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The Daily Mail in London is reporting that scientist's at Newcastle university have developed an artificial sperm, Raising the very real possibility in the future of a world without the need for men!... Having said that they do say that at present sperm can only be created from male embryo's so ruling out for the moment women becoming the supreme biological being...But you know what they say, Where there's a will there's a way!!
What do you think, Is this a case of science gone mad? Or could it lead to the world being a better place where the importance of the male sex is reduced?
Personally i'm all for things staying as they are, To me life would not be the same with out the battle of the sexes, After all is'nt that what life's all about....And anyway if we were all the same sex what would we all have to write about!!!
Kirri
Comments
Some Men Are Okay
Some Men are okay . Now if they could genetically engineer things like bigotry, overactive macho attitude and the tendency to leave the toilet seat up, out of their DNA then they would be accomplishing something.
Well, in their defense with
Well, in their defense with the toilet seat, I read this:
"Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down."
It's a fair point.
----
May the Stars Light Your Path
Maid Joy
http://joyphillip.davensjournal.com/
You're All Wrong!
One look at the design of a toilet will tell you the correct and proper way to leave it when you're finished.
It's not with the seat up, and it's not with the seat down.
It's with the lid down. Toilets inherit their design from the non-flush commode, and keeping the lid down when not in use wasn't really optional on those!
Look at the advantages: The pet pooch couldn't gross you out by drinking out of it. Fewer objects will get dropped in by accident. The long tie belt on my bathrobe won't end up in the drink after a shower, as I'm turning around while putting it on. And, perhaps more importantly, neither sex in a household will feel picked on.
Yes, there's little doubt in my mind. That pool of fresh, yet tainted water, just waiting to be further polluted, is intended to be covered up when not in use.
That's Funny
I learned to keep the lid closed after I got married, not for my wife, but for Brittany our cat. I wouldn't do it just for her LOL
Hugs
Frank
Cats teach good hygiene
Frank wrote:
"I learned to keep the lid closed after I got married, not for my wife, but for Brittany our cat. I wouldn't do it just for her LOL"
Everybody should have a cat (preferably more than one) to teach them good hygiene!
Kris
Reality is a nice concept - but it doesn't hold up to close examination.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
The real reason...
...is that women rarely turn on the light when they get up to use the toilet in the night, and it only takes one plunge through the open seat onto the cold and often dirty porcelain — especially since it's been left up by a man who has, in my experience, invariably pissed on the edge of the bowl, and possibly the floor — perhaps even into the toilet water below, depending on the size of one's bum, to wish a sudden and painful descent straight to hell upon the smug moron who left it so.
I heartily suggest that any man who thinks that this is a trivial matter try a few rides with the seat up and see how you like it. You should, of course, piss on the rim first, to maximise your ability to savour the full humiliation of the experience.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
And...
...getting nasty dirty toilet water in a body orifice is not to be tolerated. Think about accidentally putting your mouth into that stuff. Getting pissed at the guy who left the seat up is a reasonable, rational and sane reaction.
Shiver,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
To be fair though,
(This is the kind of thing that can get too out of hand; I try to thread gently.)
But is it fair to blame the male when the seat gets wet, if they aren't the one that left it down? And, while male aim isn't good, women really do get the seat in worse shape than men do (with men it's all on top - or sides - or floor, with women it can be anywhere but mostly lurking underneath -- I did my stint on cleaning crews while in college. It is true.) why should it be a gender-linked task at all? Just saying.
Nothing like
I'm talking about leaving the seat up in the dark, you're talking about getting the seat wet. Not the same thing. Men who live with women need to realize it is a MUCH bigger deal for a woman to sit down directly INTO an open toilet bowl than it is for anyone to simply get their thighs or buttocks damp.
We are, no joke, talking about a life-threatening experience. You can die from the side effects of a vaginal infection, though it is unlikely. Still, the experience is just incredibly nasty.
Personally, it hasn't happened to me in ages, partly because I see well in the dark and I'm careful. Also the men I've lived with in the last thirty years were all either transmen, gay, or considerate. One roomie had his own bathroom in one house I lived in and asked us women if we would please leave the toilet seat UP there if he promised to always leave it down elsewhere. We happily agreed.
The best solution is for everyone to always put the seat and lid down. In my experience, this ain't going to happen.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
also since when is it a unbreakable rule
that men HAVE to pee standing up in the first place ? They can sit down at night if they have too. Pure laziness imho.
Kim
There's a line in the film Steel Magnolias
He's a real gentleman. I bet he takes the dishes out the sink before he pees in it.
Cheers,
Liobhan
-
Cheers,
Liobhan
Pee sitting down
For some of us old farts, the problem is that sitting puts pressure on the prostate, which makes emptying the bladder rather difficult.
I use one of those urinals that they use for bed-ridden men. That way, I don't have to worry about the stream petering out and dribbling all over the place due to the coanda affect.
