My first instance of school yard sex ed was a peer trying to tell me that daddies got mommies pregnant by peeing on them. I had a vague suspicion even then, at the age of 5, that this was incorrect, but it did take a few years before I could get access to the grown-up books at library and learn how it actually worked (and oh, but that was a surprise!). So I guess I’m not terribly shocked at the inanities promulgated online any more, like this one, the claim that “feminists are going to trigger a genomic meltdown…“
…because they keep pushing for asexual reproduction, or trying to combine ovaries, when the most likely outcome is a population running about – unable to reproduce sexually since the whole “male genocide” bit – with incredibly damaged chromosomes.
So when a lesbian loves another lesbian, they writhe around a bit and try to push their ovaries together to make a little baby lesbian? I have a vague suspicion that this is also incorrect, I guess I’ll have to go to the library…wait. I don’t think our library stocks those kinds of books.
I will say I’m impressed that modern 5 year olds are so proficient at getting online and typing out those long words, though.
P.S. One thing I do know is that ovaries are just like testicles — extremely sensitive to pain. So the idea of “combining ovaries” sounds as agonizing as mashing testicles together.
Useful empathy tip, guys: menstrual cramps must be like having your balls roughly squeezed, or even kicked, for 3 days every month.
Well, yes, ovaries are sensitive, but most people with them rarely get pain from them. Cramps come from the uterine muscles and feel more like a charlie horse. Not quite the same as an ovarian cyst or torsion which would be closer to what you’re describing.
My experience was in teaching a class about reproductive technology, where collecting eggs for IVF was literally described as getting punched in the balls.
There’s a whole range of responses to ovulation, or to ball-fondling — it can be pleasant & gentle, or it can be nasty painful. You’re right, though, most people don’t suffer terribly.
I think kupo’s point is not about the relative pain sensitivities of various organs, but that menstrual cramps are uterine muscle spasms and not ovarian in origin.
chrislawson is correct.
Also, only 3 days every month? I wish!
I read once in a fairly reputable mag that soon two eggs could be used to fertilize each other; that this had already been done in mice. This would mean that only female offspring would result, and men would gradually just die out.
Even as an astronomer, I could see this was complete bunk, for many reasons. Not the least of which is, it hasn’t been done in mice, and we aren’t even CLOSE!
This is just the tip of the 20% iceberg, the 20% being the percentage of Americans who are certifiably insane. They’re also the ones who are currently running the country, endangering all of us as well as the world. That same percentage includes American men who are openly misogynistic, gun-worshiping religious fanatics. “Lock her up!” applies not only to Hillary but to all women who dare express any individuality.
While that comment is full of madness, I suspect it’s more bio-tech madness than how-is-babby-formed madness. I figure they’re lamenting advances in creating zygotes from two eggs, or maybe advances in cloning. Basically someone who thinks Warframe is prophecy and not fantasy. For those who don’t know, one of the antagonist human-descendant races in Warframe is the Grineer, who reproduce artificially via cloning, a process which is ironically the source of the genetic degradation that requires them to reproduce via cloning. I’d imagine this clown is envisioning a dystopic future where generations of humans created in this manner have degraded their genome to the point where reproduction is all but impossible, and naturally it’s all the lesbians’ faults for wanting to be mothers without getting the dick.
Your juvenile sex education was a model of accuracy and clarity compared to Catholic Manchester UK in the 1960s. I remember a debate between a group of us 11 year olds, concerning somebody’s sister who was pregnant (aged 14 or so).. “Why didn’t God know she wasn’t married?” All I knew was that wombs were filled with fruit (blessed is the fruit of thy womb…) and normally spotty (the one spotless womb wherein Jesus was laid). Babies were brought in the doctor’s black bag. At least I didn’t attract the Brothers, so it was just miserable, rather than a nightmare.
We demand photos .
@10 When i asked my mum where babies came from ,she told me they came from the hospital .
To my great regret i didn’t push the subject .
A “gnome meltdown”? That sounds like a very nasty version of the Garden Gnome Liberation Front’s “mass suicide” of gnomes. Or someone is after the Gnomes of Zürich’s gold.
Eh? “Genomic meltdown”. Oh…
No, Gnome meltdown was what happened when they dropped GTK2 and started the 3.x series…
…all kidding aside, this is ridiculous. My girlfriend and I don’t WANT kids, and if we ever do, we’re going to adopt, because there are so, so many orphan boys and girls out there who need loving parents and don’t have them.
We don’t hate men, we just don’t want to have sex with them. These people seem to think we’re going to rise up one day, flannel shirts flapping in the breeze and battle axes polished to a razor-edge, with the express purpose of hunting down and castrating all men.
You poor people, our household had a Book that you got guided to when you were old enough to ask. It had line drawings and everything! That’s the trouble with intelligent atheist parents that teach only facts.
