Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC!

Ejaculate Responsibly has some interesting arguments about how we can refocus the way we think about abortion and birth control. Right now, (cis) women are held responsible for birth control, unwanted pregnancies and abortions. This book argues that men should not be off the hook so easily. The unwanted pregnancies could have been prevented if they ejaculated more responsibly, for example, by using a condom or having a vasectomy.

The short book is refreshing and sometimes even radical in its arguments. The author explains them clearly. Even if you might not agree with all the arguments, they are a good thought experiment at the very least about how we can refocus the way we think about who is responsible for unwanted pregnancies.

I would recommend this book to everyone, especially those in heterosexual relationships.

"Which brings us to a really disturbing conclusion. When men choose to have condom-less sex, they are putting a woman's body, health, social status, job, economic status, relationships, and even her life, at risk in order to experience a few minutes of slightly more pleasure."

This is a very important, short and to the point, well researched book by Gabrielle Blair. Having read her twitter and blog post about the topic, the ideas were not new. As a feminist, the ideas were not new but put in a different perspective and light, and I do think that many people (especially conservative men) need to read this book. Gabrielle Blair makes 28 short, concise arguments on why men should be the focus of preventing unwanted pregnancies. And for me, there's no argument that she's completely and absolutely right in every one of her arguments. It's really a pity how the patriarchy has been able to keep the focus on women and women only. Please, everyone, regardless of your stance on abortion, read this book. Let's talk after.

For those of you who haven’t read her tweet thread that went viral and lead to the publication of this book: https://twitter.com/designmom/status/1040363431893725184

That’s essentially the book, just the book is more organized and longer. The arguments are absolutely fire, and she’s got a freaking good point, which is that nothing screams PATRIARCHY quite so loud as the fact that the conversation surrounding unwanted pregnancies is 100% focused on women despite the fact that every pregnancy is caused by a man, who faces no consequences for his actions. She’s brilliant and this book is well researched, and a quick read. Politicians need this. Might mail them all a copy.

Side note: she’s a Mormon. Mormons, as most conservative religions are, are generally anti-abortion. Gabrielle presents her argument in such a way that she isn’t saying pro-life or pro-choice anything. The book is not about abortion. It is about putting responsibility on men and demanding they have consequences for their actions the same way women do. So if you self-identify as pro-life and are put off by this book, just know that Gabrielle is trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies, which would do the work itself to reduce (or eliminate!) the need for abortions no matter what side of the abortion debate you’re on. This really gave me hope that there’s something pro-choice and pro-life people can agree on. (End scene.)

My complaints:
1. It’s SUPER well researched, but there’s no footnotes. At the end of the book, she gives you a link to find all her sources. Well that’s useless to me because I’m now done with the book and wanted them while I was reading.
2. Even though Gabrielle makes her argument as a heterosexual cis gender person FOR heterosexual cisgender people, it still feels icky and extremely dismissive to me when your only mention of the existence of transgender people is to say that you are not going to be addressing them. Like I said, she acknowledges this before the book even starts, but it still just didn’t feel like enough to me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy, even though it came as a PDF only and was hella annoying to read.

I really enjoyed this book- great title! The 28 points the author makes are very interesting and put the abortion debate on its head. She wrote in a very convincing manner.

Wow. I'd read Gabrielle Blair's arguments for "men causing 100% of unwanted pregnancies" before, but it was amazing to see them expanded into book form. Her 28 points are incredibly well-researched and seem completely reasonable, yet they turn common understanding of sex, pregnancy, and abortion completely on its head. On the one hand, it's refreshing to hear someone reasoning for men to take more responsibility in preventing unwanted pregnancies and dealing with the consequences, but on the other hand, I found myself feeling livid that our patriarchal society leads us to think that they don't need to. Though I know I'll catch some backlash for doing so, I'll be sharing Blair's points (and this book, since I preordered a copy as well!) to anyone who will listen. I really hope that arguments like these become more normalized, especially if people start talking about them more.

I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are my own.

I want to start by saying I was very excited to read this book.
I have been following Gabrielle Blair for years and her Twitter threads have been an amazing source of well structured, simple and clear arguments. This book is the same.
One argument at a time, she makes the case with precision and undeniable facts that all unwanted pregnancies are the result of an irresponsible ejaculation, and explores accurately the heavy burden put on people with uteruses on preventing pregnancies, regardless of their sexual pleasure, the pain caused by birth control methods, the cost of the entire procedures, and the very very limited time they actually are able to become pregnant.

I would say this is a must read for everyone, if it wasn't for the inacceptable trans erasure in the choice of vocabulary and phrasing. It is 2022, and everyone can do better than this. It would have been really easy and simple to NOT correlate penises with men and vaginas with women, especially in this climate of transphobia. Especially since trans people who get pregnant are particularly vulnerable in the system Blair is describing.

Is this book a valuable collection of facts about pregnancies, birth control, ejaculation, orgasms and inequality all caused by the misogyny and sexism deeply rooted in history? Yes.
Would I pay money to read this would and would I recommend others do? No.



Thank you NetGalley and Workman Publishing Company for the opportunity to read this ARC.

In Ejaculate Responsibly, Gabrielle Blair (aka @DesignMom) presents a series of short, compelling arguments reframing the conversation about unwanted pregnancies and abortion and places the responsibility where it belongs: on men.

Fact: All unplanned pregnancies (and therefore all elective abortions) are the result of sperm ending up in a vagina. Hard stop.

It doesn’t matter how many times or with how many people a woman has sex. If there is no sperm left behind, by a man, there will be no pregnancy.

Despite being a basic tenet of mammalian reproduction, thinking about pregnancy through this lens will likely be written off as “too feminist” by the people who need to read this book the most, but if you are able to scrape off the layers of ingrained misogynistic garbage we’ve been indoctrinated with our entire lives, Blair’s reasoning becomes crystal clear.

How about this: Instead of blaming women for being irresponsible sluts who get themselves pregnant*, let’s blame men for being irresponsible ejaculators. In short: men need to take responsibility for where they put (or ideally do NOT put) their sperm if they do not wish to take the risk of impregnating their female partner(s).

So, if you are a man who has a body with a sperm delivery system and you have sex with women who have the potential to release an egg every month, and you truly wish for abortions to not be necessary, and you and your potential partner(s) are not in the market for a baby, get a vasectomy. It’s reversible. But if that’s “too extreme” then wear a condom Every. Single. Time. You. Have. Sex. No arguments. No complaining. Keep your ejaculations out of vaginas and no one will ever become unwillingly pregnant again. Done and done.

Blair makes her points clearly and succinctly, with humor and grace, which makes for a quick, engaging read.

This book should be required reading for all humans. I loved it so much.

This is an excellent expansion of the author’s viral Twitter thread from a few years ago. It makes thorough arguments, is easy to comprehend, and covers all the talking points. A sex ed book we need. Recommended for all!

This is a great book about why men need to take more responsibility over their ejaculation. In a world where women's reproductive rights are often put second, or are nonexistent, this book makes 28 great points about why men should bear the burden of preventing pregnancies. I really enjoyed this and a lot of the points the author made!

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.