Sometime You Just Want To Smack Some Responsibility Into Them
Family, I got heated a while back Let me set the scene for you: Several times per week, I meet a few guys at a café to talk. We talk about any and everything; nothing is off limits. There have been major disagreements, but very little out-and-out hostility. That is, until that day. Normally, the crew stays the same: the same five professionals, enjoying coffee and conversation, before we shuffle off to the trenches of our chosen professions. That morning, however, a dude was there who was unfamiliar to me, but was a good friend of a friend, so I labeled him crew by association. We’ll call this new dude, “AJ”.
AJ was asked, ‘Whatever happened to [a former lover of his]’? After taking a long swig of coffee, he shook his head and stated in an exasperated chuckle, “That bitch lied about being on the pill and tried to trap me with a baby.” I had several strong reactions to this. I found his entire statement offensive, but I’ll break it down for you why I was ready to smack him.
I’m not a real big fan of misogyny. He already put me off by calling this woman a ‘bitch’. I’m not one to police words or emotions, and I will defend the First Amendment with my dying breath, but for real? ‘Bitch’ is a word that I have worked to purge from my vocabulary. There is no place for describing women like this, especially when it pours forth from a privileged male mouth. [Dude is very rich]
This former lover of his “lied” about being on the pill. Let’s get one thing straight: When you have male-to-female vaginal intercourse, there is implicit consent to a possible pregnancy. If you have sex, without contraception, you are pretty much agreeing to a baby. Calculus it ain’t; biology it is. Men, if you don’t want your lover to become pregnant, wrap it up. If you complain that ‘it doesn’t feel good’ then you are not in the emotional space to have responsible sex, and should abstain. Sex with a condom may not feel as good as unprotected sex, but having a baby that you made no plans for, and don’t want—I guarantee you that this will feel a whole lot worse, especially for the child.
“Trap me with a baby.” Granted, I have known several women who have attempted to get impregnated by a rapper or ballplayer or a wealthy dude so they can have an eighteen-year revenue stream. These women exist. But I feel this is more indicative of how damaging to women’s and girl’s esteem this society can be—telling them that they have no worth, other than bearing babies and collecting checks—rather than some inherent female guile. In regards to babies: Babies aren’t a net that can be tossed on someone to trap them. They aren’t little spike-filled holes in the ground that you stumble into when traipsing through unfamiliar jungles. They are human beings deserving of respect. And if you do not want the enormous responsibility of raising a tiny human, please refer to point 1 above.
I voiced my unease at his statement, giving him a more brief and passionate response than I detailed here. He had the nerve to look at me and say, “Why does the man always have to be the villain?” I called BS.
In the past, I have gone completely out of my way to intellectualize the reasons for men acting beneath themselves. I’d point to systemic racism, inter and intra-generational trauma, socialization (or lack thereof), and a whole host of social ills aimed at men. But this is the worst kind of paternalism, and it disallows for male agency. By absolving so many of our men from responsible behavior, we endorse then being irresponsible. This isn’t to say that the system doesn’t impact men in negative ways. But we do not have to succumb to the obvious jagged paths that certain societal forces are attempting to trick us into following. We do not have to be the same character in the same story. We are in charge. If AJ wasn’t as educationally, gendered, and financially privileged, I might have been able to reach back into my very deep bag of excuses and chalk up his words and behavior to ignorance. But he did not have a single valid excuse, other than his obvious self-elevation over this woman.
AJ, brother, men do not always have to be the villain. It is up to you to chose not to be.
