Folks, my apologies if you’ve sent mail to my gmail address and I haven’t responded. I’ve just checked it and realised that I’d entered my old bigpond address in the forwarding settings so the email hasn’t been getting to me. I’ve now had a chance to have a quick look at the backlog of gmail but I won’t be in a position to reply properly til sometime over the weekend - I have a meeting this afternoon and a friend coming round for dinner and a drink tonight so I’m unlikely to be at my computer for a bit.
Anyway, the gmail address is now properly configured so this problem won’t arise in the future.
If your mail worked, I’d wrn you to beware of sperm theft. It’s not just in Sweden anymore:
A NORWEGIAN court has sentenced a woman to nine months in jail for raping a man, the first such conviction in the Scandinavian country that prides itself for its egalitarianism.
The 31-year-old man fell asleep on a sofa at a party in January last year and told the court in the western city of Bergen he woke to find the 23-year-old woman was having oral sex with him.
Under Norwegian law, all sexual acts with someone who is “unconscious or for other reasons unable to oppose the act” are considered rape.
The court sentenced the woman on Wednesday to nine months in jail and ordered her to pay 40,000 Norwegian crowns ($6355) in compensation.
“This is a very harsh sentence,” the woman’s lawyer, Per Magne Kristiansen, told the Norwegian news agency NTB. The woman argued the man had been awake and consented.
The prosecutor had sought a 10-month sentence and argued the court should not be more lenient with a woman than a man. It was Norway’s first conviction of a woman for rape.
“unlikely to be at my computer for a bit”
How will you cope with the withdrawal?
There’s always the chance of a pitstop, Ron - I’m at an Internet cafe to print out some stuff I need to take to the meeting!
EP, I think you should explain the evils of sperm theft for the benefit of new readers - a few people seemed somewhat bemused last time you mentioned this grave social issue.
You don’t need to explain being away for one evening. We don’t want anyone to think young Daniel has a point ….
It’s simple enough to understand, despite the vicious Swedish propaganda campaign to sweep it under the carpet.
Sperm theft occurs whenever a woman, either by false pretences or other means, obtains a man’s sperm without his knowing consent and uses it to become pregnant.
The reason it’s a problem is because in our legal system, the thief is rewarded and the victim is punished by the so-called “Child Support” scheme.
Unlike women, men have no reproductive rights, no right to terminate an unwanted embryo, and no right to avoid personal responsibility for the upbringing of unwanted children.
This is why Choice for Men is an issue that is as important as abortion for women. However, due to sexism in our society it has been neglected.
The fact Evil Pee has fathered several litters that he’s never seen, has nothing to do with this issue about male issue.
Point taken, Amanda - though when my friend comes over to visit, I’ll emphasise that she should touch my elbow and vice versa.
“She”. I knew it.
Stay away from that couch!
As much as I don’t want to EP, I see your point. I was surprised that the woman who provided ‘oral pleasure’ to her friend and then spat out his semen and used it to become pregnant suceeded. Firstly, that it worked at all, and secondly because she won child support. I do think it’s a bit unfair that he thought he was just having a good time and got bunged with child support for a bj. I didn’t think that she should have been able to claim child support from him because she deliberately impregnated herself. I guess it got put in the too hard basket, because if she’d been unsuccessful in claiming child support then men who impregnanted women accidentally during unprotected sex could potentially also claim no responsibility for the child created.
Thanks for your serious consideration, Mindy. My faith in humanity is somewhat restored.
Y’know I sorta agree with Mindy, and so with Evil Pee. Mind you it still took a third party to adjust the reception and volume.
The case as described above, is obviously a pretty serious injustice that’s gonna mess up some lives and yes, I’m sure it’s not the only one of its kind that’s been hatched, matched and dispatched into the “too hard” basket.
Just doesn’t strike me though as one of the more prevelant or time-critical of the many problems we’re facing (unless of course you have a personal interest in the matter).
Still, everyone have can a pet crusade if they want. Mine is to own the sub in the 1954 “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” movie. Just some are easier to make seedy jokes about than others.
It’s true that this is one of my pet crusades, but it’s not an altogether insignificant problem. Sperm theft in the blatant form of oral sex is rather rare and spectacularly obvious when it happens.
But a much less obvious, and more prevalent case is women lying about contraception in order to get pregnant (some surveys indicate that as many as 40% may be prepared to do this). Sure, a man could use a condom all the time, but who would want to live in a relationship where one partner could never trust the other?
