NO MORE KEN – by Jack Holmes.

In case you hadn’t heard in a few decades the earth is going to be ruled and populated entirely by the female race. Men will be the proles if anything; something to be detested and made to pay for all of their mistakes in life.

Not paying the child support, never being excited enough about going to see the in-laws, that kind of thing. Well maybe that’s not completely accurate but I have to admit that’s what came to mind when I was told to write this feature.
“Soon women are going to be able to have babies completely without men,” the editors said. “We want you to write a feature from a male’s perspective about what this means.”

Once I had picked my quivering self from the floor and wiped the cold sweat from my brow I agreed to do it. “Babies without men?” I thought. “How completely preposterous!” So, I followed the internet links they had sent me and sure enough women will be able to have babies without men. It appears that men, such as myself, have got ten years max to live it up before we’re pretty much a race of completely useless entities – or our sex organs at least.

THE PROCEDURE . . .
So, I’m sure you’re all wondering how the hell this is possible; how women are able to have babies on their own. Well have a professor of the University of Newcastle on Tyne to thank for that. Apparently, professor Karim and his team have found a way to turn bone marrow into sperm. So far they have managed to make undeveloped sperm cells (spermatagonia) from the bone marrow of a male, but they believe they can do the same with female bone marrow. But, and this is a big ‘but’ and also quite a scary ‘but’, any children produced from a female/ female sperm egg combination can only be female. So basically, if this catches on, we men are goners.

Still, spermatagonial sperm cells are not going to be wiping out the male population on their own. First they need to be grown into big, strong, mature sperm and this says Nayernia, “could take up to five years.” Then once their old enough to face the big world, they are tested for their ability to penetrate the shell of a little hamster’s egg.
Despite their being something very wrong about the coupling of human sperm and a hamster egg, if all goes to plan Professor Nayernia could be paving the way to a very different tomorrow.

When this report was released, people, quite rightly, immediately thought of the possibilities for lesbian women; they would at last be able to have their very own children with no third party involved. This is a bonus for both parents and children because when it’s born the parents will now that the child is completely theirs.
It’s good for the child because once it’s grown up there won’t be any of that tracking down your lost father nonsense.

So, sounds pretty good huh? To some women, the eradication of men from life on earth probably doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. No more useless other halves slumped in-front of the football as they single-handedly forget your birthday and wee all over the toilet seat.

ETHICAL PROBLEMS
There are some pretty big hurdles that Nayernia and friends are going to have to jump too, some of them religious, some ethical and some legal.

The church is against the concept of same – sex parents (no surprises there then) saying that children need male and female role models in their lives. In an interview with the daily mail, Mike judge of the ‘Christian Institute faith group’ said that the project flies in the face of research showing that children do best when raised a married mixed-sex couple. In a slightly higher profile case, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said that lesbians using IVF were “profoundly wrong” and “undermined the place of a father in a child’s life.” Unfortunately for Mr. Judge and the Cardinal, after a day sifting through scientific journals, essays and reports on same sex parents, I could only find information saying that children raised in a same sex parent households didn’t turn out any differently from children in conventional entities.

So that’s the Christians dealt with, now for the ethical constraints. Firstly, apart from the fact that any child conceived of female sperm and egg can only be female, when the same thing was done with mice , the baby mice that came about as a result of the experiment had severe health problems. Now even the fundamentalist sect of pro life activists out there are going to look the other way whilst there’s a 100% chance of the baby having severe health problems. And doesn’t that take the joy out of being a parent knowing your child will be unhealthy and, in a way, knowing what sex it’s going to be? Now, I’m not a parent but I think that some of the excitement of becoming one would be not knowing. Not knowing if it’s a girl or a boy. Not knowing if it’ll be a blonde or a brunette. Not knowing what they’ll become when they grow up.

Finally there’s the small thing of completely doing away with sex. Now surely this can be purely a male qualm as I’m sure I’m not the only one in bed who had a good time when it happens. I mean, what’s sexy about bone marrow? It makes me wonder whether the lab coats behind this project are doing it simply to get out of that embarrassing first shag. Yes, their brainy genes will still be passed on to a son or a daughter. But only time can tell whether it will work, if people would actually do it and whether men and women in high places will allow people to do it. Still, all these things permitting, planet Earth could be a bloke free zone within a few decades.

