That's horrible! This truck is spreading homosexuality!

But the city immediately became faaaaaaabulous.

So, Lipton.

As with Montgomery, my youthful hopes for romance never panned out.

But it's not like I hear a bell tolling in some adjacent valley er nuthin'…

No Sirree!

Everything's fine here.

For now.

No.

Swear to Christ, next they'll do corsets.

Or tampons.

Where did we get the idea that has-been, D-list actresses had profound insight into political issues.

Alyssa Milano has called for women to engage in a sex strike to protest the growing number of anti-abortion laws.

First, it's all right for her. She's been married since 2009 (after her first marriage lasted less than a year). Moreover, she has the resources to provide a good life for any child she has, with or without her husband. So, she has a tacite exemption from this modern-day remake of Lysistrata while calling upon other women to do it.

Next, why is the loss of these so-called "reproductive rights" regarded as anything but equality?

Men have never had "reproductive rights." If the woman he's sleeping with becomes pregnant, he has no say as to whether this child is born. If he doesn't want it, and she does, he's a dad and will be required to support this child he never wanted at least until eighteen years of age.

And if he wants it and she doesn't, "Snort, snarl...y-o-o-o-o-o-o-ou don't get to tell m-e-e-e-e-e-e-e what I-I-I-I-I-I-I do with my-y-y-y-y-y-y body!"

Finally, there is birth control, so that it becomes highly unlikely that you will even have to consider the question of whether to abort the fetus.

Guys, if you're determined not to become a dad, wrap it up. And pour bleach into it when you're done.

This will end well.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/harvard-removing-law-professor-ron-sullivan-as-residential-dean-for-representing-harvey-weinstein/

Where did we get the idea that has-been, D-list actresses had profound insight into political issues.

It's self-aggrandizement. Actors (and Twitterati) think because they're famous (for being famous?) means that their insights are special. It doesn't hurt that they either have weak minded followers/fans, or that the opinions they spew resonate with those fans.

Sorry, Alyssa, your opinion and US$5 can buy me a fancy coffee at Starbucks.

Our esteemed hostess shared this on Twitter, but I don't see it here, so I'm going to bring it. This is a very touching story that I think you'll all like.

But just imagine the BILL they stuck that poor toucan with!

Patrick, I support such women in their sex strike. The less such people breed the better the world will be.

But just imagine the BILL they stuck that poor toucan with! ~ Patrick at May 12, 2019 8:34 AM

As long as he doesn't try to duck out of paying it.

Conan: As long as he doesn't try to duck out of paying it.

I see Conan had to try to one up me. Well, toucan play at that game!

Is it me, or do lots of prominent Leftists think with their genitals?

I agree with this.

Sherrill, Stefanik, King, and Cisneros Introduce Bipartisan SALT Bill to Increase Cap

From James Thurber's "veterinarian's advice" column, maybe from 1945 (the cartoon shows a very large animal in a living room):

Q. Mr. Jennings bought this beast when it was a pup in Montreal for a St. Bernard, but I don’t think it is. It’s grown enormously and is stubborn about letting you have anything, like the bath towel it has its paws on, and the hat, both of which belong to Mr. Jennings. He got it that bowling ball to play with, but it doesn’t seem to like it. Mr. Jennings is greatly attached to the creature.
MRS. FANNY EDWARDS JENNINGS

A. What you have is a bear. While it isn’t my bear, I should recommend that you dispose of it. As these animals grow older they get more and more adamant about letting you have anything, until finally there might not be anything in the house you could call your own—except possibly the bowling ball. Zoos use bears. Mr. Jennings could visit it.

So why was I reminded of that one?

See here:

https://people.com/pets/pet-dog-is-bear-not-tibetan-mastiff/

A few more articles on the same story:

https://www.google.com/search?ei=NGzYXKDBHoy85gKIgIzIDg&q=bear+china+mastiff&oq=bear+china+mastiff&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i22i30.437035.992758..992917...0.0..1.220.1660.15j2j1......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i67j0j0i131j0i10j0i22i10i30j0i8i13i30.ZCHmzUJdBpA

Men have never had "reproductive rights."
______________________________________________

Let's not forget that every contraceptive has a failure rate - EVEN sterilization.

