Do we pity the man who is, against his will, forced into fatherhood?

Earlier this month, many of my readers objected to my lack of sympathy for men who, unlike women who have the right to get an abortion, find themselves dragged into fatherhood by the women they've impregnated when those women exercise their right to choose and go ahead and have those babies. I doubled down on my opinion here, on July 7th, and the comments thread there was a huge freakout, much of which you can't see now, because we did a ton of deletions. It was so bad that we ultimately had to turn off comments to stop the gush of repetitive abuse.

I hope you remember enough of that discussion to apply it to the specific context of a case in today's news:

Simon Cowell has been pictured for the first time following news that his married lover Lauren Silverman is expecting his baby.

The 53-year-old music mogul...  is said to be 'freaked out' by the news he is to become a father for the first time... Cowell... has been named as a co-respondent in the divorce papers Lauren's estranged husband Andrew filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court two weeks ago, citing adultery as the reason for ending the marriage.... Cowell is likely to be called to the witness stand to reveal not only details of the alleged affair with Lauren but also details of his personal finances, estimated to be in the region of $350million....

While Cowell is said to accept that the baby, due next February, is his, the news of 36-year-old Lauren's pregnancy came as a huge shock to both Simon and his closest female friends including Sinitta and ex fiancée Mezhgan Hussainy - otherwise known as his 'harem.'...

So here's a man who has used his great wealth and fame to acquire what is openly called a harem. All of these women were in a position to use their powers of reproduction against him, either deliberately, accidentally on purpose, or through pure oopsiness. They were playing and playing and playing with Nature's great life force, and Nature dropped a consequence.

‘In the harem hierarchy, Lauren is regarded as the fun, party girl. The other girls have all met her, they know who she is and they have been reduced to tears by this.'

It's fun until it's not. And why are the other "girls" crying? Because they didn't make the big move and bind him and/or his money to them with a baby? Because he was handing out enough cash and good times that they all understood the arrangement, and Lauren broke the rules? How many abortions and attendant payoffs have there been in the harem over the years?

It is as yet unclear whether or not Cowell and Lauren will attempt to make their relationship work for the sake of their unborn child.

There's a reality show for you. Divorce cranking away. The harem in tears. Cranky old bastard who said he couldn't tolerate a kid.

ADDED: The above-linked article has a claim that Cowell and Lauren were trying for pregnancy, but here's an article quoting someone "close to Cowell" saying: "The pregnancy has taken him by surprise. He assumed she was using birth control... Simon thought this was a casual relationship — friends with benefits. The pregnancy was not planned. He is feeling tricked." If that's true, it makes Cowell's case exactly what we were talking about last month.

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Instapundit says that what he thinks about what he calls my "advice" is "immaterial" but that it's "probably pretty good advice"...

... on what he calls "a prudential level."

So — for all that softening — there's still one strong word: "advice." I stand accused of giving "advice," but I don't see that I gave advice in that statement of mine that he quotes at the link. He introduced my quote with the opinion that I'm speaking "kind of social-connishly." "Kind of" is more softening — but the reader is told to see me as giving socially conservative advice.

Now, I don't think I'm giving any advice other than to say: You are free, you need to think about how you use your freedom, and don't just think about your own perspective as you make arguments that law and society ought to be arranged to facilitate your choices. I'd say I'm being quite libertarian. And as for social connishness, I support abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and — it's right there in my quote — I'm not out to punish those who decline to channel their sexuality into committed relationships with child-rearing. I'm just defending legal and political decisions that center on protecting the interests of children rather than the ability of males to avoid the consequences of procreation, consequences that occur even though the male power over reproduction ends — because he controls only his body and not the woman's — at an earlier point in time than the woman's. This leaves some men aggrieved that a woman didn't abort a baby he didn't want, and I'm just not too sympathetic about this male plight. So maybe I am giving "advice" in the form of saying: Don't expect sympathy.

But Glenn must think I'm advising everyone to form stable, committed, child-rearing couples, because he goes on to say, that my advice is "of course, advice one dare not give to women in today’s society without facing a huge backlash." Of course? Dare not? Oh, come on. How daring do you need to be to tell women they'll be better off in stable relationships? I'll say it now, and I think this advice is given all the time. Huge backlash? I take it he's referring to the "war on women" politics that permeated the 2012 elections, because he goes on to say:

When Rush Limbaugh suggested that Sandra Fluke should at least pay for her own birth control, he was savaged. 