I know... TMI. LOL. Still, if there's piss on the seat, it ain't mine!
Ray
Toilet Seat
Ah, but men ALSO need it down, at least for some elimination of their waste product. Women need it down for all of ours. Therefore, 1 out of 4 needs are for it to be up -- which means the majority of the time, it should be down. Men need to face the fact that the needs of the majority should in all courtesy cause them to put it back down, for there is a 75% (3 in 4) chance that the next use for it will be with it down -- and it might be them what needs it down!
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Well, there is a problem:
Bigotry is not a gender-related trait. Overactive macho attitude? Yeah, I would not be missing THAT though I rarely had a problem with it. Toilet seat? <_< >_> I-I don't know what're you talking about!
Faraway
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Macho women
There are macho women, though the title makes no sense - it's a gender linked epithet (women have theirs), but there are women with all the same attitudes: the inability to admit mistakes, feelings of innate superiority, unwillingness to discuss,...even the apparent sense of invulnerability (in many situations). At least there are IMHO, and if you don't think so then tough nuggies!
Joy, Jan
And Some People Find Them Sexy
For your reading, thinking, and viewing pleasure: http://www.tophotbutches.com/
Yow!
Just -- yow!
-- Donna Lamb, Flack
Some of my books and stories are sold through Doppler Press to help support BigCloset. -- Donna
-- Donna Lamb, ex-Flack
Some of my books and stories are sold through DopplerPress to help support BigCloset. -- Donna
Getting old, I see.
I only know three in the top one hundred, most of whom look like they're still in high school, but one notes, of course, that number 84 amongst the Top Hot Butches is Riki Wilchins, a notable transsexual woman and activist.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I can't believe...
that we have a mega-thread about the old battle of whether the seat should be up or down.
Maybe someone ought to put urinals in home bathrooms. That way, the seat would only get raised for cleaning, and the ladies wouldn't have to go anywhere near the dribbles on the floor.
Ray
Another solution
Another solution or the toilet seat would be for this little invention to catch on.
http://s3.gadgetreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/toilet...
Amusing technology
I personally think that it's amusing. I never liked all these superior gender thingy, but I do think that when progress has occurred, it should not be stopped. I believe that research of pure science, no matter how useless or redundant could be useful one day.
Frankly though, I think this tech is useless unless there's a major outbreak that wiped out only males. The way I see it, men can't benefit from this tech. Women can benefit, but they could've just do some genetically engineered cloning instead of going through all those trouble of getting an artificial sperm.
Besides, what will happen if the artificial sperm and ovum got together? Will it grow up just like any normal boy/girl or will it be a mindless robot? Will it be something like the forbidden 'offsprings' mentioned in some ancient scriptures? Are we playing god now?
applications
I could see this technology as being useful for working with an endangered species where there are fewer fertile males. But for the present, there seems to be enough spermatazoa for our species created the old-fashioned way that it's unnnecessary for humans.
Technology
If the sperm can be created from female cells, it will yield only female babies.
Creating sperm from female cells isn't something that is designed to save our species from extinction, but neither are the other fertility technologies that exist. They exist so that otherwise infertile couple can have babies.
Creating sperm from female cells will allow lesbian couples to have genetic children. Also, a transman could use it to have children with a genetic woman.
One of the negative side-effects of hormone therapy and SRS is that the patient is rendered sterile. One of the excuses... I mean legal arguments against same sex couples is that they can't have children. Creating sperm from female cells would put a halt to that argument.
On the other side of the coin; can an egg cell be created from a male cell. If they manage that, T girls will be able to have genetic children -- though the process of implanting the zygote in tissue other than a uterine lining is far from reliable.
Food for thought...
Considering the arguments against stem cell research
This is going to greatly antagonize those people who are already say we are killing "...."
It seems a waste of research efforts when stem cells are still potentially a way to fight certain diseases and genetic issues. Help cure spinal problems the likes of which killed Christopher Reeve.
Plus if it requires a male embryo then it is destroying the embryo that is male to get the same genetic code to create an embryo which requires two female eggs, which are the component in lesser supply to begin with.
The whole thing seems absurd...
Frank
Not to mention
Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Diabetes (Adult and Youth Onset), Cancer, and many other majorly nasty ones... there's also research that looks like hope for things like Psoriasis, that while not life-threatening, would be a relief for many many people.
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
adult vs fetal stem cell applications
Adult derived stem cells have the massive advantage that they will not trigger any immune system reaction--being derived from the recipient--and the requirement to make them revert to morphologically earlier and earlier less specific forms makes it easy to get just the type of tissue you want. The use of embryonic stem cells requires the use of anti-rejection drugs which both increase the odds of infection and of cancer; additionally, fetal stem cells have an agenda, they "want" to become embryos--in a fetal stem cell recipient, this growth is expressed as a quite aggressive tumor. Like a molar pregnancy mass but anywhere the fetal stem cells lodge. When adult derived stem cells begin to follow their prior developmental path, they are usually less aggressive growths of out-of-place relatively mature tissues, and are far less likely to metastatize.