I think it’s much better to adjust the law to remove the incentive/profit motive, and that this issue is as important to men as abortion is to women.
Anyway I’ve finally vented in this blog, and I’ve posted on the topic on my own blog — so unless someone brings up the subject again, I’ll shut up here.
“spectacularly obvious”
Well some people apparently swallowed it.
“so unless someone brings up the subject again, I‚Äôll shut up here.”
That’s pretty inevitable given some of the smutty minds I’m forced to consort with around here.
I haven’t bagged you for a long time over this Evil. Of course, like everyone I’m entirely sympathetic, yet we must always come back to remedies, for which there is only one thus far discovered on this earth to my knowledge. The alternative, as we have often discussed, is to set up the Department for the Prevention of Sperm Theft, with EP as the first ceo, who will design many forms to regulate sexual relations and deploy many inspectors, aka the sperm theft squad, to police them. No doubt there are some implementation details still to be worked out. But unless you can solve this side of the debate Evil, it’s all just so much blog entertainment, on a slow day.
Nonsense. Your straw man is so poorly constructed as to be ridiculous. The CS solution to any problem may be to create a bureaucratic nightmare, but sane people know better.
All that is required is a right for men to choose whether or not to support an unwanted child — equivalent to a woman’s right to choose whether or not to support an unwanted fetus.
I think Evil Pee should take the lead here and firmly grasp the problem at its root and encourage some vigorious back and forth to see if he can’t wring out a solution. I believe I am not alone in saying that this proposal will surely fall on fertile ground.
In fact I can’t think of a better pair of hands into which to place the issue. As we know, dogged repetition is one of his more upstanding attributes.
I’m excited to be at the head of this new extension of legal priciples. The erection of a towering monument to sexual equality will bring forth a shower of social blessings that allows everyone to bathe in its sweet glory.
Given that it is indeed a slow day.
EP - by which cut-off point in the child’s life would the father have had to announce that the child is unwanted in order to escape any child-support obligations?
“Given that it is indeed a slow day.”
Depends on who yer jerking around.
by which cut-off point in the child’s life would the father have had to announce that the child is unwanted in order to escape any child-support obligations?
At or before the cut-off time when the fetus could be legally aborted (or later if the mother failed to inform him she was pregnant).
ok, ep, thanks
ok, lol, it was cute ‘n clever indeed
So EP, in the absence of said bureaucracy, or even in its presence, how can the authorities be satisfied that the hapless sperm has been thieved, as it were, and as distinct from just another male saying-would-he-would-say-wouldn’t-he in seeking to evade responsibilites with which he was complicit or worse in creating?
“At or before the cut-off time when the fetus could be legally aborted (or later if the mother failed to inform him she was pregnant).”
Oh, does that mean you’ll be crusading against restrictive abortion legislation as well? I just can see you uneasily rubbing shoulders with strident female lefty demonstrators who are casting skeptical looks at your “No More Unwanted Dads!” placard.
So EP, in the absence of said bureaucracy, or even in its presence, how can the authorities be satisfied that the hapless sperm has been thieved?
Courts can decide these things, much as they can in the he-said, she-said world of other rape cases.
Nabs, I’d crusade for consistent rights between the sexes, even if that means standing next to hairy-armpitted wimmenslibbers.
Nonsense Evil. Rape is an act of violence. You are arging some form of entrapment, which is virtually impossible to decide upon in the absence of witnesses. This is where we always get to with this line of argument.
Let’s try to go another step, and imagine you taking action. Do you have any witnesses to evidence of your own entrapment, suitable for presentation to a court?
None of this is an issue with my stated solution, which you continue to ignore. I’ll post it again, so you can ignore it again:
All that is required is a right for men to choose whether or not to support an unwanted child — equivalent to a woman’s right to choose whether or not to support an unwanted fetus.
And I want the “Nautilas” but I realise achieving the desired result will be a lot more complicated than just uttering the desire.
Given the apparently infinite ability of humans to screw up, go over the top, lie and dissemble or just get really dazed and confused when it comes to sex, do you have any practical suggestions for delivering your solution (and ones that don’t involve increased government regulation either)?
And it’s not equivalent, as you well know. The only equivalent is if men could get pregnant through ovary theft. The closest equivalent, and it’s not equivalent, is men having the right to insist on a woman having an abortion (see Tone Abbott on this one).
Yes, Nabs. My suggestion is to change the law so that there is a right for men to choose whether or not to support an unwanted child — equivalent to a woman’s right to choose whether or not to support an unwanted fetus.
