The ultimate answer to life, rape, pregnancies, chemistry and everything

[jasong]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19335083

Obviously, there's some bi-partisanship going on, since all he did was suggest there's medical evidence that rape victims can prevent pregnancy, I guess through some sort of chemical response. I love how they take the possibility that he's simply mistaken about his belief and somehow turn him into some sort of mysoginistic beast.

Yep, this dude hates women, and I hate homosexuals since there's some sort of magically permanent link between who a person is at their core and whether or not they like to have sex with their own gender.

Not saying Republicans don't do this as well(I honestly don't know if they do or not), but this is the same sort of thing that makes it difficult to balance the budget. If we constantly make false allegations that people are monsters when they're not, then we'll keep going down the same horrible road we've been on.

Found this.
So, apparently, he's been listening to the wrong people. Either way, doesn't make him a woman-hating monster any more than I'm a homophobe.(bring on the flames, lol)

[Batalov]

Are rape-based pregnancies rare?

Not rare. This is as much a myth as that one can't get get pregnant if it's the first time.

Here's a tangent that you will later wish you never read: There are some animals that get a plug (seriously) when they get pregnant - that much you can find out even on the first introductory pages of Lee Silver's [I]Mouse Genetics[/I] - so mice are very convenient lab animals; they don't fight if placed together - there's no point in fighting. Humans and primates before them lost that adaptation :-(

[Zeta-Flux]

jasong,

I am against abortion (generally), but let me tell you why I found this man's comments disgusting. It seems to me that he was intimating that if a woman gets pregnant after being raped then she was at fault. And while the phraseology may have been unintentional, the "legitimate rape" statement adds to that interpretation.

In terms of making abortions in the case of rape illegal, his logic doesn't add up. Even if it were the case (and it is not) that women were built in such a way that if raped they were likely to get pregnant only in a very few instances, that says nothing about whether or not abortion should be allowed in those few cases. Nor does it justify inspection into the legitimacy of their claim to being raped. Such an experience is horrific enough without adding more burdens to reporting such a crime.

His comments and arguments have been disavowed by nearly everyone on both sides of the political spectrum. His funding from the GOP has been cut off. But just watch. People will still somehow take this man's disgusting comments and attribute them to the Republican mindset. [I just saw Juan Williams do it on Fox News. :-( ]

[Zeta-Flux]

And as disgusting as that man's words were, they do not even compare with this other politician's actions. Yet, I doubt it will get close to the same response.

[garo]

Is the Earth flat?

Are thunderstorms God's way of telling us "he" is angry?

Was the Earth created 6000 years ago?
Oh wait.....

[LaurV]

Mainly, I am NOT against abortion. There are thousand cases where the abortion is justified (medically, like putting the mother in danger, fetus with malformations, result of a rape, whatever). And anyhow, you can't control it, and you can't forbid it. I am coming from a former communist country where it was forbidden, and I know plenty of people who walked around the law, even by going in different countries (like Thai people use now to go in China - here is forbidden too, and Chinese guys are "specialists" due to their birth control stupid program).

What should I do to the rapists (and generally everybody who impose by force their wishes/sickness/madness/etc to the people around them) that is another story... Still thinking to the right torture tool (no, not Justin Bieber, something more simple, like a device for splitting their dick in six, with an advance of few microns per hour...)

[pinhodecarlos]

Regarding the same wave of the topic here, in Portugal a M.Sc student wrote a master thesis about the right of the father to reject paternity of a child born against his wishes. He states and I quote: "Just as the woman has the right to abort legally recognized or not to abort, before an unplanned pregnancy, the man should be able to decide whether or not to become a father".

"Since 1967 the Portuguese legal system (grounded in the right of children to know their biological identity and ancestry) imposes the obligation of the State, before the registration of a newborn without identification of the parent, to trigger an action unofficial paternity, even against the will of the parents. In this context, the presumed parents can be subjected to DNA testing and, this being so, the compulsory to affiliate the child. "This has created a generation of parents by force," the researcher claims, insisting that, "in the same way that a man can not coerce a woman to have an abortion, it should not be able to coerce a man to be a father." As for the best interests of the child, "a system that allows non-birth via an abortion can also allow the birth without allocation of paternal affiliation.""

Carlos

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

And as disgusting as that man's words were, they do not even compare with this other politician's actions. Yet, I doubt it will get close to the same response.

This case actually bears no comparison at all in my mind with jasong's case of the congressman saying that victims of "legitimate rape" (???) don't get pregnant as a result. That is clearly an extraordinarily stupid thing to say, potentially dangerous even if there's any chance that someone might take him seriously.

But your link, Zeta-Flux, is very interesting and disturbing to me, disturbing because in various references to the story which I have found including your Fox News one, the behaviour of this Democrat lawmaker has been universally described in extremely negative terms, the word "scandal" being widely applied, without it being made clear precisely what behaviour is being condemned. The condemnation is coming from everyone, political friends and enemies alike, and his political friends are not supporting his candidature for re-election.

I may be opening a huge can of worms here, but I'd be interested to know what precisely people in Minnesota and the rest of the USA find so universally unacceptable in the lawmaker's behaviour. Here is a list of my attempted justifications for the condemnation. None of the items on the list are gleaned from any media coverage of the case, because everything I have read about it seems to take the "scandalous" aspect of the behaviour as read. Yet to my mind all the items on this list fall into the category of private, consenting behaviour, which has no bearing on the man's public office and which do no harm to anyone.