I like to think that you’d miss us after a while, even if it was just a little bit. Things like our lovable, “I-didn’t-really-mean-it” slightly sexist remarks about being blonde and our sharing of “silly things the other half said this weekend.”
My favourite ever has to be “What’s Shakespeare’s second name again?” It’s the simple things that show us that the world wouldn’t be the same without men. You wouldn’t be able to at our failed attempts to cook microwaveable curry, or our strange reluctance to say “I love you” when were with the lads because it make us feel “gay.”
See? A world without men would be unbearable yes?

Hopefully I’m not the only one who secretly hopes this fad won’t catch on. I’m all for the lesbian women of the world being able to have their own children without men interfering. I think that anyone planning to under go this treatment, when it becomes possible, should think long and hard about it. Just thinking about it gives me visions of toothless, grinning hillbillies saying things like, “Ma Mom’s my dad.” Just think about the child.

Maybe in a few years time when things like that are the norm, when it’s quite alright to see genetically modified people walking down the street. Maybe then it will be completely and utterly expectable. But not just yet, if men are to be eradicated then you can just for now, make use of us for all our reproductive needs, lesbian or not.

VAJAZZLED by Sophie Flynn.

I was sitting at my boyfriend’s house on a regular Sunday afternoon when his niece came up to me looking upset. We’ve all seen it, that little girl grimace and quivering lip. I half heartedly expected her to come out with a phrase like, “Uncle Piers was mean to me, he hit me,” or “ I dropped my bracelet down a drain,” or the all time favourite among kids aged seven to eleven, “I fell off my bike and cut my knee…wahhhhhhh.” No … This time I was horrified by the words that materialized, she drew back a breath and mumbled, “I’m too fat.” I sat there for a moment wondering what to say, before asking her who told her that? I wanted to hunt them down, put them in a choker hold and tomb stone them off a cliff.
It got me thinking, where did all this madness start?! Women’s glossy magazines, MTV, The Pussy Cat Dolls, Disney channel? Who’s to blame for this nonsense?

What about ‘The Only Way is Essex,’ the popular TV show was in the spotlight recently when the press reported the selling of ‘vajazzle’ to children. What is ‘vajazzle?’ Well it's only jewellery, for your genitalia. Has the world gone absolutely mad? Since when did I need jewellery on my fanny and as for children… lets NOT go there.

Could we blame ‘Hannah Montana?’ A generation of children have watched her grow up, living her dream on screen with pink hair and a pop career? Maybe Montana’s been vajazzled, who knows. How about Disney? Are they turning kids into sex symbols far too early? Only recently a tanning parlour in Essex was reported to be spray tanning children as young as two. Pop culture makes it impossible to avoid the likes of body image and the music industry is as sexed up as ever. Are we sexualizing our kids with song lyrics and sexy clothing?
There’s only one way to get inside the head of a seven year old. That’s right. I’m going to become one. Unfortunately I haven’t got a time machine. But I have got the medium to completely immerse myself in every single one of the above. ‘The Pussy Cat Dolls’, ‘Hannah Montana,’ women’s lifestyle magazines and ‘The only way is Essex.’ Whether I come out the other side alive is yet to be known, hopefully not vajazzled.

TBC.

Take a walk in my shoes - by Jordana Thomas.

If inanimate items could be your friends, my shoes would be the best. I first got my only-edition-brown-and-pink converse from America in the spring of 2005. I wasn't too sure about them when I first tried them 0n, but they were just so comfortable. At the time I was working in central London and somehow I got away with wearing them under my smart trousers. So incidentally these shoes have seen everything I have for the last three years.

I was good to them for months, until I got some news at work. My boyfriend called me to confess he had cheated on me. So I collected myself from the desk and calmly walked to the bathroom. I kicked a toilet so hard I broke two of my littlest toes, then took my shoes off to look at my feet and cried all over them. They've held me as my world crumbled, they've been on at many numerous hospital appointments, they've seen loved ones suffer, they peek out of my bag at funerals.

I've also had the best memories of my life in these shoes. Meeting my best friend and all our adventures, travelling, starting university, first kisses, even clubbing, my shoes have been there. These aren't just shoes they are part of me, they are adorned with signatures of my loved ones and bored doodles. Every hole tells a story.
I've now bought new converse, but can't bring myself to wear them. We've changed so much yet we've both stayed the same. Shoes though you now damage my feet and don't stop the cold, I might have to stop wearing you but I can never get rid of you.