a condom is very pleasurable for her male partner and any boy or man who pleads otherwise is a selfish ass who neither loves or respects her. And, sadly, she cannot depend on him. If she chooses to make love she will likely have to provide the glove. But, back to the notion of the male role in this conundrum—the statistics I have seen point out that in the vast majority of teenage pregnancies the sperm donor was an adult male in his twenties. With the advent of DNA testing, paternity is simple to establish and if these lecherous lotharios join in the deed they should pay a fair price, to the tune of say 25% of net income garnished over the first 18 years of the life of their spawn. While something akin to this is already available through civil litigation, it should become a matter of nation-wide state statute and backed with the threat of criminal prosecution. If such a remedy were applied consistently, my guess is we would see men insisting on condoms in short order.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Chris; It is hard to know how to respond to this tragic bit of human folly. Whether or not there was, in fact, a pact between the students, each thinking human being must see this issue through the lense of what this culture does to young people in terms of hyper sexual messages and exposure. How are teens to navigate in a world such as this with few mentors, like your reader and respondant, who so acutely outlines (above) how she deals with her students in reference to sexual issues? I’ve worked with young people all my adult life and I’ve seen the culture abandon them to tv, peers, computers and music. So seldom do I see teens in realtionship with adults, unless they are lucky enough to have a teacher like your respondant, or an unusual, nowdays, available parent or two . Look around and see the gulf between teens and adults. While there has always been tension and distnce between adults and teens, never has so profound an empty gap existed. Teens, in my mind, are the canaries in the mine, wilting and, thereby, telling us that we are failing in our responsibility to create human, warm environments where experience can be interpreted and perspective lovingly applied. In fact, left to their own, teens traverse a dangerous, potentially tragic, landscape.