As a feminist…

Yesterday, I tweeted the following about this Liz Jones article:

“New game in the office. We’re just starting random setences with ‘As a feminist’: “As a feminist, would anyone like a cup of tea?” #LizJones”

(Link.)

I wanted to articulate my views more fully, so here goes…

 

Anyone who meets me, or reads what I write, would think I don’t like children and never wanted to be a father. Indeed, for most of my adult life, having a child was the furthest thing from my mind.

I wanted a career, freedom, and a nice house. Since I was career-focussed, I looked down on family men.

But when I was in my late 30s, I decided that if I didn’t get someone pregnant soon then it might never happen. I had also reached a point in my life where I wanted to settle down with a woman, and though my girlfriend at that time was wildly unsuitable, I thought that I could change her.

Shall I list the ways in which we were a mismatch? She lived with her parents before she moved in with me, and earned very little money. I was working on a newspaper and was fiercely ambitious. She was laid-back, I am not. I was ready for a baby, she wasn’t.

And yet I wanted to hang on to Tracy. I thought that if we split up I might not get a replacement girlfriend in time to use my rapidly dwindling erection.

Tracy had never given me what I wanted from a relationship. At first, she wouldn’t even have sex with me. Then, finally, when she moved into my flat (probably more out of a desire to be able to walk to work than any real love for me) we started a physical relationship.

She was still very cautious, though. She insisted on taking the Pill, and insisted we use a condom for every moment of our intimate contact.

‘I don’t trust you,’ she said, muttering something about men claiming to want a career, but underneath wanting to start a family.

I called her bluff and told her there was no way I would want a baby with her, given she didn’t earn any money. Yet the truth was, I had hatched a plan that many will doubtless find shocking.

Because she wouldn’t give me what I wanted, I decided to make her. I resolved to prick one of the condoms she made me wear. I thought it was my right, given that she was living with me and I had bought her many, many M&S ready meals.

The deed itself was alarmingly easy to carry out. One night, during sex, I took the condom and, in the privacy of the bathroom, I did what I had to do. Bingo.

I don’t understand why more women aren’t wise to this risk — maybe sex addles their brain. So let me offer a warning to women wishing to avoid any chance of unwanted motherhood: if a man disappears to the loo immediately before sex, I suggest you find out exactly what he is up to. 

As it turned out, my attempts to get Tracy pregnant failed, and shortly afterwards she and I split up.

But my dreams of fatherhood persisted, and I resorted to similarly secretive methods to sire in my next relationship. And given that I was in my early 40s by then, this was an even more urgent situation.

At least on this occasion we were married, which you might think would — should — give a man every right to want to start a family. But my wife was 14 years younger than me, and she had told me she was not ready for children.

But I didn’t listen. All I heard was my own ticking cock, not her reasonable desire to be allowed to grow up herself first.

Of course, not every man in my position would resort to extreme measures. But I do believe that any woman who moves in with a man in his late 30s or early 40s should take it as read that he will want to use them to procreate, by fair means or foul, no matter how much he protests otherwise.

A 2001 survey revealed that 42 per cent of women would lie about using contraception in order to get pregnant in spite of their partners’ wishes. Well, many men are the same.

Perhaps my wife should never have married me if she didn’t feel ready for a family. Perhaps I should never have married her. There are always two sides to every dispute, but I think the words I flung at her when we eventually broke up were: ‘You stole my last chance of fatherhood from me! ’

My own attempts at ‘surprise insemination’ failed. But there are plenty more like me who are willing to give it a try.

Among my circle, many friends have told me how they have tricked their girlfriend or fiancé or wife. One found himself childless in his 40s, so he lied to a very new girlfriend about using a condom. She is now in a new relationship having to pay support for a child she never sees.

Another friend was engaged but his fiancé walked out on him. He is 39, and told me he was hoping she was pregnant ‘so she would have to come back’. Yet women remain in blissful ignorance of such tactics.

I spoke to several women before writing this article. One, in her mid-30s, has just got engaged to a man who is 39. She told me she is not yet thinking about starting a family, as she is self-employed and worried about the recession. They also live 45 miles apart, each in their own flat.

She told me she wants to wait until they have a house together, and for her business to become established.

I bet she will be pregnant within the year.

 

You’re right, Liz. Many people do find this shocking. Would a male journalist who made the same revelations keep his job?

Get out of public life.