It’s not news that many men are a bit confused about what goes on down there in cis women — that is, in the general area where babies are made, from conception to childbirth.
It’s bad enough — although also very funny — to see this sort of stuff from internet randoes. But some guys are so proud of their opinions on the subject that they sign their names to it. And some of these guys — well, technically just one of these guys — are, I mean is, Salt Lake County, Utah, Councilman Dave Alvord.
Sorry, for a second there I wasn’t sure I was going to make it out of that sentence alive.
Anyway, here’s Dave:
Where to even start? I’ll start with the name. I don’t like it that this guy has the same first name as me, even if he’s using the shorter one-syllable version. This name ain’t big enough for both of us, and I ain’t gonna leave.
And second, “chord?” Really? A chord is something you play with multiple fingers on a piano, or strum on a guitar. A cord is, well, a thick string-like thing , which is what an umbilical cord is, though, and I’m simplifying here, it’s used more as a kind of pipe to transfer oxygen and nutrients to the fetus and remove waste.
Which brings us to the next point: Dave here (not me, the other one) thinks that the umbilical cord IS’NT ATTACHED TO THE WOMAN? Dude, of course it’s attached to the woman; she made it with her own body, along with the fetus itself. If the chord isn’t attached to the woman, how do you think the fetus gets food and air? That it’s just floating there in some lady’s tummy eating chicken tendies and taking the occasional hit from an air pipe?
And the placenta? It’s attached to the uterine wall, helping the umbilical cord with that feeding and air stuff. It’s not the same as the amniotic sac, in case you’re thinking of tweeting about that too, Dave.
Anyway, Dave got himself corrected by a large number of people on the internet. But he didn’t back down. Instead, he just kept going. He quietly dropped the bit about the umbilical chord cord not being attached to the mother, and started going on about how the placenta was part of the baby. Which is sort of like saying that a gas pump is part of a car (to once again simplify things a teensy bit). The placenta is an organ created in the body — and part of the body. The mother’s body creates it and uses it to keep the fetus going and growing and it’s a part of the mother’s body. The fetus doesn’t make it out of uterine Play-Doh. Which is not a thing, I’m pretty sure.
This stuff is legitimately a little confusing. I hope my simplifications don’t make me sound as dumb as Dave. But seriously, I don’t think I could top the idea that the placenta and umbilical cord are just floating around doing nothing in the womb. Anyway. I’ll stop now. All this talk of nutrients and air has made me hungry and gasping for breath.
Not really! Joke!
In conclusion, no one who can’t tell the difference between a chord and a cord has any business mansplaining human reproduction on the internet.
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runsinbackground: The lazy offhand reference to black abortion rates was just a routine attempt to portray reproductive-rights advocates as “racist” as well as baby-killers. And it kinda dovetails with the far-right’s equation of birth-control and “eugenics,” which is a policy that really did hit blacks harder than whites. The Catholic Church does both of those conflations too, at least sometimes.
Look, if the fetus body was really its own body, then I should be able to drink and smoke while pregnant with no consequences done to the fetus. Since that can’t happen, it’s a pretty good way to show that the two are linked.
Well done Elaine the Witch.
Tho’ I wouldn’t to be in the room when someone raises this point. I dread even considering what ugly spiky gooey horror movie stuff fills the empty brainspace that, in ordinary skulls, is taken up by logical thinking and maintenance of a store of general knowledge.
When it explodes we’ll see hear smell the real essence of recalcitrant ignorance.
Reproductive misconceptions are insanely high. For example, in China a couple had been married for 6 years but couldn’t have a baby. What was the problem? They were doing anal all along. Forget about finding the clit, these people couldn’t find the vagina! Of course my case is a bit exaggerated but the majority of cis men have no idea how (cis) women’s anatomy actually works. (Most cis women don’t even know how their own anatomy works…) Although the US policy of aBsTiNeNcE oNlY isn’t really good for learning the real *@#*.
Funny enough my cousin (he’s 12) once asked me where babies came from. I knew, and I told him “It’s classified.” He begged and pleaded but I wouldn’t tell him. Then just after I left his house, his dad told him the whole shebang. He asked me if the stuff his dad told him was accurate, and I said that you can get (non anatomical/graphic) sex ed in 5 sentences.
PS If you’re a cis dude and actually want to know about female anatomy, I have 3 things to say:
The placenta is a temporary organ. How does he think it gets made?
Seth S – The fetus doesn’t grow anything. Both the fetus and placenta develop from a fertilized and implanted blastocyst.