In the words of Michael Jackson . . .

"If you don't want a baby; don't have a baby."

So, I hear that a male birth control pill is nearly complete. This could be revolutionary. Could this shift the responsibility out of the sole hands of women? If men can prevent unintentional pregnancies--and without having to sacrifice their own pleasure--will they?

I think of how profound it must have been for women to finally be able to control their own fertility, privately and relatively easily. Although it changed sex for women, I'm going to go ahead and assert that men don't need to be released from sexual repression. But many men, I think, need to be released from the idea that they have no control about when and how they make a baby, that they have to rely on the honesty and careful consideration of a woman. Of course, this hasn't actually been true for years and years (hello, condoms!) But if men can make that decision on their own, it strikes one more excuse for"I didn't plan this! I didn't want this! I don't want to pay for this!" Will that be enough to have men to agree not to make babies they don't want? Wouldn't that be revolutionary? When people parent (or don't) children who they don't want and can't afford, bad things happen. If there is one more way to interrupt that cycle, couldn't that change everything?

Will it?

"That's Gay"

Over the years I've had students who have willingly exposed their sexual difference in my classes. I've had students who I suspected were struggling with their sexuality. I've had students who were clear about their own sexuality and who were painfullly clear about other people's sexuality, too. I've even had a student, no joke, whose gender I was pretty unsure of during the entire term. I hope that I've been able to make my classroom a place where students don't have to be afraid of being intentially hurt, for any reason. I hope that I'm getting it right. I know that there have been times when I clearly did not. I'm working on it. But we've been looking at a text recently that forces our discussion of sexuality and I've been afraid that the students who are homosexual are uncomfortable, not because of mean or homophobic comments; just because there are all these words and thoughts flying through the air and they seem to land on them specifically. Still, I don't want to force us to be silent as a class. That's worse.

A post over at CocoMamas today makes it palpably and poignantly clear why we HAVE to get it right. I hope you'll take a look.