Originally Posted by The Rani

No. Also, what is "good for us" is highly subjective, and not always clear. Just watch any political debate, or psychoanalysis session.

You're missing my point. What is good for us, according to eudaimonist ethics is to live a good life -- that is the objective part, and applies to all rational animals. The means by which we live a good life involves cultivating various virtues -- also objective. The specific actions by which we attempt to live a good life may differ.

Hmm ... Truth by majority rule? I wouldn't say it that way, what I would say is that people don't have nearly as much "control" over their lives as they would like to believe. Again, I know it's not a nice thing to think about.

A lot of people don't. They blame everything on their horrible childhood. Or "I'm fat because of my genes." Or "you wouldn't be talking if you knew what I've been through." I'm surprised you haven't noticed.

Truth by majority rule is not what I was getting at. I was thinking something more along the lines of understanding the truth by appealing to common sense. Now, the extent to which people have control over their lives is going to vary from person to person, as does whether they over- or underestimate their capacities, but if we are talking about what is normal for human beings (including Americans), I do think the common sense position would dictate that we are primarily responsible for whether we've lived good lives or not.

A more reductionist account, where we talk about all sorts of exceptions, kind of misses the point when the conservation is about generalizations. Do these exceptions overwhelm what I've been considering normal? I think not.

Part of The Truth is the gender differences that we've been talking about, which feminism tries to ignore.

Can you go into more detail about what makes social equality, with attention to gender, unfeasible?

Originally Posted by Matt1989

What is this Truth, and why does feminism go against it?

The Truth that women are so different from men that their true nature lies in staying home and tending the baby and the hubby and things, just like they did in the days of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Elizabeth Tudor, Empress Maude, Christine de Pisan, Aethelflaed of Mercia, Boudicca, Hildegard of Bingen, Hilda of Whitby, et. al. ... sorry, not in chronological order.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

You simply ignore the children who, once born, are people too. As I asked again what would you have? Would you force abortions unless both parents agree to raise the child?

Force? No. I'm a libertarian, so you already know my attitude toward government compulsion. But it should not be possible for women to externalize the costs of their poor reproductive decisions onto putative fathers in particular and society in general. Enabling fathers to sever parental rights and responsibilities (i.e., to withhold support) would give pause to women who at present have no incentive whatsoever to refrain from becoming pregnant with children they can't independently support. This is a moral hazard that the state fosters under the current body of family law, and it serves to transfer wealth from men to women -- with a myriad bureaucratic and juridical hangers-on taking their cuts at various stages -- without compensating the former with the benefits that once accrued to husbands and fathers. Let me reiterate this last point: the current arrangement is artificial, maintained at great cost to men because it benefits a protected class (women) and puts money into the pockets of lawyers, judges, enforcement officers, caseworkers, therapists, and countless other professionals whose jobs would be superfluous without the apparatus of the family courts.

As for the children, they inevitably grow into adults, who will be subject to the same exploitative system, so the "What about the childreeeeen?" refrain is a smokescreen. It simply deflects the human suffering to a later time, when the cherubs aren't so cute anymore, and their grievances can be dismissed or ignored, because damnit, they're adults and they should "take some responsibility". It's rather like the hypocrisy of pro-lifers who demand that unwanted fetuses be born...so that 20 years later they can be jailed or sent to fight in some foreign meat-grinder.

A child has two parents whether or not they feel like being his parent. You are saying its OK for the man to say Fuck you kid and walk away?

What are advocating?

I am saying that, if a man makes his wishes known to a woman that he does not want to become a father, and he is ignored, then she forfeits any claim to his resources. The man may choose to support his child anyway -- that is his prerogative -- but he cannot be morally compelled to do so. To say that a child is the product of two parents is an empty commentary on the biological reality of sexual reproduction. It says nothing about the duties that obtain between parent and parent or parent and child. These things are relative. (Yeah, that sentence is no doubt going to stir up a shitstorm, but there is wide variation in concepts of marriage and parenthood between cultures. The particular ones to which we adhere at this specific historical moment are by no means universal. Indeed, even our current concepts are in flux, due to the very imbalances I've been citing.) Goodness cannot be forced on people. Responsibility cannot be instilled by legal compulsion. Men who perceive themselves to be disadvantaged by biased courts, legislatures, media, etc., will resist in a thousand ingenious ways, and no amount of indignation from persons comfortable with the status quo will silence their objections.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

And who forced him to inject heroin?

