Why don't men understand conception? Why do women lie about it?

The BBQ Pit
1

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard of men, otherwise intelligent men, repeat horribly fallacious shit about how babies are made. Years ago, I dated a guy whose last girlfriend said she couldn’t be on the Pill because it made her sick. Thus, used no birth control except condoms, but told this guy that she couldn’t get pregnant when she was on her period. For quite some time, they had unprotected sex, no condom, no nothing, but only when she was bleeding. This guy actually believed her when she couldn’t get pregnant when menstruating. This is a man with a Masters degree, so we’re not talking a stupid guy. OK, he was pretty stupid, but not uneducated, unintelligent, or incapable of knowing how things work. WTF.

Another friend of mine is going through a bad custody battle with his ex-girlfriend. When they got together, she told him she couldn’t get pregnant because she only got her period twice a year or so. She’d been having unprotected sex her whole life, she said, and never got pregnant (at that point, about 5-6 years of sexual activity, she told him). So he said, OK, cool, and they had completely unprotected sex from day 1 of their relationship. Then, big shock, she got knocked up after about 2 years. They had a kid, and their relationship went all to hell. He said by a year after the kid was born, their relationship was a fucking nightmare… yet they STILL did not use birth control, because she was breast feeding, and told him it was not possible for her to conceive while lactating. Finally, he left her 2 years after the baby was born (after she cheated on him), without conceiving another child. Solely by the grace of God, of course.

What the hell is wrong with these men? Did they not take health class? If they didn’t, wouldn’t it be worth either verifying the information, or using protection just for safety’s sake if you don’t want to have a kid with that particular woman? A woman who is menstruating can still conceive. A woman who has infrequent periods can still conceive. A woman who is lactating can conceive. Are these men so excited by the idea of completely unprotected sex that they will believe any lie that is told them? These guys then bitch about paying support. Crack a textbook, google that shit, something, because if you stick your dick in someone and make a baby because you believed a rather fatuous and transparent lie, it’s too fucking bad for you and is your own damn fault for not looking out for yourself.

I don’t even know what to say about the women in these stories. Are they misinformed about how their own bodies work? That’s sad, and I have a hard time believing it. Or are they lying in order to get pregnant? I know of several women who have lied about their birth control status and ability to conceive in order to get pregnant. I know a girl who told her boyfriend she was using the rhythm method, when in reality, she felt she was “ready to be a mother.” The guy believed her, and then she had her baby and got 17% of his salary to finance it. I wish women wouldn’t fucking do shit like that, because it just makes the world a worse place for everyone. Why have a baby at any cost, even if you have to lie to a man to do it? What the fuck.

I guess this is mild for the pit, but it sure does piss me off.

2

A woman who’s menstruating can still conceive? Egads, I have a bachelor’s in animal physiology and I didn’t know that.

3

Ewwwwwww, that’s just nasty.

4

You could remove the words “completely unprotected” and this hypothesis would still be correct.

5

All three of those situations - amenorrhea, breastfeeding and menstruating make it much less likely (although not impossible) to conceive though, right?

Maybe I’m dumb too.

6

As I understand it, women are really only fertile twice per year.* But I’m not gambling the next 18 years of my financial life on when those two times aren’t.

*Probably misremembered from Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book.

7

My ex-sis in law got pregnant while nursing child #2 with child #3 because she’d been told that particular fallacy and believed it.

So, it isn’t just men not knowing or women lying. She is a woman; she did not know.

Understanding the change in pH balance of the cervical mucus before, during and after ovulation may aid me in understanding how the odds of impregnating someone may change but there are very few absolutes when it comes to conception.

8

I think you’ve started with an erroneous leap of logic - the things you’ve listed are not commonly known. I think your rant, while a good one, would be better aimed at the average person’s (men and women) virtually complete ignorance about how their bodies work. We’re not all that far from our ancestors who thought babies just somehow magically appeared.

9

Yes, but you CAN conceive during any of these times. It’s possible, and if you don’t want to have a baby with that person, you should use protection anyway, unless you want to play Russian roulette with her womb, your wallet, and your life as you know it. I would think people would be more diligent about knowing how these things work and taking precautions. Also, I’m flat-out appalled that apparently some people DON’T know this shit. It is taught in 7th and 8th grade health class in the school where I work for god’s sake.

10

I think women also want to “know” these myths because it makes their life easier as well–no complex plot to trap a man, just having heard contradictory things and selected the “truth” that is most attractive. Human nature.

The deal with breast feeding is that it stops ovulation until it doesn’t. You don’t know when it doesn’t until you have a period–some days after your first ovulation.

11

Yes, and a lot of people do believe it makes it impossible to concieve. I agree, this rant is more about PEOPLE who don’t understand how fertility works - I doubt most of these women were lying, they were just as clueless as their partners.

Now, I’ll happily rant at women who outright lie “oh, honey, I’m on the pill.” But I’d like any evidence at all that these women didn’t simply believe some very common misperceptions about fertility.

Not everyone learned it in health class. And of the people who were told it in health class 46% of them were texting each other on their cell phones and drawing “Missy hearts Jordy” on their notebooks.

12

I’m, personally, extremely careful contraception-wise, and agree completely with your point, Rubystreak. I just wanted to make sure I was getting the biology right.

13

And this, from someone calling herself Rubystreak, was enough to make me set my sandwich back on my desk and move away from it slowly.

:eek: :o

14

All birth control does is make it harder for you to get pregnant. None of them make it impossible to get pregnant. Hell, your condom using friend was probably just as likely to get her pregnant from a failed condom during a fertile time as he was getting his condomless ride during a less fertile time.

The woman in your other story had 10 years of unprotected sex, and 1 baby, that is the kind of result you get from regular condom use. Would you be bitching as much if she insisted on using only a condom, and got pregnant, which happens all the time? You have over a 10% chance of conceiving per year with “average” condom use.

15

Why do some women lie about it? You answered your own question there…in order to get what they want.
A good friend of mine, a physician, recently had a baby with his girlfriend of less than one year who swore she was on the pill. The minute he put his unprotected manhood into her, he was gambling and he lost.

16

Wuh?

17

The second one that seems to indicate their being uncomfortable with having sex while menstruating. I wonder if this is more a guy thing or a gal thing?

18

Yeah, you’re probably right about the chances of conception, though bullshitting about being infertile to get the guy not to use a condom, that’s pretty shady behavior.

I would be bitching less if people didn’t lie about or live in self-indulgent, willful ignorance about things as important as their own reproduction. If you try not to conceive and fail, then everyone was acting in good faith. When ignorance meets connivance/deception and babies are made, that’s just a bad scenario for everyone IMO.

19

I may not know much about women (a huge understatement), but I know a bit about cows and I know that we count on them being fertile while they’re lactating. If they weren’t, we would lose more money on them than we are already losing.

Maybe I should write a book: Everything I Know About Sex, I Saw in the Pasture.

20
  1. January - June
  2. July - December