Shooting blanks or a loaded gun?

Anonymous
asks:
I had this girlfriend and me and her always had unprotected sex and I was wondering why didn't I get her pregnant if I always ejaculated in her? This was like a 5 month thing that I had sex with her everyday and always ejaculated do you think that when I am ejaculating I'm shooting blanks cause I'm like really thinking about it. I'm 15 years old.
Heather Corinna replies:

Know what is really NOT a good way to find out if you're able to be a Dad at 15?

To wind up being a Dad at 15. You seriously do NOT want to be that guy.

Heck, even if you have a partner who terminates a pregnancy you caused, that's an awful lot to put her through for nothing.

It's very unusual for a guy your age to be infertile, particularly if you don't have any health conditions known to you which can cause infertility. What's much more likely is that the two of you just got incredibly lucky.

(Of course, if we're going to talk straight, you always also have to consider that it's possible for a female partner who became pregnant because of you not to discuss it with you if that did happen. Women aren't obliged to notify male partners if and when they become pregnant, and with male partners who haven't been able to be even responsible enough to help with birth control, it's more likely you'd be one of the ones a woman wouldn't tell. After all, if you can't handle dealing with a condom, it's not a stretch to figure you wouldn't be able to handle dealing with a pregnancy or a kid.)

Thing is, luck runs out. Young people tend to be incredibly fertile, and in a year of unprotected sex, over 80% (some sources say it's closer to 90%) of young women will become pregnant. Women can't become pregnant on every single day of their cycles, but when you keep up with unprotected sex, the chances of having sex during one of the times a woman is very fertile are pretty darn high.

Me? I'd be less worried about my own fertility than I'd be worried about the risks I was putting myself and a partner at needlessly: risks of sexually transmitted infections, risks of pregnancy, but also the risk of someone just thinking I was an irresponsible creep who didn't care a whole lot about myself or them.

A lot of young women have a really tough time not bowing under pressures from male partners, and are especially challenged at saying no and setting limits when their partners aren't helping them in that. It's an incredibly easy thing to do to get some condoms, keep them around, and just be a big boy and put one on before any genital sex without having to have a female partner ask you to do so. You don't need her invitation after all: if you know you don't want to be a Dad, then you know you need to do what you can to prevent that from happening. Too, since you're the one who needs to put the thing on anyway, while your female partners should support you in that, help split the costs of condoms, and do some reminding sometimes if you just space out now and then, ultimately, this is one of those balls -- as it were -- that's in your court, buddy.

I'm presuming, of course, that you aren't prepared to be a father right now and were not trying to get her pregnant. I'm aware that is an assumption on my part, but I think it's a sound one since very few 15-year-olds in the world have the kind of lifestyle, income and resources to support a kid, or are really interested in devoting the next 20 years of their lives to parenting. If, by some miracle, you two really ARE fully prepared to parent and interested in parenting, and were expressly trying to become pregnant, by all means, you can have a talk with your doctor about your fertility status. But unless you're both independently wealthy and living on your own, I'd have a talk with your parents and your career counselor first.

But if you're in the space in your life where most guys your age are, then right now, your primary concern should be with NOT creating a pregnancy, and doing what you can to reduce the risk of that happening, rather than wondering if you're fertile or not. You can worry about that at whatever point you're earnestly ready, willing and able to become someone's father. Until that time, it's pretty irrelevant.

What I'd suggest is putting this energy into figuring out if you're up to dealing with the responsibilities sex entails right now, which include doing your part when it comes to things like birth control and safer sex. If you feel like you are, then it's time to stop gambling with your futures, and that really is as easy as a tiny slip of latex. If you're not, that's okay: plenty of people aren't ready to deal with all of this yet at your age, but then the standup thing to do is to acknowledge that, and step off until you really are.

Here's some extra reading for you on all this:

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