for all the "do you tell women not to have sex" brigade: yes, we do
I do think this conversation is interesting, and some of the arguments are well thought out. Others? not so much.
When women ask for equality, a lot of the arguments against it run along the lines of "well, you don't see many women refuse collectors, it's a hard physical job so generally you need to be big and strong, like a man" or "well the reason women don't win 100m races against Usain Bolt is because he's really tall, has really long legs, and has male muscles, it is ridiculous to think a woman's physical body can beat that". The argument is: Women can't do X because of nature.
The arguments for why men can't simply say "nope" and then do nothing about any resulting pregnancy even when they have used contraception is that same argument in reverse. And as we see from this thread people don't seem to like that. Average male earnings over an average male life compared to a woman are higher and one reason is that so many women take maternity leave. But when we suggest men are compelled to take maternity leave (as a thought experiment mostly, nobody should be forced to do that, i hated it) so that in around 50 years it is also the norm and hopefully wages have evened out. That would mean the argument for "women stay home because their husband earns more" would be moot.
But nobody really - outside of some absolute die-hard feminists, I'd guess - wants to force that issue. Men i've spoken to certainly agree in principle that it would be A Good Thing but "well, I don't want to do that I've worked hard at my career" (discounting the implication that many women feel the same way about their careers)
It is a fact of nature that women have the babies and men have the freedom in fact (if not entirely in law, and certainly it isn't ethical or morally right) to walk away at any point beginning with after their orgasm that results in a fertilized egg. Calls of "wah wah that's not fair" are rather childish and pointless. We already know (ask a minority) that life isn't fair.
As a matter of interest i looked up contraceptive failure rates. This is from the US CDC which i think is an authoritative enough body for most of us?
www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/contraception/index.htm
These figures are for correctly used contraception. As an aside - I'm another previous enthusiastic ONS sex-loving kind of gal. I am not ashamed of that. I am also not ashamed to say that i have always insisted on a codom because a) i really never wanted to get pregnant so while i was on the pill i prefer a backup plan and b) i never wanted (and have never caught) an STD. Be safe, people.
Quick rundown of failure rates (of correctly used contraception):
implant - 0.1%
injection - 4%
pill (either type) - 7%
patch - 7%
ring - 7%
diaphragm - 17%
sponge - 14% if you have never had a baby 27% if you have
male condom - 13%
female condom - 21%
spermicide - 21%
then we get to the counting methods
surprised to see that some fertility based awareness methods can be as low as 2% rising to 23%
Then the permanent ones
Female sterelization - 0.5%
vasectomy - 0.15%
So here's my tip for people (male or female) who don't want children:
barrier method with spermicide.
Men: get the snip
women: use the implant
belt and braces - use 2 of the above.
Even better: check where you are in your cycle
But maybe we, society, should have a way of legally absolving us from responsibility for children we have created? Men as well as women. How would that look? Perhaps there could be either a huge upfront fee for that (to be put in a kind of fund for the child) or they have deductions from salary/welfare payments? Would that look at all like a fair system to someone on 6 figures verses an unemployed person? What if both parents did it? What if the child was severely disabled but this only became clear after 3 years? should the system still be open then? Again, to whom?