I hate this canard. Yes, people must take responsibility. But most men are not saints, shit happens, and not everyone is equally equipped -- physically, mentally, emotionally -- to deal. I'm not big on Christianity, but I do have respect for Jesus, who said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It's easy to pontificate about responsibility when it's all purely theoretical, to pass judgment on strangers and snub one's nose at human frailty. I do not, however, understand or condone the impulse -- which seems to be quite common in this country -- to kick people who are down and tell them it's their own fault for conveniently placing themselves so low to the ground.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

And if there is no contract, what then?

You seem to be placing all the responsibility on the women. Why? Because she is the one who gets pregnant? This is exactly the same reason why the woman gets to make the abortion decision.

Put it to arbitration. Dragging "responsibility" into the discussion, it would be in the interests of men and women under such a system to address these things beforehand (just as it is in the best interests of people now to draft wills before they die, to avoid contentious struggles over inheritance in the event of an accident), which entails rather more forethought and restraint than is fostered by current law. I would think conservatives would welcome this last part.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I wish we could have a Freaky Friday where Arkham switches places with a woman and we all get to see what happens.

LOL. Do you mean I'd wake up in a female body, or that a woman would assume my identity on the forums and start posting completely uncharacteristic messages using my screen name? Because if the former, you probably wouldn't hear from me for the duration of the switch. I'd be too busy, um, tinkering with the new hardware.

Originally Posted by Odin

Excellent post, Mike. I find it funny that Arkham berates his caricatured conception of "Feminists" for igoring biological differences between the sexes and then goes on to ignore the biological differences between the sexes. Projection?

Try again, Odin. Fifty-percent of the genetic material that goes to make up an infant comes from the man. That's Biology 101. Without that contribution of DNA, no conception, no baby. So if women wish to have babies at all, they must engage with men, and at that point the man's interests become a consideration alongside the woman's. If his interests are discounted at any stage, he doesn't have to cooperate beyond that point. Furthermore, no law can compel cooperation from anyone who is adamantly opposed to granting it.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

o we abdicate personal responsibility because life isn't easy? Do we not hold people accountable for the decisions they make?

I think this is where people have to cultivate refined senses of empathy and compassion. Human beings, imperfect creatures that they are, will screw up, and they must be held accountable when their mistakes cause harm, but there has to be understanding also that each person's circumstances are different, how you might respond in a given situation is not the same as how another might respond, and that there are no universal solutions to human problems.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I disagree that virtues are objective. Unless you are talking about Virtues. What we consider virtues are like elephant parts.

What I mean about the virtues being objective is that they are an objective standard. That is, cowardliness doesn't become a virtue when applied to anyone and courage cannot become a vice. They are fixed.

I already mentioned the difficulties encountered when single moms try to raise boys. Do you want me to elaborate on that one, or list some more?

No, because I don't see how it damages the case for feminism, but if you want to take that route in your argument, can you elaborate how innate differences between the two sexes makes serious efforts toward gender equality undesirable?

Originally Posted by Skabungus

Am I the only one who notices that this debate is between people who have kids (on one side) and people who don't (on the other side)?

Fair enough. Let me come in, then, on the personal responsibility side (where else?).

For all the talk about the guy having a choice as defined in that very brief window -- which cannot be disputed -- two critical facts remain:

- the woman has the exact same choice during that exact same window. For the sake of equity, then, it is not unfair at all to set that particular part of the issue aside and concern ourselves with the balance of the situation -- wherein, the woman in question retains choice and the man for the next 18-odd has no choice at all.
- the man's 'choice' is, in far to many cases, no choice at all. Protective measures are far from a safe bet (as several here have testified from personal experience; and one of my own was the same unexpected sort). And to that must be added the very real occurrences that Arkham listed wherein men who never had the choice are named nonetheless by unscrupulous women.

