At Pajamas Media, Amy Alkon looks at "When Involuntary Fathers Are Forced to Foot The Bill":

Jennifer Spenner for the Saginaw News and Kathy Barks Hoffman for the AP wrote about a Michigan man who recently challenged being forced to pay child support for his girlfriend's baby -- despite what he alleges were her assurances that she couldn't get pregnant because of a medical condition, and her knowledge that he didn't want a child.

He made the point to the court that if a woman can choose whether to abort, adopt out, or raise the child, a man should have the same right, and argued that Michigan's paternity law violates the Constitution's equal protection clause.

And unlike men, women have three opportunities to opt out. The first opportunity -- to not have sex or to take precautions against pregnancy -- is of course shared by both sexes. But women (like it or not) have a second opportunity in the form of legal abortion, and men have no say in the matter.

The third opportunity to opt out of parenthood is by putting the baby up for adoption. Again, only women have this right.

The bottom line is that once pregnancy has occurred, men simply cannot opt out.

Noting a horror story about a man forced to pay child support for a baby conceived when he was molested at 14, and the irony of a society that considers it "reprehensible" for a man to father a baby out of wedlock but no big deal for a woman, Alkon concludes with advice for men:

For all you boys out there, until that day there is actual male choice, don't neglect the birth control...no matter what she tells you. Unless you're a sterling judge of character, on the level of secret service agents and clinical psychologists, and unless you're absolutely sure you've got an ethical and/or infertile girlfriend, or you personally watch her get Depo Provera injections...prudent thinking is never believing her when she says she can't get knocked up, always bringing your own condom, and retaining custody over it at all times...lest it find its way to the business end of a pin.

Sound cynical? That's what a lot of guys think -- before they write to me about what they can say to persuade some girl to get an abortion, or whether there's anything they can do to get out of paying child support...short of dying.

I've written about this before, and I asked whether there's any moral distinction between a man selected at a bar and a sperm donor selected from a clinic's catalog:

...Putting the legalities aside for the moment, I don't see a whole lot of moral difference between a woman who decides to get pregnant by visiting a fertility clinic and a woman who selects an attractive stud at a bar for the sole purpose of getting pregnant, assuming she never wants to have anything else to do with the man. Society -- and lawyers -- have declared that the man selected at the bar is obligated, whereas the man selected in the catalog is not. Suppose the woman thought sex was "icky" and told the guy from the bar to just deposit his sperm in the measuring cup, and that she would take care of the rest with a kitchen turkey baster. The obligation is the same, because there's no army of clinicians with the right paperwork insulating him from the identical consequences of his actions.

His actions, right? Or are we talking about the woman's actions? This is why the term "serial sperm donor" so intrigues me. It's as if there are two systems of sperm donation -- one for the rich (or the politically and medically sophisticated), and another for the rest.

I'm feeling cynical enough to relate a true story involving the flip side of Amy Alkon's example. A friend had a vasectomy after having kids and an unpleasant divorce. He began dating a woman he really liked, told me it was going well, and that he was going to tell her about the little "operation" he'd had on the next date. Of course, he was "sure" that would be OK, because after all, she had told him that she was "not interested in having children!" However, no sooner did he tell her than she ended the relationship. The disclosure of the vasectomy was their last date, and she dropped him like a rock. It was as if saying she didn't want children was part of a dishonest script, but hearing about the vasectomy introduced reality. These things come down to instinct, and words are just words.

I knew this guy, and trust me, had the situation been reversed -- had she told him that she'd had a tubal ligation -- he'd have been tickled pink.

Considering that women hold the cards and the deck is stacked against men, I suppose the most cynical thing an eligible but hedonistic and irresponsible man could do would be to have a vasectomy and then deliberately withhold that from the women he's dating. That way, he could have sex to his heart's content without a care in the world.

Ah, but that would be sexual misrepresentation, wouldn't it?

Or would it? Let's spice up the hypothetical. Suppose the man lied, and stated after direct questioning that he had never had a vasectomy. If the woman had sex with him hoping to get pregnant, would his lie constitute "romantic deception"? Does it rise to the level of the guy who claimed to be an astronaut and tricked women into bed?

Do women actually care sexually whether a man has had a vasectomy? Is this a relevant consideration in determining whether to have sex out of wedlock? Why? If anything, I'd expect that a "responsible" woman who wanted to play around would consider it a plus. Or would they? Simple logic dictates that women who do care whether a man has had a vasectomy are interested in something other than recreational sex.

Let's look at it the other way around. Suppose a woman was not able to have children, and she lied to the man. If his goal was having recreational sex, her inability to conceive would likely be seen as a plus, not a minus, and whether she lied would be only be relevant to whether she's an honest person.

Nondisclosure or lying about sterility would of course be grounds for annulment of a marriage, but I'm wondering how the two sexes would see it the context of a casual affair. I think they'd see it in very different -- even diametrically opposing -- ways. Might "casual sex" be not nearly as casual for women as it is for men?

The answers are to be found more in instinct than in logic.

MORE: The vast differences in commitment levels between the two sexes can be illustrated by contrasting the gay man and lesbian "second date" jokes:

There's a lesbian joke that goes like this:

Q: What does a lesbian bring on her second date?

A: A U-Haul.

If it is confirmed, this tendency might explain why so much of the push for same sex marriage comes from lesbians.

[...]

Q. What did the gay man bring on his second date?

A. What second date?

MORE: My thanks to Mrs. du Toit for the link! She also has some good advice for everyone:

We HAVE a mechanism whereby a woman can be assured that her children will be supported by their father. It is called marriage. Without it, you got nada in the way of guarantees.... which, by the way, is FINE if a woman doesn't want those guarantees, but she doesn't get to play BOTH sides of the fence. You either get married with all the requirements of that arrangement, and with that you have financial security for yourself and your children, or you go it alone.

It's not rocket science.