'I Could Be Screwed for the Rest of My Life'

James Taranto has a good piece in the Wall Street Journal about boys now being afraid of girls and with good reason:

An odd recent New York Times op-ed by sociologist Amy Schalet touts the rise of, as the headline puts it, “Caring, Romantic American Boys.” Schalet, who studied American high school sophomores (along with Dutch ones) for a forthcoming book, reports that “boys [are] behaving more ‘like girls’ in terms of when they lose their virginity,” by which she means they “are becoming more careful and more romantic about their first sexual experiences.”

Maybe her book will flesh out that claim, but in her op-ed the boys sound downright terrified: “American boys often said sex could end their life as they knew it. After a condom broke, one worried: ‘I could be screwed for the rest of my life.’ Another boy said he did not want to have sex yet for fear of becoming a father before his time.”

If “I could be screwed for the rest of my life” is what passes for a romantic sentiment at the New York Times, the editors’ Valentine’s Day cards must be a laugh riot.

As Taranto points out, if a girl or woman gets pregnant, she has choices, if a boy gets her pregnant, he has none:

At the same time, there is good reason for males (men as well as boys) to be more fearful of sex than females. Contemporary reproductive technology and law place all the burden for unwanted pregnancy on them. Between the pill and abortion, women have complete control over the reproductive process. They can avoid or end any unwanted pregnancy, and the man involved has no say in the matter.

Women now hold coverture over men in reproductive rights and it is extending to other areas as well. Coverture was a “legal doctrine whereby, upon marriage, a woman’s legal rights were subsumed by those of her husband.” Women now hold men’s legal rights in their hands–it is not a good turn of events. Many men, especially the white-knight types don’t realize that they are at the mercy of women today. The men reading the PJM website are probably more enlightened than this, but in doing interviews for my forthcoming book on this topic, I am amazed at how few men know much about their rights (or lack thereof) or have any clue how to fight back.