1. The lawmaker advertised for anonymous sex.
2. The sex took place outside in a potentially public place although the two people took care to hide themselves, I think behind buildings.
3. The person with whom the lawmaker had sex was a teenager, 17. This is above the age of consent in Minnesota (16), and the teenager also in fact lied to the lawmaker by saying he was 18, but 17 is still "young".
4. There is a large age difference between the two people of about 39 years.
5. The two people are of the same gender.
6. The two people are not married to each other (in fact complete strangers to each other).

Can anyone explain which items on the list, or which I have missed about the case, are so universally unacceptable to American society - at least in a public figure? I suppose number (2) may be illegal, and breaking the law in any way is not smart for someone in his position, but the reporting of the case does not seem to dwell on this point at the expense of the others.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Can anyone explain which items on the list, or which I have missed about the case, are so universally unacceptable to American society - at least in a public figure?

I think you covered most of them. Nothing is universal though regarding gay issues. In aggregate it may seem to be an incremental progression of increased tolerance but there are discontinuities. I would add that the rest stop location adds a tawdry aspect too; e.g. gay sex at rest stops was lampooned in the movie There's Something about Mary.

Numbers 1 and 6 to me seem the most innocuous but any or all of them might be problematic on fundamental religious grounds. 3 and 4 combined bother me a bit. That applies regardless of gender considerations. I do not know if the situation is as universally condemned as it seems. Political posturing, polarization and opportunistic capitalization are likely factors in the reactions.

[Zeta-Flux]

I find 1 a highly disgusting act. Do you not?

I believe 2 is an illegal act, as well as disgusting. Do you think it should be legal? Do you think public figures should be having sex in public?

And, again in terms of our society, I find 6 (in conjunction with some of the other points, such as age) extremely troubling. But especially so in an adult who is in a public position of respect.

I find the entire episode demonstrates a lack of self-control and propriety on the part of the lawmaker.

It may seem strange to people in other countries, but in America we expect our public figures to set an example of respectability. There is nothing to respect in this man's actions, and many things to find disrespectful and damaging to society as a whole. I find it strange that you don't think his behavior is "scandalous". By his actions he broke a trust with his constituency. They expected more of him.

Yet to my mind all the items on this list fall into the category of private, consenting behaviour, which has no bearing on the man's public office and which do no harm to anyone.

Pretending that one can separate one's actions from the trust others have put in oneself by calling them "private" is just that, a pretense.

Or, to put it in other words, these actions were not private. By the nature of this man's position, his relationship with his constituency, these actions are a slap in the face. It would be similar (not equivalent, but similar) to a wife cheating on a husband and then claiming it was "private, consenting behavior, which has no bearing on the [marriage] and which do[es] no harm to anyone." That is not how we understand the marriage contract, nor how we understand the trust we put in politicians.

That may explain the word "scandalous". But I hope you can understand that, even if this man was not in a public position, we Americans would view the whole affair as what it is-- an old, sex-hungry man not able to control himself, having sex with a total stranger, who happens to be quite young, in public. In terms of the gay movement, it adds to the meme that young boys are "recruited" and exploited by older men.

[ewmayer]

There is in fact some scientific evidence that female orgasm - long thought a vestigial trait (related to male and female sex organs starting from the same substrate and sharing a great deal of physiological features, somewhat like nipples in men but much more elaborate in this case) - may have some evolutionarily-adaptive function tied to fertility, but this is still the subject of ongoing debate:

Wikipedia | Orgasm: Theoretical_biological_and_evolutionary_functions

There are theories that the female orgasm might increase fertility. For example, the 30% reduction in size of the vagina could help clench onto the penis (much like, or perhaps caused by, the pubococcygeus muscles), which would make it more stimulating for the male (thus ensuring faster or more voluminous ejaculation). The British biologists Baker and Bellis have suggested that the female orgasm may have an "upsuck" action (similar to the esophagus' ability to swallow when upside down), resulting in the retaining of favorable sperm and making conception more likely.[106] They posited a role of female orgasm in sperm competition. The observation that women tend to reach orgasm more easily when they are ovulating also suggests that it is tied to increasing fertility.[107] Evolutionary biologist Robin Baker argues in Sperm Wars that occurrence and timing of orgasms are all a part of the female body's unconscious strategy to collect and retain sperm from more evolutionarily fit men[citation needed]. An orgasm during intercourse functions as a bypass button to a woman's natural cervical filter against sperm and pathogens. An orgasm before functions to strengthen the filter.

A 2005 twin study found that one in three women reported never or seldom achieving orgasm during intercourse, and only one in ten always orgasmed. This variation in ability to orgasm, generally thought to be psychosocial, was found to be 34% to 45% genetic. The study, examining 4000 women, was published in Biology letters, a Royal Society journal.[108][109] Elisabeth Lloyd has cited this as evidence for the notion that female orgasm is not adaptive.[38][101]

But since the esteemed lawmaker at the center of the present tempest likely also disavows evolutionary biology, it would be the height of hypocrisy for him to try to point to such work in an attempt to justify his "legitimate rape" hypothesis.