Sperm is in the news again. On Friday, as some of you may know already, Utah state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee (a Republican, naturally) offered her take on the always controversial topic, suggesting to the press that women should feel just fine in the post-Roe age because they can control the “intake of semen” into their bodies:
I … trust women enough to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen.
Honey, even those with penises of their own don’t have that absolute power over their semen. Accidents happen. And even if they do pull out in time there is a small amount of sperm in precum, and those boys can swim just as fast as the sperm in semen. Things go wrong sometimes. That’s why we need birth control, and that’s why we need abortion rights.
But Lisonbee isn’t the only one spreading misinformation about sperm. Here are five more myths about sperm floating around the internet.
Myth 1: Semen, by itself, “makes life”
Myth 2: Sperm gives women little bellies
Myth 3: Men’s balls are actually eggs
Myth 4: Men get their “period” after ejaculating
Myth 5: Swallowing semen makes you smart
H/T — r/NotHowGirlsWork
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
Wait, isn’t “ingesting semen makes you smart” an actual folk belief in certain parts of Papua New Guinea?
I’m staring at #4 there, and the thought comes to mind… This is almost exactly the sort of argument that #nofap / semen retention crowd makes.
Except without the superpowers.
Regarding Karianne Lisonbee, Business Insider seems to be the one interpreting her remark as meaning that women can control their partner’s ejaculation during sex. However, I’m pretty sure she just meant that women can choose to not have sex, which is what Republicans always say as a justification for curtailing women’s reproductive rights.
My favorite one in middle school was if boys drank mountain dew, it would kill off their sperm so they wouldn’t have to worry about condoms
Yeah. Virgins are never bloated, even after a big, heavy meal. And a womb changes shape after the first intercourse. All biology teachers are crying, now.
No, no, of course it’s the MAN who is GOD.
I’m guessing this is just a clumsily worded way of saying that women don’t have to let men ejaculate inside them. Which is interesting to me because it’s bought up something I’ve seen A LOT in the forced-birth circles in the days after the Roe Vs. Wade decision, which I think of being a particularly US right-wing impulse, (although it’s poisoning the well of UK politics too) which is:
No one deserves help, sympathy or the power to control their own lives unless they have behaved in ways entirely beyond question or reproach since the day they were born. And the material indicator of this perfect morality (which invites the benefit of the doubt and all favours of our current society) is that you are extremely wealthy. If somehow happens which is beyond a persons control, they have INVITED it somehow – unless they are wealthy, in which case its an incredible tragedy and no one else’s suffering could possibly compare.
Because the thing is: of course people who can get pregnant COULD have used birth control, got the morning after pill, or for 100% assurance remained abstinent. The “if you don’t want a child don’t have unprotected vaginal sex” is an effective if hollow argument because at the very basic level – it’s true! And it forces pro-choice people on the defensive, where they usually have to start arguing about the cases where these decisions were out of the person’s hands (rape, abusive relationships, failed contraceptives etc).
But the thing is, just like the “you should have got a better job”, “you should have saved for a rainy day”, “you did the wrong degree”, “you shouldn’t have had kids until you were financially secure”, “your chronic illness is actually a bad mental attitude”, “your poor life choices are why you need healthcare” – it’s a utterly callous and punitive attitude.
Because they congratulate themselves on having made the “right” decisions all their small, petty lives, they completely ignore a) systemic issues which make Doing the Right Thing much harder for some people than others and b) that people do not have PERFECT FECKING FORESIGHT and will make the wrong decisions sometimes – and those “wrong” decisions aren’t morally loaded to people who don’t share their fundamentalist Christian beliefs. I think a 21 year old girl who got a bit too drunk and had unprotected sex with her boyfriend doesn’t deserve to be forced to have a child she doesn’t want – and change the trajectory of her whole life.
They want everyone to have the same value structures as themselves, and they love to see people suffer, and I hate it.
The first myth reminds me of 16th century Homunculus mythology, they believe that men play more important role in giving life and birth to their offsprings. And its same with the myth number 3, they try to put emphasize in it again, at least they dont say pee are stored in the balls. Its nothing new… I think men with big but fragile ego just obsessed with being important since long ago, and now they only exacerbates it.