No one is asking for men to have rights that women don't. All we are saying is that the rights need to be equal (in principle, of course, applied in the context of the relative unique physical factors), and that an honest assessment of the current situation can only conclude that they are far from so.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I was actually going to mention a friend of mine (child psychologist) who had three boys and then exclaimed to me how surprised she was that they were all so different, since she had raised them basically the same. I said, yeah, no kidding, that's biology, and she was shocked that someone without kids would be able to have that insight. I don't know why people who are parents feel a need to look down on the rest of us, but it happens.

In addition, your friend is apparently blinded to the fact that she didn't raise all her children the same. She may have intended to, however the mere fact of birth order makes that impossible.

For example, in my family, I was the first born and thus the guinea pig for inexperienced parents... however I was also given a certain amount of responsibility for, and authority over, my younger siblings because of that. My kid sister was the youngest, and the only girl, and was consequently overprotected and allowed to get away with more. This left my brother free to become the family rebel with little static from the folks, who were too preoccupied with my sister and me, as well as their own Silentine "Is That All There Is?" self-pity.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

But it should not be possible for women to externalize the costs of their poor reproductive decisions onto putative fathers in particular and society in general.

I disagree, for reasons I'll go into momentarily. At the moment, I'll simply say that care for children is one of the weakest points of libertarianism. Which may be why it's disproportionately advocated by the childless.

Enabling fathers to sever parental rights and responsibilities (i.e., to withhold support) would give pause to women who at present have no incentive whatsoever to refrain from becoming pregnant with children they can't independently support.

It would certainly give pause, but to say that women have "no incentive whatsoever" to refrain from becoming pregnant is absolute nonsense. Being careful about such things is hardwired into women and instinctive. It's been my (fairly) recent experience that even women who CAN independently support children have an incentive to refrain from becoming pregnant. I have never had a relationship with a women who took no thought for that matter and no precautions. In fact, it's MUCH more common for MEN to be cavalier about this.

That being the case, I can't imagine that further disincentives would make any appreciable difference in female reproductive behavior.

But even if your suggestion didn't display an unfortunate unfamiliarity with feminine psychology, there is still the point that individualizing costs is not appropriate when they are automatically borne by more than the individual in question.

Let me reiterate this last point: the current arrangement is artificial, maintained at great cost to men because it benefits a protected class (women) and puts money into the pockets of lawyers, judges, enforcement officers, caseworkers, therapists, and countless other professionals whose jobs would be superfluous without the apparatus of the family courts.

Perhaps, but that's rather like saying laws against rape, murder, and robbery put money into the pockets of police, judges, etc. whose jobs would be superfluous without the apparatus of criminal law. By which I mean that family law serves a vital purpose, and we would be far, far worse off without it. As for transferring wealth from women to men, that's just silly, except when the law is abused (which it sometimes is). There are many costs to raising children, both monetary and non-monetary, and the bulk of those costs are always borne by the custodial parent. Requiring the noncustodial parent to shoulder a somewhat fair share of the monetary costs alone (there's really no way at law to require him/her to shoulder a share of the nonmonetary ones) is hardly theft.

It is an unavoidable fact that raising children is inherently a community/collective task, not an individual one, and that's why I say that this is one of the weakest points of libertarianism, which is an ultra-individualistic philosophy. When you have children, if you are at all a responsible parent, your individuality is compromised. That's a fact every parent knows. If you don't know it -- well, it's because you're not a parent, that's all.

As for the children, they inevitably grow into adults, who will be subject to the same exploitative system, so the "What about the childreeeeen?" refrain is a smokescreen. It simply deflects the human suffering to a later time

I'm sorry, Arkham, but that is such complete and total blazingly ignorant drivel and garbage that words fail me, and I am simply flabbergasted that any human being intelligent enough to string words together with minimal coherence could possibly credit such lunacy long enough to type the words expressing it. To compare the "exploitation" of a typical noncustodial parent (who is more like me than the person you mentioned) to the suffering of a neglected child living in an impoverished single-parent family is possible only if one has not only not experienced the subject from either perspective, but also never seriously explored it.

