Can we stop talking about men being trapped?

[ForRealCat]

Just from another few threads; we talk about women getting pregnant either intentionally, or accidently and carrying on against the mans wishes and how it "traps" the man. I can see how decades ago this may have been the case, women would get pregnant and any 'decent' man would be expected to step up and marry her. Thus securing a husband and a degree of financial security.

Nowadays I can see why a woman may get pregnant intentionally against her partners wishes, (maybe she wants more kids, feels like se is missing her chance etc), but can we stop talking about "trapping" a man. Very few men nowadays will wed a girl just because she is pregnant, and the financial support he is obliged to provide is to support the child and not the mother.

Very few women find themselves financially better off getting pregnant and claiming child maintenance. So AIBU to think the 'trapped' narrative has had its day.

There are women who lie about contraception for exactly the reason under discussion. What's he supposed to do, call her a liar 'Oh, my boyfriend has called me a liar Poor me!'

No-one is forcing them to ride bare back

No. Just use a condom. It’s not rocket science

In this situation where the pregnancy results in a child, the person who is most trapped is the child.

They are trapped with one parent who took agency away from the other parent for their own fantasies which are unlikely to be realistic or caring and another parent who was put in the position of being their parent against their will, both potentially leading to resentment of the entirely innocent in this child.

Whether we call the second party trapped I can see the debate either way. Yes, when both people choose to have sex, people are taking that risk. On the other hand, when there is active deceit on agreeing not to have kids, then taking choices otherwise, I can see that being used mainly towards being trapped in being a parent, and it's not uncommon even nowadays for people who do this, when they admit it, to include that part of the fantasy is that the other person will be trapped/stuck with them and will go along with it. Even if that doesn't happen, it can be useful to recognise that was part of the intent.

Nowadays I can see why a woman may get pregnant intentionally against her partners wishes, (maybe she wants more kids, feels like se is missing her chance etc)

None of those are reasons why to trap a child like that.

Its women who are trapped by pregnancy, not men.

You can get rid of that phrase if you want. But if a woman tells her partner she's taking contraception when she isn't with the deliberate aim of getting pregnant, that's just fucking awful behavior and that woman is a terrible terrible person.

They are trapped because they have a child to pay for, and the responsibility of that child even if only for a few days a week that perhaps they didn’t want

and yes they should have used contraception, but if the women was asked and lied then she IS deliberately trapping them

I agree.

I think getting pregnant against your partner's wishes is a shitty thing to do.

But ensnaring a man isn't as much of a financial goldmine as it was 40 years ago: the proportion of women who depend solely on the father of their child for financial support is much smaller now than it was and its a far less rational choice.

Women always damage their own financial potential by having children but unless the father is significantly wealthier than the mum it's hardly a "trap".

@JandamiHash
And if the woman pin pricks the condoms?

If a woman stops taking the pill then that is deceptive. If she pokes holes in the condom then it's remarkable you still think it's the man's fault

Yep, this happened to me, I was 17, guy told me he was infertile, being young and an absolute idiot, I believed him and ended up pregnant. But as you say, this is never talked about.

I agree with this take entirely

I have lived half a century and have never met or heard of a single real-life instance of a man who ended up with a child due to condom-pricking. It’s not right but does it really happen to any significant degree?

A condom splits, and the man doesn't want a child but the woman finds the idea of going through with an abortion unconscionable?

How would you hear this though? Its not exactly dinner party conversation?

This x100.

Will nobody think of the poor men burdening women with all the contraceptive responsibilities, being forced to ejaculate inside these women, without a condom because it just doesn't feel as nice with a condom? Ffs.

In this day and age a women who gets herself in that situation is just stupid.

lol in my experience salacious news spreads a lot faster than dinner-party quality topics but regardless, I have known many many people who have become parents and of the rather few “surprise” babies there has always been a pretty unambiguous reason for the “surprise”.

I have had men try to ‘baby trap’ me.
one particular partner the condom broke every single time or ‘fell off’. It was only upon hindsight i put it together that had never happened with anyone else and he was a significant outlier in the context of sexual partners.

I was fairly savvy back then and still used the contraceptive pill, i had never told him i was on oral contraception and always insisted on partners using barrier contraception too due to sti risk ( even if we dated relatively long term )

so he had no idea i was on contraception and i assume now in hindsight he was trying to babytrap me. He made constant comments about my salary and i ended it the day i overheard him say on the phone to his friend ‘of course i am going to stay with her, i know what her salary is’. He thought he was out if ear shot. I told him i heard his conversation and that was enough to end it that night. Off he fucked in tears. It was only in hindsight i made the connectiom regarding the condoms ‘falling off’ so regularly. I vomited when i realised.

makes me shudder. Thankfully i worked it out after six months but he was a great showman and clearly seen me as some sort of cashcow he could trap with a baby.

Unless someone comes out and says that they have outright deceived their partner, sounds more like salacious gossip, than salacious news

According to this thread some indeed do state they engineered their “surprise” baby but my point is rather that surprise babies are actually fairly uncommon compared to planned babies, and of those that are surprises, I’ve actually heard of nobody who didn’t have a good idea how the surprise occurred (eg we were using the withdrawal method, the condom broke, she had food poisoning or accidentally missed a pill etc).

It’s very rare to hear a couple say it was a mystery, they were using a condom and everything and somehow still got pregnant.

Like you I thought it was so last century, until a friend was doing exactly that. More so because the guy had assets he would inherit!

Whats your point exactly?

@CheekyHobson
I have no idea how common it is. I was making point that there are occasions where is it no appropriate to blame men

They could have been entirely cautious yet abused into becoming a father.
Apparently it happens. And it's a crime. But at the end of the day there is a child and that child is his so yeah. I would say in that case he was trapped

I think that both men and women are far too relaxed about contraception and there are far too many unintended pregnancies in a country where contraception is free.