Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion

by Gabrielle Stanley Blair

Overview

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In Ejaculate Responsibly, Gabrielle Blair offers a provocative reframing of the abortion issue in post-Roe America.

In a series of 28 brief arguments, Blair deftly makes the case for moving the abortion debate away from controlling and legislating women’s bodies and instead directs the focus on men’s lack of accountability in preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Highly readable, accessible, funny, and unflinching, Blair builds her argument by walking readers through the basics of fertility (men are 50 times more fertile than women), the unfair burden placed on women when it comes to preventing pregnancy (90% of the birth control market is for women), the wrongheaded stigmas around birth control for men (condoms make sex less pleasurable, vasectomies are scary and emasculating), and the counterintuitive reality that men, who are fertile 100% of the time, take little to no responsibility for preventing pregnancy. 

The result is a compelling and convincing case for placing the responsibility—and burden—of preventing unwanted pregnancies away from women and onto men.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523523184
Publisher:	Workman Publishing Company
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	38,841
Product dimensions:	4.80(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Gabrielle Stanley Blair is the author of Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way To Think About Abortion. She is also the founder of DesignMom.com. Started in 2006, it has been named a Parenting Website of the Year by Time Magazine, praised as a top parenting blog by The Wall Street Journal, Parents, and Better Homes & Gardens, and won the Iris Award for Blog of the Year. Her first book, Design Mom: How to Live with Kids, a New York Times Bestseller, was published in 2015 by Artisan. Gabrielle is also a founder of Alt Summit, the blockbuster annual conference for online content creators and creative entrepreneurs, currently in its 13th year.

As a thought leader for over 15 years, Gabrielle has written and moderated hundreds of discussions on difficult topics, and interviewed some of the most influential people in the world. Her writing is quoted and shared across the globe daily. Gabrielle and her husband, Ben Blair, have six children — Ralph, Maude, Olive, Oscar, Betty, and Flora June. After six years in Oakland, they moved to a small town in Normandy, France where they are renovating a house from the 1600s. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @designmom.

Table of Contents

1. Men are 50 times more fertile than women.
2. Sperm live for up to 5 days.
3. Women’s fertility is unpredictable.
4. Ovulation is involuntary, ejaculation is not.
5. Birth control for women is hard to access and hard to use.
6. Birth control for men is easy to access and easy to use.
7. Society clings to the idea that men hate condoms.
8. Vasectomies are less risky than tubal ligations.
9. We expect women to do the work of pregnancy prevention.
10. We don’t mind if women suffer, as long as it makes things easier for men.
11. Society teaches that the man’s pleasure is the purpose and priority of sex.
12. Women can be impregnated without experiencing pleasure.
13. Men cause all unwanted pregnancies.
14. We expect women to be responsible for their own bodies AND for men’s bodies.
15. We need to shift our focus to men.
16. Holding men accountable for their actions does not make women victims.
17. The uneven power dynamic between men and women is real and can turn violent quickly.
18. A woman can’t walk out on a pregnancy.
19. We’re not honest about pregnancy and childbirth.
20. The realities and burdens of parenting are unfathomable.
21. Pregnancy should not be a punishment.
22. Adoption is not an alternative to abortion.
23. There are zero consequences for men who ejaculate irresponsibly.
24. Sperm are dangerous.
25. Men have more control of their bodies and sexual urges than we like to admit.
26. Men can easily prevent abortions but choose not to.
27. We know what works.
28. This is how to take action.

Editorial Reviews

10/31/2022

In this witty and cogent account, parenting blogger Blair (Design Mom) aims to “change the discourse” around abortion by pointing out that “99 percent of abortions are the result of unwanted pregnancies, and men cause all unwanted pregnancies.” In her 28-point argument for why the focus should shift from women’s bodies to men’s responsibilities, Blair notes that women produce fertile eggs for 24 hours per month, while men’s sperm is fertile “every single second of every single day”; that condoms are more available, easier to use, and have fewer side effects than hormonal birth control; and that women in the U.S. feel societal pressure to prioritize a man’s pleasure over their own safety and autonomy. Blair also argues that pregnancy is not a “risk-free adventure” (700 to 900 women die from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes in the U.S. each year) and that adoption is not an easy alternative to abortion. Her plan for “stopping irresponsible ejaculations” includes destigmatizing condom use and vasectomies, fact-based sex ed, and “holding politicians accountable” for supporting policies that reduce unwanted pregnancies. Flashes of acerbic humor and eye-opening statistics bolster Blair’s common-sense case. This polemic has the power to change minds. Agent: Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Blair’s fresh reframe should be required reading for any person who has sex, wants to have sex or is raising someone who might have sex in the future. This slender book has what it takes to be the foundation for a movement."—Washington Post

"Any reader of this gorgeous manifesto, men especially, would be hard-pressed to walk away from it without being reminded (*mind blown emoji*) that putting the entire very heavy burden on women to not get pregnant, or to be unable to terminate because of all that’s gone on to make abortion illegal or inaccessible, makes a lot less sense than just not getting them pregnant in the first place."—Oprah Daily

"*Ejaculate Responsibly—*slim, concise, maddening…There’s value in keeping the book on the coffee table,”—Vanity Fair

"Slim but mighty tome"—Booklist

"Flashes of acerbic humor and eye-opening statistics bolster Blair’s common-sense case. This polemic has the power to change minds."—Publishers Weekly

“...will be handing out [Ejaculate Responsibly] during Christmas time. You can stuff this in your stocking…This is going to be a hot book.”—CBS Mornings co-host, Tony Dokoupil

From the Publisher