I have two daughters. My wife and I separated in 1991. I paid child support until May of last year. This through times when I was making decent money and times when I was flat on my ass. Was it hard? Was it a burden? You bet it was. But raising children always is. Do I regret it? Not for a second. (Regret marrying that godawful bitch, yes -- but that's another story.) Sure, this set me back, and I would be on sounder financial footing now if I hadn't had to pay that money, but my kids would have lost orders of magnitude more than I gained. Deprivation early in life is much, much more crippling, a much greater burden, than a financial obligation imposed in one's prime earning years.

That really ought to be obvious.

I am saying that, if a man makes his wishes known to a woman that he does not want to become a father, and he is ignored, then she forfeits any claim to his resources.

And I say that's crazy. If he really, truly doesn't want to have children, and he knows she does, then it's his responsibility to end the relationship on such a basic note of incompatibility. (Well, it's somebody's responsibility anyway.) If he gives her his seed, he knows what she's going to be able to do with it. If he doesn't want her to do that, he should keep it to himself, or give it to someone else who will be more inclined to -- try without really succeeding, as it were.

You cannot escape the fact that once a child is born, an obligation exists. In the end, all children are everyone's responsibility, but at minimum, to make a child fully the responsibility of only one person is cruelly stupid, and very, very bad for the child. Once again: if you become a parent, whether by intention or not, your individuality is automatically compromised. That's something every parent knows.

[T]here is wide variation in concepts of marriage and parenthood between cultures. The particular ones to which we adhere at this specific historical moment are by no means universal.

True. But in no viable, remotely healthy culture is it acceptable to toss children to the wolves. If you are going to absolve fathers of the responsibility of helping to support their children, then you must propose an alternative that does NOT place solitary and total responsibility on the mother. If it isn't going to be on mom and dad together, then it's going to be on the community. Don't like that? Too bad. When a child is born, individuality is compromised. That's a reality every parent knows. It's never on just one person, not in any remotely healthy culture.

Goodness cannot be forced on people. Responsibility cannot be instilled by legal compulsion.

The first sentence is true, but only because we generally think of "goodness" as encompassing mental/emotional qualities that can never be coerced. The second sentence is untrue. Or rather, let us say that responsible behavior can be instilled by legal compulsion. And in this case, when it doesn't arise voluntarily, it must be.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

It is an unavoidable fact that raising children is inherently a community/collective task, not an individual one, and that's why I say that this is one of the weakest points of libertarianism, which is an ultra-individualistic philosophy. When you have children, if you are at all a responsible parent, your individuality is compromised. That's a fact every parent knows. If you don't know it -- well, it's because you're not a parent, that's all.

This part seems pretty sloppy. If by individuality you mean the ability to do whatever one wants, then it certainly is compromised, but that's not how libertarians typically view political individualism, which always has a rights-based tinge to it. A parent is effectively the child's steward, yet the child has the rights of a person, so the parent is politically responsible for the child's well-being. If the parent shirks their ethical responsibility toward the child, then they have willfully violated that child's rights.

I'm less sure about at what point it begins to look like rights-violation (feel free to argue with Arkham about that), but I'm pretty confident that it does exist.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I was actually going to mention a friend of mine (child psychologist) who had three boys and then exclaimed to me how surprised she was that they were all so different, since she had raised them basically the same. I said, yeah, no kidding, that's biology, and she was shocked that someone without kids would be able to have that insight. I don't know why people who are parents feel a need to look down on the rest of us, but it happens.

If you feel my statement is condesending, then that comes from inside you.

Instead, if you read my statement again, you'll see it was simply an accurate observation.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

It would certainly give pause, but to say that women have "no incentive whatsoever" to refrain from becoming pregnant is absolute nonsense. Being careful about such things is hardwired into women and instinctive. It's been my (fairly) recent experience that even women who CAN independently support children have an incentive to refrain from becoming pregnant. I have never had a relationship with a women who took no thought for that matter and no precautions. In fact, it's MUCH more common for MEN to be cavalier about this.