Rush was savaged because he made a joke that was easily portrayed as ugly (and stupid). He set up the false premise that if insurance covers a woman's birth control expenses, she's being paid to have sex and therefore she's a prostitute. And, on a roll, he went ahead and said that if we — the people paying into the insurance pool — were paying for a prostitute, we ought to get the sex, so she should at least give us video of herself having sex.

Now, I listen to Rush, and I get his humor, which is sometimes over-the-top — being absurd to illustrate the absurd, he likes to say. But that was really too nasty, especially since it named and targeted a specific woman, who wasn't — especially at that point — much of a public figure. Sandra Fluke was a women's health-care advocate — still a student — who had testified about how difficult it is for young women to pay for their birth control expenses. Whatever you think about Obamacare and covering the ordinary health-care expenses that young people have, you've got to concede that Limbaugh was not savaged because he "suggested that Sandra Fluke should at least pay for her own birth control."

So Glenn begins with a distorted picture of my "advice" and a bizarrely exaggerated claim of how difficult it is to give women advice. He goes on:

But to suggest that a man should pay child support for 18 years because a woman lied about birth control is fine. You can’t say “she should keep her legs closed,” but you can say, “he should keep it in his pants.” That’s fine.

I certainly will say that fathers owe their children support, and I don't want he said/she said legal battles over women who supposedly lied about birth control.  I agree that it's socially acceptable to say that, and I even suspect Glenn would agree with me about most instances of men who failed to take responsibility for their own birth control and have sex with women who might be deceitful.

But I don't agree that you can't advise women to withhold sex. I'd give that advice, although I would not say it in the crude and old-fashioned "keep your legs closed" form. (I would talk about valuing your own body and your own long-term interests.) And as for telling the man to "keep it in his pants," the main "it" that has concerned me in these recent discussions is sperm. Not the penis. Not even the seminal fluid, since I offered the option of freezing sperm and having a vasectomy. But I think it's ineffective to just tell people — males and females — not to have sex. Women will have distinctive feminist answers to any anti-sex pressure. You'll be accused of wanting a return to the archaic subordination of women. Men can only say you're puritanical or anti-freedom. So what? The pro-free-sex arguments are out there for both males and females.

Over the past several decades, women have asserted a right to make all the judgments in matters of gender and sexuality. 

All the judgments? You mean all the judgments about their own bodies. Men can't control women's bodies anymore. Women have won that argument in America (except to the extent there are some limits on abortion). But I don't think too many women are asserting a right to control men's bodies, unless you think the sperm that has escaped from the man's possession and merged with an egg inside the woman's body should be reclaimable by him somehow. It's the woman — under American law — who gets to determine the significance of that growing entity, whether it's a human being deserving the chance to live, because pregnancy happens inside her body, dependent on her bodily organs. The man doesn't have the right to force her to have an abortion. I doubt if Glenn would favor a man's right of that sort.

And, in fact, we do “facilitate” destructive choices, when they’re by women. We subsidize unwed mothers, we give women a pass on sexual behavior that would be considered predatory if it were done by males, we give them all sorts of “choice” that men don’t have and then absolve them, culturally and legally, from judgment over the way they exercise those choices. No similar dispensation is given to men.

Not even if the male has the primary child-care-giving role? I don't think the line is between male and female here. I think it's about children. I think our welfare policies are neutral about passing judgment on sexual behavior. If men want a "similar dispensation," let them take an equivalent role with respect to children. Do they even want that? It looks like they just want out of child support. They are treated differently because they are doing something different. I know many will want to repeat the complaint about the male's loss of decisionmaking power at an earlier point in the reproductive process, but this is a blatant biological difference, and it's why the man needs to watch where he lets his sperm go. That's his big opportunity to control his destiny.

Glenn returns to his idea that I'm prescribing a behavioral norm for everyone:

A society that ran according to Ann Althouse’s views on marriage and commitment might, in fact, be a better one than the one we live in now, but it is most definitely not the one we live in now. 

I'm not an ideologue about how everyone ought to live. I like individualism, autonomy, freedom, and personal responsibility. I'm not yearning for an old-fashioned society where everyone channels their sexuality into marriage and child-rearing. So what I'm saying doesn't require the society to change into something else. I'm talking about the world as we find it and recommend that people face it as it is and figure out how to live. This is an individual's choice. You can be a good person in a completely evil world, which is obviously not a description of America today. Our society has some problems, but that doesn't change the call to the individual to be a good person and to find a way to live a moral and worthy life. (You can decide to be a completely selfish and unproductive person, but there are consequences, and it's not necessarily easy.)