If a woman can't count on a man to support a child (or help pay for an abortion) just because he promised to, well, a man shouldn't count on a woman to have - or not have - an abortion just because she implied that she would follow any order he gives or any Change Of Mind he might have. Once a child is born, it has rights, and the law WILL enforce them. So men, like women, need to be a lot more careful about birth control than they are right now. Sounds fair to me.

And...if a man's only post-birth right is to sue for custody and then demand child support, well, no man has to go through the DIRECT ordeal of abortion or childbirth/adoption either. Seems like a pretty fair trade.

A lot of men seem to think it's unfair for single men to have to pay to use Vasalgel when they're already under pressure to use condoms for STD protection, or for men in LTRs to have to even THINK about birth control after years and years of using condoms (i.e., paying their dues). So I suspect the only way Vasalgel is going to become truly popular is if parents of young men everywhere either bribe or order their sons to get Vasalgel as soon as the doctor gives permission (age 18?) AND if it's mostly covered by insurance, so that young single men will be less likely to complain about having to pay for condoms too. That would also make it emotionally easier for men to keep using it even when his new wife says "oh, you don't have to get a replacement when it runs out - I'll be on the Pill." HE can say "I'll keep using it for both our sakes, honey - I'm used to it."

Also, from Katha Pollitt in 1998:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!msg/alt.support.childfree/2vTd0oUebe4/k036WlFwh_wJ

Quote:

"One hopes that the point will not be lost on the judge that a victory for Wallis could mean the end of paternal support for out-of-wedlock children--every man could claim his girlfriend tricked him--and that, therefore, to treat one person's interpretation of a private conversation as an enforceable contract would be against the public interest. What's more, contracts must involve mutual obligations and sexual performance cannot legally figure in them, so how is Wallis's princely offer to have sex with Smith if she assumed all the risk of birth control--he does nothing, she does everything--a contract?"

(What Pollitt didn't mention is that, had Peter Wallis won the case - he didn't - someday, married fathers would likely have the same right, too. Much as they unofficially had a century ago, when a "poor man's divorce" simply meant a man's abandoning his wife and kids - and she was often assumed to have driven him to it, since everyone "knew" that bad things didn't happen to virtuous women. Of course, it was easier for men to do that since they knew the law wouldn't REALLY pursue them for child support. I trust no one wants to go back to that "system.")

"After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids"

https://qz.com/work/1614893/after-men-in-spain-got-paternity-leave-they-wanted-fewer-kids/amp/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=qz-organic&fbclid=IwAR0Oz_ix5sPSYad_zLXtJil2lnINTi0cnRrFvGiS2pSJ7b_KR8J-Nlnocdc&__twitter_impression=true

Second half:

...The researchers suggest an intriguing reason why.

After paternity leave was instituted, surveys of Spanish men ages 21 to 40 showed they desired fewer children than before. Farré and González think that spending more time with their children—or the prospect of having to do so—may have made men more acutely aware of the effort and costs associated with childrearing, and, as the researchers put it, “shifted their preferences from child quantity to quality.”

At the same time, women started showing preferences for slightly larger families—perhaps a sign that having more children seemed more desirable with a slightly more equitable balance of labor at home.

As the authors point out, it’s impossible to draw sweeping conclusions from this observation of a single data point in a single country. Correlation isn’t causation, and it’s possible that other factors weighed more heavily than paternity leave on men’s family preferences. (The global financial crisis, for example, hit Spain in full force about a year after the leave policy was introduced.)

“There are a couple of reasons that I’d be hesitant to believe that these same impacts would apply elsewhere,” said David Evans, an economist at the Center for Global Development. “In Spain, almost no men were taking paternity leave before the policy, and that jumped to more than half of men after the reform. At the same time, men in Spain wanted more children than women did. That wasn’t the case in a number of other European countries.”

