As a guy, I want to ask youwhy do women ...
?Ben
As a lady, I can assure you, not all women want to spit out a kid. Any more than all men like football. Plenty of my friends have kids, and I'm a great auntie, but I've never wanted one of my own. Maybe it was growing up with four brothers and sisters and a mother who seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown throughout my entire childhood. Who knows? For whatever reason, giving birth (and the aftermath) has always been one of the scariest things I could ever imagine.
Let me tell you a story.
I was 17 when I finally kissed my hymen buh-bye, and boy, did that suck. One of the only high-school dropouts my affluent New Jersey town had ever produced, Dave the Devirginator was every mother's worst nightmare and every little punk rock girl's wet dream. He looked exactly like Johnny Rotten and had the attitude and wardrobe to match. I lost my mind over him and counted the days until I felt I could fuck him and still have him respect me in the morning. I held out for 94 days.
We held my deflowering in his bedroom while his parents were on vacation. It hurt really badly and went on for far too long as far as I was concerned. Once we were done, Dave decided that since I hadn't bled upon insertion (like the virgins in the movies do) that I was an unrepentant slut pulling some sort of elaborate scam on him. Nice, eh?
Plus, residual Catholic damage left me convinced that if I had sex, I was going to be somehow punished. Even then I didn't believe in hell, so the most horrific punishment I could imagine was pregnancy. My mother's paranoia also contributed to this. Long before I was actually doing the deed, every time she got mad at me (which was pretty much on an hourly basis) she would shriek hysterically, "You little slut?you'd better not get pregnant! And if you do get pregnant?you'd better not have an abortion?I'll raise the baby!" Curiously, she would then also add, as sort of a closing zinger, "And I know you have a tattoo!"
Which, at the time, I didn't.
So the second that boy pulled his dick outta me I was convinced I was with child. The drugstore I worked at after school ran out of EPT tests because I was constantly stealing them to pee on the stick. It didn't matter that they kept coming up negative; I was certain there was an evil little embryo growing inside me, leeching me of my lifeblood and guaranteeing me an after-school-special-worthy future. Only a trip to Planned Parenthood convinced me I was fetus-free. On the ride back home from the clinic, Dave told me how dumb I was for thinking I was pregnant, as he hadn't even come inside me. Thanks Dave. Previously having been a virgin and all, how the hell was I supposed to know?
But, as usual, I digress. As I creep up on the age where my ovum are starting to morph from ripe little eggs into hard little raisins, I find I couldn't give a shit. Instead of the sudden change of heart I've seen so many of my friends go through as infertility looms on the horizon, I remain pleased that except for that first time and one or two other slip-ups, I've always been diligent about birth control. Hell, I've never even had to have an abortion.
I believe the reason so many women want to have babies is simple: because we can. Our bodies come equipped with baby-making equipment and a lot?if not most?women want to try it out. I guess otherwise it's kind of like having a shiny new car you never drive. Then there's the esthetic factor?there are folks running around out there who actually find those squealing little poo-machines cute! And of course we can't forget about the people mysteriously driven to pass their own questionable genes on to another generation. (And just like how most nudists and swingers are generally the last people on Earth you'd want to see naked and/or rutting, these types are usually the ones who should have had their reproductive organs removed at birth.)
Oh, and one more thing?being a guy, you have no idea how shitty people (mostly other women) can be to broads who have no urge to reproduce. Too many times we're treated as if we're somehow not clever enough to have figured out that what we really want in life is a child. Like if we don't push some mewling little creature out through our vaginas we're missing out on a vital aspect of womanhood. Hey, if changing crappy diapers and having an episiotomy is an indicator of femininity, just call me Butch. Thanks anyway.
Write [dategirl@nypress.com](mailto:dategirl@nypress.com) or Dategirl, c/o New York Press, 333 7th Ave., 14th fl., NY, NY 10001.