Referencing the imperfections of modern life, Glenn goes on to say:

Observing that, and noting the unfairnesses involved, is not “victimology” — though given how successful women have been in obtaining power via victimology, no one should be surprise [sic] if men start to give it a try.

So, Glenn is both resisting the breadth of the "victimology" label and toying with the notion that it might be a good strategy for men to use that label. That is, he's contemplating the rhetoric and seems ambivalent. Let's think about this more: Should men move in this direction in the political discourse, portraying themselves as victims? The absurd version of this is claiming to be victims of the way women have gotten so much out of claiming to be victims. Maybe Glenn wants to say since women have gained so much out of claiming to be victims, men should rebalance things by showing that they too are victims. There are costs to that strategy. I prefer to call everyone — male and female — to greater clarity in thinking about how he or she can live a good life.

Next, Glenn disagrees with a belief that I don't think anyone has:

But I do not believe that women deserve a monopoly in determining what views on gender and sexuality and parenting are acceptable. Why would they?

A monopoly on what views are acceptable? Many people state a view and act like it's the only acceptable view. That's typical of political argument. That doesn't stop their opponents from doing the same. But I don't hear anyone saying that men aren't even allowed to participate in the discussion.

And yet Glenn says:

What’s funny is that so many women seem genuinely perplexed that men would even dispute that monopoly. 

I'm only perplexed at the claim that there is a monopoly!

Ann is a thoughtful and open-minded and smart woman, but at some level I feel like she doesn’t really get it. 

What, exactly, is the "it"? Is it the original subject: that men who left their sperm somewhere out of their control are expected to support their own children? I certainly get that men would rather hold onto their money and that they feel ripped off. I just understand why the legal and political decisions put a relatively light weight on that particular preference.

But then, that’s what women have been saying to men on gender issues for decades: “You just don’t get it!” Maybe the not-getting goes both ways. 

Okay, then, I've given Glenn some material to get. We'll see how that goes.

The problem is, if society is to accomplish the goals that Ann sets out above...

Again, I did not set goals. I only called individuals to clear, moral thinking about their own lives.

... it needs to be a reasonably attractive proposition for both men and women. 

With my clarification of what I am doing, this clause makes no sense. I know Glenn is, at this point in his post, building in the thesis of his wife Helen Smith's book "Men on Strike." In order to offer up the idea that marriage needs to be a deal that both men and women will accept, he's using me for premise that marriage is the goal. I don't like that.

He then says:

How are we doing with that? At the risk of stepping on my wife’s turf, I’d say not so well.

At that point he links to this video summary of Helen's book. The book is "Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters" — which I have read — and the video is called "Six Reasons Why Men Are Avoiding Marriage":



Does this video show that men are not doing well? Glenn's "I’d say not so well" actually doesn't refer to whether men are doing well, but whether marriage is "a reasonably attractive proposition for both men and women."

In the video, Helen gives 6 reasons why a man today might analyze his personal interests and decide against marriage. So men are doing what suits them. Helen is not saying they're misjudging their situation. She's saying they are behaving rationally in their own self-interest. The implication seems to be that women are losing out on the opportunity to have marriage partners. That would mean women ought to make concessions and, in their self-interest, offer men a better deal.

Are men "on strike"? The labor union analogy implies that these men who are choosing, rationally, not to marry are somehow organized, acting together, and making demands and that women are somehow the management, the boss. But these men are individuals, and — if we're talking about marriage — they only want one woman.

I'm not the social engineer type. I've always only been talking about individual decisionmaking. Decide for yourself what you want. I do see the problem that if the sex drive is easily satisfied outside of marriage, it becomes difficult for any given woman to ask for much in a marriage, but I don't see this as a reason to lower her standards.

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9 things Freeman Hunt said...

... in the comments at "If men did this to women..." (##1-5) and at "A somewhat dismissive response" (##6-9):

1. "When I was growing up, the prevailing sex ed was that you, male or female, were wholly responsible for your own birth control and that you should never assume or believe that the other person was taking care of it. That's not the prevailing wisdom anymore?"

2. "Maybe all those traditionally religious people don't hate sex--maybe they have all those prohibitions on sex outside marriage for some other reason... It's like there was a plan for all of this or something."

3. "Odd. This thread is odd. Are some people furious because (1) Althouse suggests men don't go depositing sperm around women they don't love and would despise having children with or because (2) Althouse/the law being in favor of/upholding abortion rights?"

