Monthly Archives: December 2013

Conception is between a man and a woman

So I suppose this article is flamebait, and honestly, there are very few issues I could care less about than the gay marriage debate.  But like with a lot of issues, it seems like things get so heated that people tend to forget certain baseline facts when they launch their tirades.  So I just want to clarify this one fact:

Conception requires a man and a woman.

Let’s clarify this.  Anybody can love anybody.  Anybody can associate with anybody.  You can love men, women, your pets, your plants, heck I know a scientist who cries when her petri dish cultures collapse.  And I certainly don’t care what other people do with their lives.  Give people who want to marry/cohabit legal standing, provided there’s no abuse or coercion involved.

But, to make a new human baby, you need a human man’s semen and you need a human woman’s egg.  You need the two to connect, and you need a woman to gestate that fertilized egg for nine months.

Of course, there are all sorts of technological ways to do this, like a third-party sperm donor, or a third-party egg donor and/or fourth-party woman to gestate your fertilized egg for you. (you decode that last part)

But barring any help from technology, the way it happens is a man inserts his erect penis into a woman’s vagina and squirts his semen at her cervix.  It then needs to connect with a fertile egg of hers, which she then needs to gestate until she gives birth.

Whether the man and woman are actually in love, or are married, is irrelevant here.  I just want to make sure we understand this fact.  If a man and a man marry, or a woman and a woman marry, they still can’t conceive kids with each other.  They need to do an end-run around this inconvenient biological truth to procreate.

Maybe the reason people apply this to marriage is that it’s supposed to be an institution that revolves around conception.

But even that is irrelevant.  The relevant question I’m asking is this: is it possible to point out the fact that a baby comes from a male’s sperm and a female’s egg, without coming off like a bigot?

My namesake Ronnie Biggs dies at 84

Ronnie Biggs was best known for his infamous British train heist in 1963, where he and his gang made off with about $50 million in today’s currency.  He was caught, but managed to escape prison, and lived out his days as a Brazilian playboy.  He was featured in the Sex Pistols’ quasi-documentary “The Great Rock and Roll Swindle”.  The Sex Pistols compared their band to a Rock and Roll Heist where, they too, made off with millions.

Thus, my namesake, (Ronny)Biggs, is an obscure reference dating back to my 90s So-Cal punk days.

For more information on Ronnie Biggs, the Guardian has a good obit here: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/18/ronnie-biggs-great-train-robber-dies-84

And I expect all of you to be familiar with The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, especially if you’re at all into music or pop culture.  Truly a work of genius:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eizQ9l9Qu0A

Ronnie Biggs, you will be missed.  I doff my fedora to you, with outstretched index and middle fingers.