KDE user here, so I missed that. Which is not to say KDE hasn’t melted down on occasions…
On the non-kidding front:
Thank you. You’ve more-or-less just hit on why I’m dubious of IVF, surrogacy, and similar; namely, I can’t shake the — admittedly vague, but nagging — suspicion there’s too much of “me me me” there, and too little empathy for living children.
MvE@14 — yeah, there’s an awful lot of weird thinking out there. Even if we did develop a perfectly functional method for creating a healthy birth from two ova and no sperm, it’s not like the vast majority of the world would suddenly choose this option for reproduction. (As opposed to artificial womb technology, which I reckon would be just about every woman’s choice if they knew it was safe and effective.)
* Worth noting that we do have the capacity to fuse an egg from two ova, with one sourcing the nucleus and the other sourcing the cytoplasm — there’s been at least one reported “three-parent” child born using this technique.
blf@16 —
You can’t be too careful. Hollywood has taught me that if I adopt a child it will be possessed by demons, a dangerous telepath, or a homicidal Russian woman.
Does anybody know why so many straight men, even the gay-sex-is-yuck type of men, enjoy watching girl-on-girl action? I’ve never understood.
The men are pedophiles?
(More accurately, and digressing from my real point, the men would be ephebophiles (probably).)
@ chrislawson, #18
(I’m assuming you’re referring to Orphan with that last)
Gah- I really like acts 1, 2, and 4 of that movie, but it so completely shits the bed in act 3 that I had to make up my own head-cannon just to be able to watch it.
So all feminists are lesbians in this fools mind? Nevermind the facts that not all women desire to reproduce, and sperm donation is a thing. Are gay men also trying to destroy the genome by mashing testes together? /logic
Why would you reckon this? Pregnancy is a pretty amazing bodily function, and women generally are fine with using their uterus. Birth is painful, yet women don’t opt for c-sections even though they are safe and effective.
rietpluim @19.
Presumably because they like seeing women naked.
Tethys@22 — for normal, uncomplicated births, c-sections are *not* as safe as normal vaginal deliveries. And yet some women opt for them anyway.
And it’s not just the birth, there’s the whole 9 months gestation. I’m not saying everyone would opt for artificial womb incubation, but I would not be at all surprised if it became a common form of birth if it was available (and affordable).
You want to see the level of RWNJ sexual knowledge?
Here’s an example (short comedy film award winner).
SFW, although maybe you need to wear headphones and stifle your guffaws.
We are well aware of how our reproductive system works, and my point is that pregnancy can be very enjoyable. Women aren’t squicked out by our normal body functions and that does include pregnancy and childbirth. We get pregnant on purpose, by choice. You can’t actually opt for a c-section because birth is the safest and best way to deliver a baby, barring medical conditions that would make natural childbirth a danger to the mother.
blf@16 — after accepting our lack of success at traditional reproduction my spouse and I pursued adoption recognizing the fact of “so, so many orphans.” But in adoption counseling, prospective dad was seen as odd since he was in his mid-20’s pursuing an advanced degree in the non-lucrative science of botany and prospective mom was working outside the home training horses, and neither professed to an interest in religion. IVF was our second choice, but it worked.
It actually has been done in mice.
Mouse created without father
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaguya_(mouse)
With an unimpressive success rate (2/457 eggs).
The End of Males? Mouse Made to Reproduce Without Sperm
Key quote from the above article:
But then again, there’s also this:
Generation of Viable Male and Female Mice from Two Fathers
Oh, and before the link @#29, this:
High-frequency generation of viable mice from engineered bi-maternal embryos (PDF)
I’ve been chasing way too many Google Scholar links in a topic that is mostly above my head. But here’s something that caught my eye:
Redefining ‘Virgin Birth’ After Kaguya: Mammalian Parthenogenesis in Experimental Biology, 2004-2014
Abstract:
Making healthy mice with two moms
Explains what they did differently to get the success in the link @#30:
Basically, it looks like it’s possible to get offspring from two females or two males, in a lab, using mice, with fewer problems than the initial experiment, and with a greater understanding of how fertilization works in the first place. Potentially it could be done with humans.
Of course, the whole point is that there is a greater understanding of how genomes combine. Even if the methods described were eventually applied to humans, genomic meltdown makes no sense given that greater understanding; it’s like saying that studying cancers will lead to an increase in cancer rates.
My knowledge of what female genitalia look like comes from a drawing that a friend helpfully made for me in the pub once. I am somewhat doubtful that they have quite that many tentacles and chelicerae, but he assured me that he had heard them described by someone who had spoken to an actual human woman once, in 1992, and so I trusted that he’d got it mostly right.
siwuloki@27, Yes, my @16 comments where very abbreviated. And the field is full of mines. What I was thinking of when I wrote that was primarily the use of such techniques as a “first choice” or without considering adoption. And, as you and your partner experienced, some of the checks done on prospective parents seem quite dubious. In relation to a specific individual child, they might be sensible, but as a “general suitability” filter perhaps not-so-much.
Congratulations on both your attempt to adopt, and on your eventual success.