4. In sarcastic imitation of other commenters: "I don't wanna have babies with the skanks I like to hose down with my sperm. Those disposable tramps I bed should be drawn and quartered if they try to pull a fast one on a fine, upstanding guy like me. Just where do these no-good, dishonest women I make love to get off?"

5. About my supposedly "nasty" taunting of males who claim victimhood over their loss of control over the sperm they've released into the wild: "Heh. Oddly enough, I think that was intended to be encouraging. It's encouraging this idea that a person can be more than an animal who ruts around with whoever, even those he doesn't like or know, more than a careless, appetite feeding beast. I think it was an invitation to the recognition of the divine spark in man."

6. "I'd imagine that Althouse, Instapundit, and Dr. Helen are perfectly capable of arguing intensely about an issue and not taking it personally. Surely anyone who comments here, of all places, does the same on a regular basis!"

7. "How many of us have had it out, ripped each other apart rhetorically and gotten on perfectly well afterward? That's one of the best things about this place."

8. "As for my opinion on this small controversy: This is good. This victim man stuff was hitting a tipping point of absurdity, so the push back is well timed.  I write that as someone who adores men and was raised mostly by her father. And I'm proud to say that my dearly departed father would never have advocated such a base vision for manhood, this vision that sees man as a pathetic beast who throws his sperm about with abandon and needs protecting from the women he beds."

9. "@Freeman: It's actually a venerable academic tradition. I learned about it firsthand from an oldtimer and wrote about it here. I thought about bringing up the fact that it's a hallmark of healthy academia. Whenever you see it slide in academia, the result is less rigorous work and meagerness of mind."

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"A somewhat dismissive response."

Instapundit says, somewhat dismissively. 

I suspect he wouldn't want to hear my truly dismissive response, but if you search the comments at my somewhat dismissive response... and over here... you can extrapolate what it would be. I'll cherry-pick some clues as to what I would say if I chose to go hard-core on this subject.

Quoting a commenter who said — about my proposal that health insurance pay for vasectomies and men freeze their sperm in order to provide males with reproductive autonomy — "Point of order, the woman has a right to seek an abortion. There's nothing about anyone having to provide it to her or having Other People pay for it," I said:

That's true, and that is something that makes the proposal in my post not neatly about equality.

But there really can never be equality about pregnancy and childbirth. It is the woman's special burden, and the policies have to be arranged to make sense around that basic inequity. I'm not trying to punish men by imposing a corresponding inequity, I'm just not impressed by the whinings of males who were profligate with their sperm. They are not the backbone of society.

The backbone of society is the married, committed couple who channel their sexuality into making and growing the next generation. Those who do other things are free to make choices, but we as a society have no reason to facilitate their choices, especially their destructive choices.

I know people like their free sex, but the expectation that the rest of us will save them from consequences is pathetic. I heartlessly laugh in their face. 

Quoting a commenter who said, "Your logic is correct for our pathetic society, but that doesn't rob from how pathetic it is," I said:

Yeah, but that's my point. My real prescription isn't [the vasectomy/frozen sperm proposal]. This is a fall-back now that we've become pathetic.

Really, men need to keep track of their genetic material. One way or another.

Don't be a splooge stooge.

Quoting a commenter who said "Women are just as responsible themselves..." I said:

I never said they weren't.

Both are fully responsible.

And, on the earlier post, quoting a commenter who said "Let's try applying your logic the other way. Women are free to freeze their eggs and then have their tubes tied. That way they have perfect choice not to get pregnant. So that does away with the case for abortion, right?" I said:

The fact is, once a woman is pregnant, she has a right to use abortion to get out of the physical process that has begun, but it is too late for the man to exercise a right, because his rights relate to his body, not hers.

The man must take responsibility for himself, not seek to control the woman.

I know you men would like to have your fun and freedom and not be troubled by risks, but your body is yours and her body is hers.

Reacting to all the many, many comments from men who have taken Instapundit's invitation to victimology seriously, I said (punctuation corrected):

There are some really sad beta posturings in this thread.

Where is the self-respect?

Where is the awe over procreation?

Lame little men, whining about their meager money.

No one cares about you, because no one should!

Where is your aspiration? Where is your altruism?

Why do you leave the house?

You have your porn and your masturbation.

The alternative is true manhood, but is that something you are capable of? Apparently not!

I laugh in your scrunched up crying little face.