Women who, not women. Your exclusion of "who" changes the meaning of the sentence, generalizing from a particular. Women who at present have no incentive whatsoever to refrain -- meaning, if they feel like having a baby, despite it being a bad idea, they have no reason to refrain, because the costs of their decisions will be externalized. I should have crafted the sentence more precisely to avoid such a misreading, I suppose.

But even if your suggestion didn't display an unfortunate unfamiliarity with feminine psychology, there is still the point that individualizing costs is not appropriate when they are automatically borne by more than the individual in question.

Moral hazard: the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Get that? Behaviors change when risk is mitigated. Normal psychological inclinations to caution can be subverted by legal protections that externalize costs, leading to more risky behavior. Or are women are uniquely insusceptible to moral hazard?

Perhaps, but that's rather like saying laws against rape, murder, and robbery put money into the pockets of police, judges, etc. whose jobs would be superfluous without the apparatus of criminal law. By which I mean that family law serves a vital purpose, and we would be far, far worse off without it.

Separate family courts did not appear until the 19th century, and many family courts in the U.S. were not instituted until the 20th. Prior to that time, legal disputes involving family matters were resolved in ordinary civil courts. In other words, the anglosphere got along without family courts or discrete bodies of family law for centuries, and society did not collapse.

As for transferring wealth from women to men, that's just silly, except when the law is abused (which it sometimes is). There are many costs to raising children, both monetary and non-monetary, and the bulk of those costs are always borne by the custodial parent. Requiring the noncustodial parent to shoulder a somewhat fair share of the monetary costs alone (there's really no way at law to require him/her to shoulder a share of the nonmonetary ones) is hardly theft.

Depends on your definition of theft. You know full well that libertarians define any transaction secured by force or fraud as theft.

It is an unavoidable fact that raising children is inherently a community/collective task, not an individual one, and that's why I say that this is one of the weakest points of libertarianism, which is an ultra-individualistic philosophy. When you have children, if you are at all a responsible parent, your individuality is compromised. That's a fact every parent knows. If you don't know it -- well, it's because you're not a parent, that's all.

There are plenty of irresponsible, neglectful, and abusive parents. Blood-relatedness is no guarantee whatsoever for the fulfillment of parental duties. Conversely, adults can assume parental responsibilities for children who are not their own, whether by adoption or, as has been the case for me, by providing direct care and mentoring. (Note, the fact that this can occur does not mean it must occur. People who adopt or mentor do so out of choice, so please do not try to throw this statement back in my face as an admission that people should be forced to assume responsibilities they don't want. There isn't a power in the universe that can compel a human being to assume an unwanted responsibility, if he has set his mind on refusing it.) Also, I'm insulted by your implication that, because I've not yet fathered a child, I cannot know what it is to care or sacrifice for one. I have been a better parent to certain children in my community than their actual, biological parents. I reject the romantic notion that there is some inimitable bond between parent and child, because I have seen families in which that bond was broken, or never existed in the first place.

I'm sorry, Arkham,

No, you're not. Your apology precedes a string of insults and indignant condemnations.

but that is such complete and total blazingly ignorant drivel and garbage that words fail me, and I am simply flabbergasted that any human being intelligent enough to string words together with minimal coherence could possibly credit such lunacy long enough to type the words expressing it.

Quite an emotional outburst. I naturally disagree and furthermore suspect that this bit of polemic is a product some irrational reflex linked to your private circumstances.

To compare the "exploitation" of a typical noncustodial parent (who is more like me than the person you mentioned) to the suffering of a neglected child living in an impoverished single-parent family is possible only if one has not only not experienced the subject from either perspective, but also never seriously explored it.

