The “Pregnant Man.”

There’s been a lot of talk lately about this person. I really can’t stand going to the magazine rack and seeing the story of the “pregnant man” and seeing the pictures. There is a phrase I keep thinking to myself whenever I see a picture of this character there or whenever I see a reference to the baby.

“This is not a man.”

It’s the blunt truth. Men do not get pregnant. However, I find myself torn and this is where the difficulty comes in. Do I say this is a woman simply because the female parts are there? If so, then why say this is a man if the male parts are there also? Are we to say both? Then why not say the pregnant hermaphrodite? What makes this a man instead of a woman?

That’s why I find myself drawn to say something like character that’s more neuter in nature. I have no idea what other term to use to give a description. I do not think though that I can honestly say this is a man because men do not get pregnant. This gets me to at least thinking that this story could lead to the conclusion that sexuality is more than the genitalia at least and can point out that there is a soulish and immaterial aspect to a man, or a woman for that case.

Yet what are we to think? For instance, is the wife of this character involved in a homosexual relationship really since she is not with a man? Every time I think about the issue, there just seems to be new areas that pop up that make no sense. Then though, I realize that the main problem is not that there are issues that are difficult to resolve.

The problem is that there are issues period.

The problem is that we can so easily use terms like man and woman, but we don’t know what these mean. Normally, we think it refers to the genitalia, but in this case, there is still a full female reproductive system so that we can’t say that applies. Now I believe that our souls do match our bodies in that male souls are in male bodies and female souls are in female bodies. I can tell what sex I am when I take a shower in the morning, but that does not tell me what the sex of masculinity really is.

What kind of culture are we in where we have no idea of masculinity and none of femininity? We speak of wanting mature men and women but is this simply in body? If that is the case, then congratulations! Every boy and girl who has passed through puberty has succeeded. Yet we all know men and women who have the bodies, but are still children.

If these words have no meaning, how does this affect the great debates of today? How will it change the homosexual debate? Is there any meaning to men being with men or women with women in a sexual way? Are we heading towards unisex or some new kind of sexuality? Either way is something that I do not believe we want to go to.

Also, are we not pushing further on the idea of postmodernism? Are our ideas simply ways that we construct to create reality, or do we instead discover reality? If we create reality, then we are essentially postmoderns. Words no longer will have any meaning for there is nothing beyond words to give them a meaning. There is no reference point for timeless truths and ideas.

If we discover reality though, which works just fine in a theistic system, we will find that there is an ideal masculinity men should seek towards and an ideal femininity that women should seek towards. We do not have to know it exhaustively to know that it is there and we know some behaviors are fitting of men and some of women.

My final stance. What has happened I can call by no other word than sin. It is a perversion of God’s creation. The sexes are shown in humanity the way they are meant to be. Men are meant to be men and women are meant to be women. When we start blurring the distinction between the two, we play a dangerous game, and I fear if we go all the way, it is one that we will not be able to hit a reset button for.