In september 2018, coinciding with the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Brett kavanaugh, Gabrielle Blair tweeted the following im a mother of six and a mormon. I have a good understanding of arguments surrounding abortion, religion and otherwise. Ive been listening to men grandstand about womens reproductive rights, and im convinced men actually have zero interest in stopping abortion. Heres why. Her 63 tweet thread quickly went viral and formed the basis for ejaculate responsibly, which became an instant New York Times bestseller when it was published last year. Up until that time, gabrielle was best known as the creator of the Award Winning blog design mom, which has been named a website of the year by time and led to her first bestselling book design mom how to live with kids. As an unexpected and vital new voice in the conversation around reprint active rights, we are thrilled to have Gabrielle Blair here tonight to continue the conversation sparked by ejaculate responsibly, which makes the case for shifting the burden of pregnancy prevention from women who are fertile for just 24 hours each month to men who are fertile 24 hours a day every day of their lives. Exploring power dynamics, presenting new research, and unearthing the sexism at the center of Birth Control. The book offers a fresh perspective on preventing unwanted pregnancies and a powerful paradigm shift in the way we think about abortion. At a time when many women feel powerless and voiceless over their reproductive rights. Tonight, Gabrielle Blair will be in conversation with Charlotte Clymer, a Writer Communications Consultant elgie tcu, activist and author of the charlottes web. Thoughts substack newsletter, which was a 2023 nominee for a glad media award for outstanding blog in 2020. Charlotte was named to fortune magazines 40 under 40 list of the most influential people in politics and government. Later in the program, we would love to hear your questions and youll be invited to line up at the standing microphones in either aisle following the event. Signed books will be for sale in the main lobby and will also have a signing line for anyone who purchased a book who would like to have their name added to it. Thank you all again. Both here and at home for being with us tonight. Please join me in giving Gabrielle Blair and Charlotte Clymer a warm welcome to sixth. And i. My goodness, i got to pinch myself. I feel the same. This is the first time were meeting. Weve been internet friends for a long time. Yes. First of all, i just want to say i love sex. And i. I describe this place to friends outside of d. C. As the premier book event venue. Ive been here, i dont know, a few hundred times over the last ten years. And the staff here is amazing. And what a seamless process for having this event. Its been incredible for every little detail. Yes. So, yes, please give it up for sex. And i. Before we began, gabrielle included a fantastic page about inclusive language. And i do encourage you to read it. Its page three, but i want to be clear about something. When we say men and women, were not going to attach 15 different modifiers to the term, men or women. Tonight, this book is not about the definitive, definitive experience of women. Its not about the definitive experience of men. Its specifically about the cultural dynamic that conditions. I would say most men in believing that cis women are primarily responsible for unwanted pregnancies. Were tackling that aspect. So its not about all men, its not about all women. Its specifically about this man who, quite frankly, need to hear this. So were going to move forward saying men and women tonight, were not going to attach a lot of modifiers and conditions to those two words, just for clarity and avoid clunkiness. All right. I love this book. I love this book so, so much. It it feels like when youre reading it, theres no fluff, theres no spin. It is just direct, hardcore logic over and over again. You have 28 different points that you lay out. And i almost imagine you just nailing them to a church door. So a manifesto. Thats right. To let folks know whats going on. But lets start from the beginning of september 18th, 2018. Its the early evening youre about to write what i would describe. And i think what many people would describe as the most influential twitter thread ever written. Hands down. I dont know. For those who are not on twitter, i congratulate you and stay off of it. If you can. There are twitter threads that go viral. There are things that go viral, and then there are things that are part of twitter and really part of the online discourse that just kind of stay up here permanently. This is one of those things this thread over the past four and a half years, i see it go viral at least twice a month. Every single month. Just say i just last night i retweeted the same thread and again it went viral on its own strands. So take us back to that moment. Youre about to write this great twitter thread. What was going through your mind . Well, so at that moment, what was going through my mind was that kavanaugh hearings. But really, i had written down these thoughts months before and had not kind of not known where to put them. Ive been writing online for a long time. I write as design. Mom is my handle everywhere and. What i had written down was such a different tone than what i usually did, which is like house tours and diy projects and and also current events. Ive always written about current events, but very much through a lets explore this. This is a friendly thing. Everyone, you know, share your thoughts, talk about how you discuss this with your children. And then id written this and it was just so different. It was much angrier and anyway, and so i was just sat on it. I didnt know where to put it. And then the cabinet hearings were happening and they were just making me. Reggie it was politician after politician and typically man standing up. And i mean, in this case it was always men standing up and talking about abortion. And it was so clear to me they did not care. They didnt care if there are a million abortions. They didnt care if there is zero. They truly do not care