No new bureaucracies or enforcement agencies whatsoever would be required. And of course, unlike the chances of you acquiring the Nautilus, the probability of achieving this law reform within my lifetime is fairly high.
It doesn’t even need to be equivalent between the sexes. The inescapable fact is that if a child is born, it does not bear the sins of its father, or the sins of its mother.
Whatever else the conversation covers, the bottom line is that a child deserves the love and care of all of us. I’m not asserting that the the present arrangements are ideal, and I accept that it is possible that a woman could hunt and gather sperm to impregnate herself with. Even if she does that, it’s not the kid’s fault. The kid is still entitled to be loved and protected.
There’s a thought - the unwanted but loved.
Is why the law in all its folk-wisdom has decreed that blokes have to put up too.
Our species’ continuation requires male participation, EP. There is an evolutionary imperative.
Very high-minded to attempt freeing us from our biological shackles, but far too much effort for far too little gain.
“I did it for equality and justice”, shouted Elvis Piefeatures, as he was ejected from The Supreme Court Crust, the last restaurant in Melbourne to insist both on ties for males and a house ban on breastfeeding women.
Astonished police called to the scene discovered that Mr Piefeatures had been surgically altered with transplanted breasts so that he could truly share the work of childrearing. He told waiting reporters that his girlfriend had slipped him a Mickey Finn and then stolen his sperm to avoid his assiduous use of his own home-made triple-layer armoured condoms.
Unfortunately the woman concerned worked as a receptionist for a horse vet, and the drug rendered him unconscious, disorganised and incontinent until well into the third trimester. New legislation passed through Federal Parliament making late term abortions illegal also shortened the period in which he could legally reject the child on the grounds of deliberate trickery.
“I know I am stuck with her”, he said, “but my heart melted when I looked into her big brown eyes. Once I became aware just how hard my beloved partner Boadicea has to work to keep our little angel alive, my mind was made up.
I signed up for the operation the next day. Equality is a wonderful thing.”
You probably thought that was funny absurdist satire Dave.
Funny? Yes.
Absurdist Satire? Just wait.
“All that is required is a right for men to choose whether or not to support an unwanted child ‚Äî equivalent to a woman‚Äôs right to choose whether or not to support an unwanted fetus.”
Ah, so much to be said for to have and to hold, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, unto death do us part.
Don’t talk to me about “the rights of the child”.
If a woman can kill it, it doesn’t have any rights.
EP I’m afraid our previous agreement on this issue will have to end here. The fact is that given a get out of jail free card some men who actively and happily participated in the making of the child would get cold feet and cry ‘I never wanted a child’ and refuse to pay child support. Then you end up with a he said she said situation and a child who doesn’t get any support from a father who liked the idea of a child but not the reality.
Yet when the current system allows women to exploit men through fraud and lies, you don’t object.
I should have known better than to expect any sort of fairness. First we have to destroy the Left, then we can work on reform.
Aw, the puddy tat wants to fight.
I don’t think a man should be required to pay child support in cases of proven “sperm theft,” but I also think the onus of proof must rest on the man who seeks to avoid the responsibility, and the burden must be greater than the balance of probabilities.
EP the unfortunate fact is that the current system allows lots of people to be exploited in many ways. In this particular instance it is men that pay. In others it’s women, the elderly, the unemployed etc. There is always someone getting screwed. If we went over to your system then it would be the women getting screwed, and innocent children. I don’t think in cases of proveable sperm theft men should have to pay child support, nor do I think men should have to pay child support for children that aren’t theirs in the case of a relationship breakdown. However, we can’t switch to a system of ‘now it’s your turn to be screwed’ because it doesn’t help anyone. The current system could do with some fine tuning, but not a complete trashing.
The problem is that whenever some fine tuning is proposed that would make the system fairer to men, it is vigorously opposed. In the end, this leads to a buildup of pressure which will, eventually, result in the trashing of the system if reforms are not made.
One pertinent example is the persistent blocking by the Labor/Democrat Senate of minor reforms to the family law system that would make it easier for men to visit their children. Now that Senate block has been overthrown, and the Government will be able to make greater reforms than it would have if the Labor/Democrat majority had acted reasonably enough not to get thrown out.
Another point, raised by Al Bundy on my blog:
Simply extending sex education to cover legal matters as well as biological ones would do a great deal to improve the situation, and would be very easy to do.