Another commenter said "You are also forgetting that even if a condom is used and the woman fishes the condom out of the trash and uses a turkey baster to impregnate herself, the man is still held responsible. If a woman takes a used condom from a man having sex *with a different woman* and impregnates herself, the man is held responsible. If a man and woman only engage in oral sex and the woman saves the sperm for later use with a turkey baster, the man is held responsible. None of that means that the man has any actual *rights* in regards to the child." Which made me say:

I am absolutely not forgetting about that.

Men need to value and guard their genetic material.

The lameness of men who throw this stuff around is mindboggling. Don't be [a] splooge stooge.

Now, I think women shouldn't want to invest their reproductive effort in such idiots, but that's the other side of the story.

And (emphasis added):

The men who are saying: I want something because women have something.

You guys...

If you don't have the wherewithal to realize what you are... you are no longer men, and women should be rejecting you. I can't account for all these women, but at least, if they become pregnant, they take on an immense burden. They feel that.

You guys... I wonder if you feel anything at all.

You are unworthy. The reason something ought to save you from becoming fathers is that you are unworthy, but unfortunately, it seems that some women do still choose to have sex with you and even to bear your children.

And that -- THAT! -- is what you complain is your misfortune.

Amazing blindness. Your misfortune is so much worse than that.

And somebody said: "Then there are cases like the one (likely more than one...), where a woman who performed (only) oral sex with a man, using a condom, retrieved the condom and inseminated herself, and successfully sued for child support. IMO if a man does something that physiologically cannot produce conception without the woman's deliberate and willfully deceptive action, he is not responsible in any way for the conception." And I said:

I don't know why a woman would invest her reproductive effort in carrying forward the genes of such a man, but I have no sympathy with him at all.

Your phrase "physiologically cannot produce conception" is obviously wrong, since it did.

I fear for the future of humankind, with such stupidity in our inheritance.

The man is an idiot, and the woman is an idiot. Maybe the child can rise above it.

But sympathy for this man who has no love and no self-respect? Why don't you save your compassion for someone who deserves it?

This men's rights stuff was old-hat in the 1980s. Recycling it now is the lamest thing I've seen in a long, long time.

If you really cared about men, you'd try to do something to elevate them, as I am trying right now. Instead you are inviting them into a downward spiral. This is worse than The Life of Julia.

The whining and crying about what victims men are these days continued way into the night. In the morning I saw a comment that began with the burnt-out old internet expression "sigh": "Sigh. And yet a wife can make the choice to abort her kid without even telling her husband. Shoudnt they be consulting their husband?" I had to take another shot:

Yes, and that's exactly the reason Planned Parenthood v. Casey gave for striking down a statutory requirement that a woman consult her husband.

Think about it.

And stop your sighing.

Picture me singing that last line like this:



UPDATE: Glenn responds to this here, and I respond to that here.

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"Interestingly, though, doctors often ask married men for their wife’s permission before they’ll perform a vasectomy."

Yeah, but I'm not talking about married men. Once you're married, you should be consulting with your wife. If you're not, you've got problems.

Anyway, if these doctors are asking because the law requires it, the men should win their legal challenge. But I suspect the doctors are asking because they're afraid of getting sued, in which case, the men need to establish their rights in court so they can out-scare the doctors.

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"If men did this to women, it would be considered a species of rape."

Instapundit weighs in on that lying-about-birth-control question we were talking about — a lot — yesterday.

He's mostly focused on sympathy for males who must pay child support, but I think society has chosen to put the burden on men to control where they put their sperm. Imagine endless factual disputes over whether the woman claimed to be infertile or on pills. The child is real and needs support, and anyone who expressed horror — as Instapundit did — at "The Life of Julia" should understand why we hold men responsible for the consequences they risk.

To save commenters the trouble of telling me again: I know, there was an underage boy one time who was the victim of statutory rape and made to pay child support. So craft a narrow exception for people like him. The general principle is a good one.

If you're thinking of bringing up the woman's right to choose to avoid a pregnancy, let me repeat that this is a decision that properly belongs to the woman. Pregnancy occurs inside the woman's body, where the man lost control of his sperm. He should have been more risk averse.

Now, here's a proposal, based on all the attention Obamacare has given to women's health. Let's require health insurance to cover vasectomies. Then there will be some surgery that men have a right to choose. How's that for a pro-equality policy? Men can freeze their sperm beforehand and thereafter have perfect control over when women get hold of their reproductive powers.

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