When you claim that a man cannot ever be 100 percent sure that a baby is his, you are also saying that women cannot be trusted. All women evidently. And that offends me and, I would guess that it would offend most women. And I'm not so sure you speak for all men - I would imagine some have evolved beyond your way of thinking, even if you have not. I do not claim that selling her virginity should be celebrated, Frankly, it's not my business so I'm not even going to speak to the actions she is taking. You are of course entitled to your misogynistic opinions!! And I'm entitled to disagree. (How's Miss FLG??? No one will think this is is a baby blog if you post pics occasionally, promise!)
I am not saying NO woman can EVER be trusted. My point is that paternity relies entirely upon trust whereas maternity does not at all. While there can be doubt as to paternity, there can never, ever be any regarding maternity. This is a non-trivial difference. Furthermore, I don't think it unreasonable that via evolution or a social construction, if you prefer, a high value would be placed on female virginity to overcome this difference. That is the only way that paternity can be biologically guaranteed.
Miss FLG is fantastic, but a bit grumpy this evening.
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Perhaps you have a point. Saw this, had to share:
Artificial Virginity Hymen: Faking that Vacuum-Fresh Seal
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe at 10:11 AM on January 14, 2009.
If he wants to re-live you losing your virginity, or if you have to fake losing it to please him, dump the motherfucker already.
I'm not really sure what to say about this, other than if he wants to re-live you losing your virginity in all of its blood-oozing glory, or if you have to fake losing it to please him, dump the motherfucker already:
A reader tipped us off to the "Artificial Virginity Hymen", which the company, Gigimo, claims "will expand a little and make you feel tight." The hymen also includes a packet that is activated during sex, which will "ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount." As if that wasn't horrifying enough, the company claims, "Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable."
Unfortunately for us ladies, the "artificial virginity hymen" doesn't come with an "artificial virginity penis" that jackhammers for 22 seconds before shrivelling and passing out next to you in the backseat of his parents' car.
I’ll also add that, sad as it is, a fake hymen could be potentially helpful to women who face serious consequences for not appearing to be virgins on their wedding nights. And at least it’s less invasive than hymen surgery. (Typing that sentence makes me want to cry and/or break something).
I think it’s relatively safe to say, based on the clear logic that FLG is employing here, that his opinion is not misogynistic in the slightest way. And it is, indeed, a good point. But the problem is further complicated inasmuch as society, for want of a better term, tacitly admits that women may not necessarily be trusted when it comes to paternity. Case in Point: When my son was born I had to sign a document that “Binds” me to be financially responsible for him until he is a legal adult. I had no problem signing it but the point is that the damned thing clearly indicated that I would be responsible regardless of any future paternity or DNA testing that may reveal that he is not actually my son. In other words, regardless of the medical or familial facts, I was bound to accept the responsibility of “father” on a legal basis in spite of any evidentiary revelations that may come about at a later date based on actual, empirical evidence.
Why do you think such documents exist? Because women have been deceptive about these things in the past. And while I hate to throw out tired clichés like, “One bad apple can ruin the whole barrel,” we must realize that, if matters were otherwise, this document wouldn’t be necessary.
Obviously, no such paperwork need exist for the mother and I had to sign it because the mother of my son and I are not married.
The upshot is that we have laid the groundwork to force men to accept paternity legally whether it is actual paternity or not and I think the very existence, or necessity, of this situation speaks volumes about the nature of this question.
Oh for goodness sakes, you think those documents exist because women have been deceptive???? Sorry, I must disagree. I believe those documents exist because some men (too many!) abdicate responsibility for their progeny and in this way, the child is ensured some support. Your view (it's the woman's fault!) speaks volumes. And did someone put a gun to your head to force you to sign the paternity documents? Didn't think so...
The observation that maternity is never beyond doubt reminds me of the warming-pan baby claim (and that for 300 years afterward, the Lord Chancellor or some court dignitary in a wig had to attend royal births).
We do have a history of women stealing babies, even going as far as cutting them from the womb of their murdered mothers and, thereby, faking maternity. We also have a history of infants being accidentally swapped during hospital releases. So, maternity is also NOT quite certain.
Alan,
That misses the point. The point is whether the woman herself knows it is her baby or not. Now, the hospital swapping is a very rare and weird thing. But the point is that a woman knows if she is the mother of a child with certainty, strange exceptions like hospital mix-ups aside.
Very well then Linda. And we could toss the "blame" around from now until Doomsday and it's not going to mean anything. But the very fact that NO SUCH documents exist for the mother makes FLG's point in spades.
For the father, there will always be that one, loose nerve ending that will always wonder...
And no...nobody put a gun to my head...it was more like stuck in my ribs. And I signed the paper to make sure that the boy was taken care of (my son or not) because his mother's a fiduciary flake who wouldn't know what to do otherwise.
Well, I might agree that the fetishization of female virginity was a reasonable response to the problem of property inheritance (let's not pretend this is about paternity, as CS Perry proves), except for one thing---it doesn't guarantee anything. It promises 1 night, 1 opportunity to ensure paternity. After that one night, there are no guarantees. After that one night, surveillance and control is the response to the inheritance problem.
Quick google says the chances of becoming pregnant any time are about 1 in 20. So what is virginity doing to guarantee paternity, exactly?
(inheritance via sister's son is actually a much more reasonable way to handle the problem of property inheritance)
Oh, and I don't think I ever said congratulations. Congratulations!! I'm glad to see you are posting less with a new baby at home. :)
This shouldn't be particularly controversial. Both men and women want fidelity from their partners. The evolutionary consequences to men of an unfaithful partner are greater than they are for women. (He then expends energy raising a child who is not passing on his genes. The woman, at worst, might be abandoned due to infidelity.) Thus, men care more about the possibility of infidelity than women do. The fewer sexual partners a person (either male or female) had before their current relationship is a good gauge, though certainly not perfect, of how faithful they will be. This is both rather obvious and empirically verified.
As Dance points out, there have been societies where paternity wasn't relevant. E.g. there are some societies where the men were frequently away for long periods of time hunting and a woman's fidelity was both unlikely and unverifiable. These societies frequently adopted schemes in which the woman's brothers helped to raise her children rather than the father of the child. It would be interesting to know if, in such societies, any value is placed on chastity or if jealousy exists. I'd be willing to bet that they still do, but I don't actually know.
By the way, if FLG had said that men are less trustworthy than women because men benefit more evolutionarily by having multiple lovers (they can have multiple children at once while women can only have one or two at a time) and therefore men were more likely to be cheating cads, would he be a misandrist? (Since I believe all of that is true, I guess this makes me a self-hating misandrist myself.)
Jeez, there is recent innovation! Women get eggs fertilized outside, and implanted. They have to trust the doc that the implant is their egg - or is the egg of the perfect-1600-SAT donor they paid $23000 for. Guys have to trust the doc that their jiz was in fact mixed with the donor egg. Dr Jacobsen went to the slammer for 52 counts of mail fraud (mail fraud) including a case in which he used his own stuff instead of donation from the woman's husband. 'Father of us all', he was called in his Ig Nobel. So that's unreliability introduced into parents' knowledge of pater/maternity.
And now you can get DNA testing which will lock up the answer. So: world has changed, from the one which led to the attitudes FLG is describing. dave.s.
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