People suffer. Children, being people, therefore also suffer. They suffer for all sorts of reasons (and sometimes for no discernible reason at all), and it is disgusting that this is so. But the protection of children has become a camel's nose for the proliferation of injustice in manifold forms in our society, and that is inexcusable. The solution to the problem of suffering children is not to transpose their suffering onto adult men, but to birth fewer unwanted and/or unsupportable children. But this requires forethought and restraint, which is disincentivized under the current system.

I have two daughters. My wife and I separated in 1991. I paid child support until May of last year. This through times when I was making decent money and times when I was flat on my ass. Was it hard? Was it a burden? You bet it was. But raising children always is. Do I regret it? Not for a second. (Regret marrying that godawful bitch, yes -- but that's another story.) Sure, this set me back, and I would be on sounder financial footing now if I hadn't had to pay that money, but my kids would have lost orders of magnitude more than I gained. Deprivation early in life is much, much more crippling, a much greater burden, than a financial obligation imposed in one's prime earning years.

Your story clearly indicates that you wanted your children and were willing to sacrifice for them. But not all men want children, or want them only when they believe they are prepared to be fathers (and not before), yet in the current legal climate, they have no say in the matter. I should not have to keep restating this fact, or pointing out the injustice of it.

And I say that's crazy. If he really, truly doesn't want to have children, and he knows she does, then it's his responsibility to end the relationship on such a basic note of incompatibility. (Well, it's somebody's responsibility anyway.) If he gives her his seed, he knows what she's going to be able to do with it. If he doesn't want her to do that, he should keep it to himself, or give it to someone else who will be more inclined to -- try without really succeeding, as it were.

Couples do not always discuss these things. Especially young, stupid couples that have been raised in a society (such as ours) that gets fidgety over open, honest discussions of human sexuality and reproduction.

You cannot escape the fact that once a child is born, an obligation exists.

Sure you can. I've had more than one job that would not have existed if people did not routinely ignore this idea.

In the end, all children are everyone's responsibility, but at minimum, to make a child fully the responsibility of only one person is cruelly stupid, and very, very bad for the child. Once again: if you become a parent, whether by intention or not, your individuality is automatically compromised. That's something every parent knows.

That refrain again: parents just know these things. Except they don't, or my career to date would have looked very different.

True. But in no viable, remotely healthy culture is it acceptable to toss children to the wolves.

Right. We wait until they grow up to toss them to the wolves.

If you are going to absolve fathers of the responsibility of helping to support their children, then you must propose an alternative that does NOT place solitary and total responsibility on the mother.

Don't. Have. Unwanted. Kids. There is no material reason why an unwanted child should be born in this age of cheap contraceptives and legalized abortion. If one parent wants the child and the other does not, then it is the responsibility of the one who wants the child to care for it. If that is impossible without the support of the unwilling parent, then don't. Have. The child.

If it isn't going to be on mom and dad together, then it's going to be on the community. Don't like that? Too bad.

My way or the highway ultimatums only work when people do not choose the highway in large numbers.

When a child is born, individuality is compromised. That's a reality every parent knows. It's never on just one person, not in any remotely healthy culture.

Om mani padme hum.

The first sentence is true, but only because we generally think of "goodness" as encompassing mental/emotional qualities that can never be coerced. The second sentence is untrue. Or rather, let us say that responsible behavior can be instilled by legal compulsion. And in this case, when it doesn't arise voluntarily, it must be.

Really? Civil disobedience is an imaginary concept, then?

Originally Posted by Matt1989

What I mean about the virtues being objective is that they are an objective standard. That is, cowardliness doesn't become a virtue when applied to anyone and courage cannot become a vice. They are fixed.



No, because I don't see how it damages the case for feminism, but if you want to take that route in your argument, can you elaborate how innate differences between the two sexes makes serious efforts toward gender equality undesirable?

Wrong about courage. Courage can become a vice when it crosses the line into foolhardiness, as Aristotle pointed out and General Custer proved.

Originally Posted by The Rani

No can do, sorry. You have to get the WHOLE experience, man.

...