*sigh* number 2… they never know how their own or human anatomy ever works, let alone woman. Just another series of bad body takes.
What the heck was even number 4? It doesnt take a rocket scientist to think this is just ridiculous…
For number 5 i think its just a ploy to make woman wants to give them blowjob. Its okay if its consensual though and all you need is to discuss about it together because not all women really comfortable doing it. Its good as long as its fun for both person involved.
Maybe they heard that “huevos” is a Spanish language slang term for testicles and got confused.
Also “Eier” in German. Seems like it’s a popular comparison, but probably just based on the shape.
4 is just weird. The period symptoms have nothing to do with “loss of vital tissue” and they’re just caused by hormones levels. Completely different set of hormones in play with ejaculation and from my observations it leads to a rather different kind of mood. It’s not impossible to feel repulsed after sex, but I think you’d have to be bringing some personal baggage to bed with you, it’s certainly not a universal thing.
@Tony: Apparently the Sambia peoples consider(ed?) semen a source of powerful masculine energy– which means it was given to the male children to help them achieve proper manhood.
https://guardian.ng/life/the-sambian-boys-initiation-rites/
For some reason I’m immediately reminded of Brass Eye
https://youtu.be/5h3d6udVurQ
@Nicholas Kiddle
Yes, eggs are a popular comparison. But in Japan it’s “kin no tama” or “gold nugget”. In fact the “Gold Nugget” item in Pokemon is subject to a lot of double entendres in the original Japanese. weeb out
The law Lisonbee was defending was banning abortion in the case of rape and incest, including in children. So she was not just telling women who had consensual sex that she doesn’t care because the pregnancy is their fault. She was also speaking to the 9 year old who shouldn’t have allowed in her father’s semen.
If I really believed that all men feel like that after orgasm, I would feel sorry for them.
I tend to think that misogyny and a belief that women are controlling you is far more likely to make your irritated and disgusted after orgasm. Yeah, you may not want more sex right away, but what about feeling satisfied? What about feeling connected? Sweet Holy Moses…
Of women who know they’re pregnant, 10% to 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. That’s alot. Are the birthing police (I’m being sarcastic here) going to be reviewing them all? Practically speaking, how the hell is this supposed to work?
What about the people pregnant with nonviable fetuses? Will they be forced to give birth to a dead or dying baby? If the baby has severe birth defects, meaning it will rely on expensive care and technology for the rest of its life, who will pay for it? Resources are limited.
There have been a few cases, in the last 10 years or so, of babies born with only a brain stem. No brain. One of them lived to be 5 years old. If it was me who was pregnant, and an ultrasound showed the fetus was literally brainless, I’d abort. It seems to me like abortion is tailor-made for this sad circumsdance.
If men felt like that after orgasm, why would they have sex?
@Alyson: Which leads to many jokes in the manga and anime “Gintama”, since it’s so close to “kintama”. other weeb out
When conservatives insist that if a woman doesn’t want to get pregnant she should just not have sex, I just tell them that to tell all the married women that, I’m sure their husbands will be fine with it, right?
@Janipurr:
When conservatives insist that if a woman doesn’t want to get pregnant she should just not have sex, I just tell them that to tell all the married women that, I’m sure their husbands will be fine with it, right?
The possibilities get even further-ranging: you don’t even have to have been anywhere near a sperm at all. It’s entirely possible for a gold star virgin to suffer endometriosis and uterine fibroids and lose flesh as well as blood, and if some Rat Fink For The Public Morals were to spot a whole uterine cast in the menstrual wastebasket…
If it’s men who cause life shouldn’t they be legislating men having sex and causing unplanned pregnancies?
Why is a post timestamped “1 hour ago” sorted above posts timestamped “4 days ago”?
@ surplus
I think it’s that thing where if someone uses the email notification to post, WordPress sticks them at the top.
@Surplus to Requirements:
Why is a post timestamped “1 hour ago” sorted above posts timestamped “4 days ago”?
Hit “refresh” and your comment should appear in correct temporal sequence.