Btw, if anyone wants to see (again) a list of legal rights for boys that boys may not be quite aware of, I'm happy to post it again. (But only one of them is about reproduction, really; the rest are about sex and dating.)

Patrick, may I copy your soliloquy on men not having reproductive rights to use elsewhere on the internet? You raise an excellent argument that shoots down the notion that women must bear all the burdens (apart from the phyisical) of sex with consequences.

And I've also pointed out (Amy agrees with this) that if the average woman didn't want men to have access to good male contraception, we'd ALREADY be seeing feminist organizations trying to stop single men from having legal access to vasectomies. That doesn't happen. When women speak in negative terms about new male contraceptives, it's typically along the lines of "I wouldn't trust him to take it." I.e., they're not worried about being DEPRIVED of motherhood. A woman who wants a baby can always dump the man and get another boyfriend or husband, after all.

Thank you for the kind words, mpetrie98, and you're free to use my words however you see fit.

I see Conan had to try to one up me. Well, toucan play at that game! ~ Patrick at May 12, 2019 10:18 AM

Touché.

Lenona, gimmedat list

I see from the February 15, 2017 thread that you did read the list before, but here it is anyway.
________________________________________

To go back to the theoretical boys' question "well, what legal rights DO boys have," I can think of seven, by now.

(Granted, only two of these are actually PROTECTED by law, but so what? If something isn't illegal, it's legal, whether women like it or not.)

1. Every boy and man has the right not to date a girl or a woman more than once - or even once - if she doesn't meet his "needs." What is often not civilized is letting people know in detail what his "needs" are, since chances are many women AND men will think he's a jerk for having them. In other words, if you're a man and your rule is that you don't date anyone who doesn't look like a fashion model or anyone who won't sleep with you on the first date - hell, BEFORE the first date - that is your right, but keep it to yourself. I.e., don't put it in so many words. After all, if all men had those standards, women would figure out pretty quickly what was going on without being told. How they might react is another matter.

2. A man has the right to expect to take turns paying for dates and to refuse to date women who won't do this. Since many women are not used to this idea for one reason or another, it's often best to go on a modest date first (or two paid dates) and then go on FREE dates until she either offers to pay the next dinner date or asks what's going on. If she's been on two or three free dates with you, chances are she won't dump you when you explain.

3. A man has the right to pursue a sex life without any intentions of getting married, so long as he's honest and polite about it. If we can understand why drivers get fined for speeding, we can understand why harassment is wrong.

4. It IS legal to sleep with consenting strangers. Provided, that is, it does not happen outdoors, they are not being paid for it and are not underage. No, it is not "too much wooorrrkkk" to find out that last information. Parents of teens and preteens are never going to let those laws change, so accept it. Any adult could get off the hook by claiming "he/she lied about his/her age" when the kid didn't actually give an age. That can't be allowed.

(Not to mention that sleeping with strangers doesn't just carry the risk of your getting infected or arrested, of course. You can also get robbed or killed. Yet, many people seem desperate enough to do it anyway.)

5. A man has the right to refuse sex from a man or a woman and invoke the law when needed.

6. A man has the right to TRY to get and use any male contraceptives available when he does not want to become a father - and to campaign for better male methods if he cares enough. (This does not mean that doctors don't get to make their own rules; doctors are understandably leery about sterilizing anyone under 30 or so or sterilizing any married patient who wants to get the operation without the spouse's knowledge. Even Warren Farrell, when he complained about that in "Father and Child Reunion," didn't suggest that married women have it easy in that respect. So it's not just male patients.)

7. A man has the right, last I heard, to divorce a wife for "alienation of affections."
___________________________________________

(That was a follow-up to the list of rules/laws that need to be spelled out to heterosexual teen boys, regrading rape. Just as teens tend to believe whatever they want to believe regarding drunk driving - as in "I drive better when I've had a few drinks, so the law doesn't apply to me - and adults should stop lying about that" or even the "right" to get drunk even before the law allows them to - teen boys also tend NOT to believe that unwanted sex exists and therefore don't take the law seriously. So adults need to uproot such delusions in teens, as many times as it takes.)

Correction - that's "regarding."