May it please Your Majesty;

After I awoke from my swoon, I'd post thusly:

Originally Posted by Yo. Ob. Sv. on a T4T Freaky Friday after the Progressive Big "O"

Incredibly, as in 1861 and 1933, we once again have found exactly the President we need. And I'm very proud to be an American.

Ma'am, it truly isn't easy to be a Progressive, The Horror! The Horror!

Yo. Ob. Sv.
VKS

Originally Posted by The Rani

I was actually thinking that I would like to send you into a bar and watch what happens when guys stare at your tits. But now, I think we will have to send you into a pregnant woman's body.

What happens when guys stare at your tits? What would you do if all men, everywhere suddenly stopped showing an interest in your feminine attributes? I've posed this question to women in the past and gotten some very telling answers: How do you suppose you'll feel when men stop looking?

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Men who perceive themselves to be disadvantaged by biased courts, legislatures, media, etc., will resist in a thousand ingenious ways, and no amount of indignation from persons comfortable with the status quo will silence their objections.

Are the fathers' rights groups gaining any traction these days? Serious question.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

What happens when guys stare at your tits? What would you do if all men, everywhere suddenly stopped showing an interest in your feminine attributes? I've posed this question to women in the past and gotten some very telling answers: How do you suppose you'll feel when men stop looking?

We actually start communicating. And it's a relief.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Are the fathers' rights groups gaining any traction these days? Serious question.

There have been some victories. Many of them involve cases in which men have been able to disestablish paternity on the basis of DNA evidence, such as that of Manuel Navarra. There are even a handful of cases in which men who have disestablished paternity have additionally been able to sue for recovery of moneys paid in child support, such as Kenneth Samuels. There was a bill proposed in Tennessee a year ago that would mandate paternity tests for all infants born within the state, regardless of the marital status of the parents. I'm not sure how it faired, but the very fact it was drafted and put up for debate is a coup, given the prevailing climate. And while I'm not keen on the government mandating anything, I do believe paternity tests should be requested by putative fathers as a matter of course, if only to discourage fraud.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

We actually start communicating. And it's a relief.

Right. And the involuntary celibacy part would just be a trivial inconvenience. Because proper women don't enjoy sex.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Right. And the involuntary celibacy part would just be a trivial inconvenience. Because proper women don't enjoy sex.

What does the enjoyment of sex have to do with this whatsoever?

Men seem to enjoy talking to me about typically "guy stuff" like sports and politics. If they've thinking about my body all that time, they're certainly doing a good job of multitasking.

Anyway, at my age and in my particular situation, I doubt that most men would be all that interested.

I've had my kids. I'm done looking for potential fathers. At your age it was different, and I probably would have answered you differently.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

What does the enjoyment of sex have to do with this whatsoever?

Men seem to enjoy talking to me about typically "guy stuff" like sports and politics. If they've thinking about my body all that time, they're certainly doing a good job of multitasking.

Anyway, at my age and in my particular situation, I doubt that most men would be all that interested.

I've had my kids. I'm done looking for potential fathers. At your age it was different, and I probably would have answered you differently.

Fair enough, but the question really isn't for you. As you say, you've had your kids; that phase of your life is over. Young women I have put this question to have been much more unsettled by the prospect of no longer attracting male attention. Many of them dismiss the possibility out of hand, at which point I ask them how much action they suppose their grandmothers are getting.

Regarding the crack about sex, your answer implied that you would not be concerned about a lack of male interest, since it would allow you to converse without distraction. But this is dodging the fact that, for women who are still interested in sex with men, a general lack of male interest entails involuntary celibacy. I don't believe that women would find involuntary celibacy a reasonable price to pay for being able to converse with men without their eyes wandering.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Fair enough, but the question really isn't for you. As you say, you've had your kids; that phase of your life is over. Young women I have put this question to have been much more unsettled by the prospect of no longer attracting male attention.

It might come as a surprise, but men are attracted to women for a whole lot of reasons! A man can think one woman attractive because of her figure, and another because she has a sexy-racy personality, and yet another because she's so damn smart you cant stop wondering what she'd be like in bed!

For the girl with the hour glass figure.......

............time runs out very fast.