It has already been demonstrated that adult cells can be made to devolve without the intervention of cancer promoting virii into stem cell-like progenitor cells, and these are better for tissue engineering than fetal stem cells because there are then fewer genetic instructions to give them to apply them to tissue engineering--they are already as tissue specific as you need them.
Bottom line, I think now supporting fetal/embryonic stem cell research is more ideologically based than opposing that research is. It's not as useless as researching the phlogiston theory of fire, but that's the direction it's going.
My original point
Was just to say how and why I thought this sperm research was stupid...
Hugs
Frank
No man...
...is an Island, entire of itself.(John Donne)
I think the same is true of woman.
Before one gets too mystical about it all, bear in mind that most genetically engineered sperm is likely to be used to produce more males, rather than less. Baby boys are rarely disposed of after birth like girls are.
Angharad
Angharad
In the future
It will swing the other way in China -- it'll have to. As of 1990 (nearly a whole generation ago), the male to female ration in China was already 6 male for every 5 female. This will lead to either a dramatic reduction in their birth rate (because of the gender-specific choices they've made), or a shift in preferring female children.
As it stands now there are tales (whether true or urban legend, I do not know as I do not have that datum) of female children being left to exposure or simply abandoned on church steps etc. Because there is a government bonus (cheque) for only having one child and the current atmosphere being that a family wants an "heir" -- the severely patriarchal society will pay the price.
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Unfortunately
The traditional way a society deals with an excess of young males is to start a war. Let's hope China finds another solution.
Currently, young Chinese men are buying brides in the Phillipines, India and other countries of Asia. This is not a good solution, either, as the women do not always know what it is they are being brought to China for. China's tight social controls make this difficult but the mail-order bride business of the exploration of the American West and other similar situations in the past may turn out to be minor phenomenon in comparison. The Chinese government is trying to stop this practice in a heavy-handed way that tends to come down hardest on the foreign women who are the real victims in the scheme.
Hugs,
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
What's the practical difference ...
... between artificial sperm and sperm banks? Women already have the choice to live without a man, have children with the finest genes money can buy, live with a female partner, create feminist communities, work at anything they desire. Until male and female sperm can be isolated, they can legally choose to have abortions if their fetus is male.
Heck, there's nothing stopping a mass immigration of women into, say, Canada, changing the laws to favor women, and forming a gynocracy. Starting small, women might first try the island nation of Palau, population 21,000. An influx of 5,000 voting women would wipe out any traces of patriarchy in short order, providing a comfortable seat of power where they may create toilet laws half the world would surely envy.
Why isn't this being done?
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Automatic Toilet Seats
The main complaint women have against men is solved -- and for only a hundred dollars!
I wonder if a man or woman invented it.
Automatic toilet seat
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Pooh, pooh....
If you'll pardon the expression. This is a cheap American knockoff of the serious toilets designed for the Janaese market.
US Toilet:
http://www.harmonyseats.com/
Japanese Toilet:
http://www.totousa.com/
Click on the Washlet tab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan
Cheers,
Liobhan
-
Cheers,
Liobhan
No Men
In reference to toilet seats, there is nothing i like best than sitting down and meditating for five minutes, i find it relieves stress when you are under pressure.
as for the lack of men, women would find out there is nobody to blame!
ELIZA
ELIZA
Lack of men
Some women actually like men.
Who am I to complain? I like women. ;-)
Ray
Seat Debate
Silly person that I am, I just can't help but wonder why you don't turn the light on. My bathrooms don't have windows so I have to turn the light on irregardless of the time. If turning the light on will spare the possible indignity and health risk of plopping down in the toilet bowl it seems to me to be such an easy and sensible thing to do. I always do.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
For myself
For me, if I turn the light on, I'm going to be awake for two hours minimum. If I leave it off, I can pretend I'm still asleep and go back to bed. When you see me on here at three or four in the morning, it generally means that something woke me up enough that I could not get back to sleep without another round of sleep-inducing relaxation.
Not everyone has that problem. In the case of my parents, if she turned on the light, even behind a closed door, it would wake my father up.
Back when we used outside toilets, we didn't have this problem. No one sits on those unless they like splinters, you squat above them. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Why do so many trans-girls hate men?
I mean there is nothing wrong in them yet some trans girls tend to be somewhat against them just for being part of that specific gender ( i.e. the last few episode of "easy as falling of a bike" dealt with the Cathy response to a an idiotic act by Simon. I agree that Simon was wrong in doing what he did but the response to that act was OTT and the comment left to those part offered no sympathy for him yet plenty of justifications for Cathy stupid,inconsiderate act).
The funny thing about that is that we fight most of our life to be seen as the gender we choose to , to be respected as part of it and to understand that there is nothing wrong in being part of that gender yet we actively discriminate and stereotype against human beings who choose to be the other gender.