Sperm stealing and men's rights - what do you think?

[loubeatty]

Hi guys,
Wanted to get your thoughts on a recent petition to make 'spurgling' - pretending you're on the pill when you're not to get pregnant - a serious sexual offence. Has anyone had any experience of this (or known friends who have)? (Is it just an urban legend, essentially?!) ...Do you think it should be a serious crime?

@Helleofabore

A condom yes but that's not widely used in trusting relationships. Should every man accuse his partner of potentially lying to him and wear a condom every time? That would be the end of many relationships. Or should they trust them like a normal human would?

It would end many relationships? Wearing a condom?

Or should they trust like a normal human being?

So….. the sole source of contraception is laid on women in these relationships. The man has to do nothing at all, just enjoy.

And this poster suggests not wearing a condom will end the relationship? Well ok, if another form of male contraceptive is used.

Otherwise, I’d suggest that it is the lack of responsibility for taking equal share in something vitally important to the partnership that might end up causing issues in the relationship. Are other areas of the partnership as unequal, or just this one.

I’d also suggest there are some males who expects ‘only the female’ to take on ALL the side effects of the pill, including the potential long term adverse ones. After all those men think ‘it is only a pill’ or an implant or whatever- having to be done regularly by the woman. Putting their bodies at risk.

For what? Not wearing a bit of rubber during sex?

Yeah… all equal innit?

Wife work, innit?

Exactly what I was thinking on reading that.

I’d also suggest there are some males who expects ‘only the female’ to take on ALL the side effects of the pill, including the potential long term adverse ones. After all those men think ‘it is only a pill’ or an implant or whatever- having to be done regularly by the woman. Putting their bodies at risk.

Not to defend men but I think this is an expecation for bth men and women. Many women actually have no idea of the risk they are taking. The pill is always portrayed as something very safe for example. did you see the surprised and `bger if women whe they realised that the risk of blood clot with the pill is much much higher than with the covid vaccine for example? Most women did NOT know how risky it is.
Same with many of the LT consequences of the pill.

No wonder men don't see the issue with it tbh!

I think you are being deliberately obtuse. If I was in a long term relationship and someone said they didn’t believe I was taking the pill and might try and trick them into having a baby then I would be pretty hurt

No. Not being deliberately obtuse. That was how I read your post.

And no it’s not fucking wife work. I prefer to use the contraception and hate condoms therefore I would do that. If I was with someone and didn’t like using hormonal contraception I would expect them to use condoms without complaining

It’s called a relationship. And not always assuming that women are always hard done by

Good for you. I found 25 years of taking the pill every single night at the same time to prevent pregnancy was pretty onerous along with dealing with the side effects. Of which, I suffered significantly. Other methods did not work well with me. I am not alone on that score.

I did it obviously for my own benefit of not falling pregnant. I would feel pretty pissed off if my husband did not also take some responsibility as well, so that it wasn't totally my responsibility to ensure I was adequately covered 100% of the time. Considering other medications etc can reduce the effectiveness of the pill and over a 25 year period there were times when this happened.

If you choose to take sole responsibility in your relationship, that is your choice of course.

@delurkasaurus

If we're going down this road then...

"...any masturbatory emissions, where the sperm is clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment."

Every sperm is sacred!

Are journalists supposed to post for material on here? I thought there was a "journo request" thing on twitter?

I agree with others, all sex carries risk of pregnancy.

But I am shocked that so many people accept a statement like "if you can't deal with pregnancy don't have sex - if someone said that in the opposite scenario of a man removing a condom people would freak out.

he used to force feed her the pill daily and check her mouth to make sure she took it. she would retch it back up. eventually she got pregnant they stayed together and had three children

Why would you want to have children with a man who behaves like that?

@QueeniesCroft

I find this really difficult to care about, to be honest. In a world where women are regularly raped, murdered and otherwise abused by men, with shockingly few consequences for those men, bleating about sperm stealing feels like underhanded whataboutery, designed to distract from the real and pressing problem of male violence against women and girls.

Well according to your logic, if a man (or boy) gets raped no one should really be bothered about it because 90% of the victims of that crime are woman, so we should focus only on eradicating that issue amongst woman and ignore it when it happens to men. The way you reason is known as a strawman fallacy, it is when your argument does not justify the point you are making.

@MsFogi

What's the aim - throw pregnant women in prison for this proposed offence, let them give birth in jail, let them breast feed in jail, take their babies away? Setting aside how difficult it would be to prove (or how dangerous it would be to leave some sort of discretion to the police/CPS given their track record with women) what is to be gained by criminalising women who get pregnant?!?

So if a woman has sex with underage male and she get pregnant she shouldn’t go jail just because she is pregnant?

@Linguini

Surely most of the risk of "spurgling" is on the woman. She'll be the one raising a baby either on her own or with a husband who doesn't want the baby, who can leave of he wants and exes are notorious for dodging child maintenance. She might get normal health complications that any pregnant women can get.

It's really all risk on the woman. Men don't really need to worry about this, not seriously.

There's also the fact that "oops DH I'm pregnant" and DH is overjoyed sometimes. Who doesn't love babies?

Bad people. That's who.
Bad people don't like babies.

Theres different types of spurgling so you have to be specific. Secondly lets say the issue isn’t the woman lying about the pill rather she is the on who manages to poke a hole in her partners condom would you consider that sexual assault considering that breached his consent of only being intimate provided he wear a condom? Thirdly What if the man uses a condom and then disposes of it, but the woman finds it and injects herself with it, would consider that also a form of breaching consent (but probably not sexual assault but a fraudulent crime) and should it be punishable by the law?

Define 'on the pill'.

Not been on MN for a while.

Interesting thread. Stealing sperm? Putting holes in condoms sneakily? What's the prevalence of women nabbing semen to get pregnant?

I'm female so can only speak from that perspective. But the number of blokes who were totally disinterested, reckless about contraception..
actively refusing to use condoms.

Men can walk away, pretty much. Totally different for women. maybe I've missed some context. I'm just not at all sure how any woman comes off lightly from pregnancy birth baby care etc etc...

The pill is always portrayed as something very safe for example. did you see the surprised and `bger if women whe they realised that the risk of blood clot with the pill is much much higher than with the covid vaccine for example? Most women did NOT know how risky it is.

It is safe compared to pregnancy - that's the second bit of the sentence that people forget about. Like vaccines are safe compared to the disease they're protecting against. It's all balance of risk.

My impression is that a lot of UK law is about a proportional reaction to harm. A man deceiving a woman about contraception is putting her at significantly more risk (the extra risk of pregnancy), a woman doing the same to a man isn't putting him at any more risk than she is taking herself.

Morally, no, it's not right - but then neither are so many other things around sex - promising marriage, or cheating on someone.

To me the salient point is the extra risk, and that's all on the woman.

Obviously the exception to this is if one of the partners knows they have a sexually transmissible disease, and are thus putting their partner at increased risk if they lie about contraception (although again, given that it would be a barrier method, this is more likely to be a man putting a woman at risk than the other way round in mixed sex relationships)

Vasectomy is the way to go for men who don’t want children, to be reversible later if they do. Given that they are so reluctant to wear condoms.

Who doesn't love babies?

Bad people. That's who.
Bad people don't like babies.

What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say!
Embarrassing.