{"id":12235,"date":"2013-01-29T05:04:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=12235"},"modified":"2013-09-09T22:01:07","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T02:01:07","slug":"is-contraception-emasculating-sean-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/is-contraception-emasculating-sean-responds.html","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Is Contraception “Emasculating”? Sean Responds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>A guest post by Sean<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Hi everyone! This is Sean.<\/p>\n

Libby sent me a piece called \u201cThe Emasculating Effects of Modern Contraception<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0This is about husbands and fathers. Libby is neither, but she happens to know one pretty well \u2013 me!<\/p>\n

She was wondering what I thought \u2013 so here goes. First I\u2019ll start with an excerpt from the piece.<\/p>\n

\n

The most recent\u00a0discussion<\/a>\u00a0about \u201cneutered men\u201d brings to mind a casual conversation I took part in a few years back at a sporting event. A group of mothers was chatting on the sidelines and the discussion wandered to the topic of family pets. A woman was telling the story of how they came to own their dog when one of the mothers asked if they had gotten the dog neutered. The woman replied, \u201cOh, yes,\u201d and then added archly, \u201cAll of the males in my house are neutered,\u201d at which point everyone but me cracked up appreciatively.<\/p>\n

I sat with a smile frozen on my face trying make sense of what I had just heard \u2013 that a nice woman like this would make her husband the butt of a crude joke and willingly belittle her homelife in that way, to the laughter of other mothers. I wish I could say I said something that showed them all how misguided they were but I sat mute and just felt terribly sorry for the man involved, who at the time was laboring away on the field with the boys.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the long way around to the question I want to pose: How much has contraception contributed to the emasculation of men and to men\u2019s shrinking roles as provider and protector?<\/p>\n

Men in this day and age are rarely encouraged to procreate freely; they are asked to step up to the plate a couple of times and then are sort of put out to pasture, for lack of a better term. Their role as father is never fully realized (nor is that of the mother but that is another discussion) \u2013 it is always held in check, restrained and controlled and eventually severed, whether surgically or otherwise. Have women been emboldened, and deep inside do they look down upon men, who allow this manipulation of their progeny? And have men in turn been weakened \u2013 and have they become intimidated by the huge but beautiful responsibility of providing for a family \u2013 due to the false sense of control contraception gives, and with it the temptation to avoid heavy family and financial burdens?<\/p>\n

The overplanning that contraception allows has led to the view of children as the special creation of the parents alone, pre-planned as they are, with births timed as goals achieved amidst other life goals of career advancement, home-buying and trips taken; these children are born with one or two other siblings and then the line of their would-be siblings is cut short. From this total control of reproduction comes an inflated sense on the part of the parents of their role as the sole creators of life. This is, no matter how sweet the family, a form of arrogance, at the bottom of which is a lack of understanding that they are called to be not the sole creators of life, but co-creators with our Creator himself, a very humbling acknowledgement indeed. And so, as Laura says, the children \u201care indulged in small things and deprived of big things.\u201d<\/p>\n

[click through to read the comments<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My first reaction to this piece was confusion: what on earth does contraception have to do with masculinity, or being \u201cneutered\u201d? Libby has an IUD. Does that somehow mean I\u2019ve been neutered \u2013 my testicles removed, rendered effeminate, weak, and all the rest of the patriarchally-nasty implications of castration?<\/p>\n

Obviously not. So what\u2019s the author\u2019s point? Let\u2019s try to tease it out. There seem to be two strands in the last two paragraphs: a man who isn\u2019t procreating isn\u2019t ever \u201cfully\u201d realizing his god-given role of responsibility for a large family, thus opening himself to derision from women; and contraception permits parents to plan out their children, arrogantly deluding themselves into believing that they are the sole creators of their children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s dispense with the courtier\u2019s reply and assume that \u201cemasculation\u201d has some sort of meaning. It pretty clearly doesn\u2019t (what, ability to lift heavy weights or deal with great responsibilities is solely the province of men?), but let\u2019s grant meaning for the sake of argument.<\/p>\n

The key idea motivating the first strand holds that a man\u2019s natural role is as a virile, freely procreating man who embraces the responsibility of managing and providing for a large family. We\u2019re all familiar with patriarchal gender roles. In Quiverfull circles, questioning the obligation of mothers to manage, love, and sustain large batches of children is almost\u00a0passe<\/em>. From my conversations with Libby, we\u2019re aware \u2013 but perhaps don\u2019t discuss it as much, for whatever reason \u2013 that Quiverfull also shoehorns men into a particular role, albeit one more congruent with mainstream patriarchal expectations.<\/p>\n

I want to question it: Why does my \u201cmanliness\u201d (whatever that even is) crucially hinge on\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0exercising control over the most important set of decisions I will ever make? Why does\u00a0responsibly<\/em>\u00a0gauging and controlling my issue mean that I am no longer capable of bearing responsibility \u2013 that I have been infantilized?<\/p>\n

No. The ability to control my reproduction does not infantilize me \u2013 rather, by putting\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0under my control, it enables me to be\u00a0more\u00a0<\/em>responsible. It does mean that I have more control over my life \u2013 more choice in my role, less drifting on seas of circumstance \u2013 but I\u2019m better off that way, not worse off. And so is Libby. She\u2019ll be the first to tell you about how well I handle having a project due when the kids are tearing up the house and she\u2019s in the middle of writing a blog post \u2013 the idea that somehow the personal growth induced by two more children (if we were Quiverfull, we\u2019d be starting on a fifth pregnancy right about now) would turn my stress responses 180 degrees is just completely laughable.<\/p>\n

What about the second strand? Well \u2013 perhaps surprisingly \u2013 I would like to express agreement. That\u2019s right: by exercising total control of reproduction, parents have become the sole creators of life. No longer are couples\u2019 lives blown on the winds of happenstance \u2013 by divorcing sex and reproduction, couples now exercise control over the creation of new life. WE decide when to get pregnant. WE decide how many children to have. WE decide whether to plant that seed of life, to coax it into bloom, to love it and protect it and guide it.<\/p>\n

No longer can we escape by imputing responsibility to an imaginary co-creator. Contraceptives force us to face reality. Parents\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0the creators of new human life. We\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0bear responsibility for the lives we bring into the world. And we modern humans have severed the ancient link between sex and childbearing \u2013 contraceptives permit us to both pursue sexual pleasure for its own sake without great fear of unwanted pregnancy\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0to exercise unprecedented control in choosing when to have children.<\/p>\n

(Isn\u2019t that awesome? Science is so sweet.)<\/p>\n

And in the end, does any of that tear down my \u201crole\u201d as a provider and protector? No, because\u00a0that role no longer exists<\/em>. I am not the provider and protector. Libby is not the nurterer and in-home manager. Broad economic and social changes (it ain\u2019t the industrial revolution any more!) let us parent\u00a0together<\/em>, and\u00a0both<\/em>\u00a0pursue careers in fields we love.<\/p>\n

And Libby doesn\u2019t look down on me because we\u2019ve chosen, together, to balance having a family and pursuing our careers. She doesn\u2019t think I\u2019m somehow less of a person because my sperm can\u2019t make her pregnant, or because an eventual vasectomy cuts off my sperm from my seminal fluid. Those are ridiculous sentiments \u2013 we\u2019re forging a life together. We don\u2019t have time for nonsensical non-sequitur judgments. We have a family to raise!<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sean<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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