about this. They hadnt thought about it. They hadnt put themselves in the place of women who are having to make these decisions. They just knew that if they say these magic words, they get a vote like this is all that was happening. And i anyway, i was just furious about it. I so i, mike, i think, i think i want to share a twitter thread and it was my very first thread and obviously i did. Its a very bad form to write a 63 tweet thread which it has, which i did not know. Ive heard the critiques believe me, like, oh, its like embarrassing to think about it, but, but actually tough. You can read it like its, its not its not the end of the world to read 63 tweets, but anyway, so shared it and it went viral immediately. And i have had viral things before. This is ive been online a long time, but nothing has been like this thread every day for four and a half years. If i check my notifications and this is not any exaggeration, there will be comments likes retweet is on this thread literally every day for four and a half years. New people discovering it. I mean, at this point im like everyones seen it by now on twitter, right . No new people discover it every day. Its just i havent had anything like it. Im im so taken by. I would say, your ability to condense the language in something that is accessible for everybody. But you also anticipate arguments so. Well, its like you youve written out all the possible responses and youve probably gotten all the possible responses at this point, right . And you know exactly what to say, which is how this result at a New York Times bestselling book that says, what is the main premise of the book that men cause all unwanted pregnancies . Men cause all unwanted pregnancies. There are a lot of different routes we can take right now. And i have about 20,000 questions i want to ask you, but i know i have to focus by now. We understand that i would say most men dont understand womens bodies. Sure. But you point out something that i dont hear often, if ever. Is that honestly, most men dont understand their own bodies. Right. Could you expand on that . Well, not assuming youre talking about fertility and mens fertility. Fertility viagra, all of that. Right. Okay. So so mens fertility, we just dont talk about it whenever were thinking about fertility, were talking about womens fertility. And as was mentioned and introduction, which was lovely by the way. Thank you. Womens eggs are fertile for 12 to 24 hours a month. Thats it. But we have to manage pregnancy prevention every day of the month. Like whether thats taking a pill every day or whether thats dealing with the side effects of an implant or the shot or an iud or whatever it might be, and really what were managing is mens fertility because theyre fertile all the time. Most of the time when i have sex, i cannot get pregnant. Its physically impossible. But every time a man has sex, he can potentially cause a pregnancy. And we just do not ever talk about mens fertility that way. And i dont think men ever think about their fertility that way. Like if we asked them, well, when, you know, are you fertile today . Theyre going, oh, yeah, i guess i am. I mean, yes, you know, like we just dont ever talk about that. Okay. So i thought was really important to talk about that. But then theres all sorts of things that that i learned in these like twitter really was the Research Center for me as over these last years where i refined every argument, figured out better metaphors, you know, kind of saw where people were getting stuck, but also did a ton of research when people would bring up questions and one of the things i learned about was that by that this is a story in the book about that when viagra was being research aged, well, they didnt know it was viagra. There was the drug was being research and there was like they discovered, oh, this works really well for. For helping men get when theyre getting older. But they also discovered it was really good for helping with period pain for for cramps. And it was really effective for that. And i mean, theres a world somewhere where both of those paths could have been pursued and men could have been helped with this drug, and women could have been helpful to this drug. But this panel of decision makers, all men, decided that period cramps, that the pain from periods wasnt pressing issue was it isnt something that needed attention. And so didnt research that at all shut that down and just focus on viagra for erectile dysfunction and im certain the average man using viagra has no idea about that. I dont think most women know about that unless theyve picked up the book. But i just i dont know that men understand how much theyre bodies are prioritized in any kind of medical context. And theres this theres this insulting prevailing view. Im sorry, prevailing view thats insulting toward men that they cant control. Irresponsible ejaculations. Right. And you talked at length about this. I do. I mean, the reality is thats part of our culture, right . Were like, are they they theyre in the heat of the moment. They cant control it. And i dont know. I cant speak to the biological urges of a man. I, i understand that. But i can speak to biological urges. We all have them. We all have to eat. We all have to use the bathroom. Like these are biological urges that cannot ever be denied. You can control biological urges. Weve taught ourselves that we use the bathroom in a bathroom. We dont just use the bathroom on the stage like we. Weve taught our bodies to control these. And certainly you can you can control an ejaculation. And the more i talk to men about this and really say, okay, whats the reality . The more that its really clear that that they can that the messages that they can are just a cultural myth and that, you know, youll see memes about this if youre on twitter, youll see memes where, you know, some will say therell be a conversation between man and woman where she he says, oh, i dont have a condom. So i guess, you know, well have to have sex without a condom. And she goes, great. Ive been really looking forward to being a mother. And then he magically finds a condom like like they have more control than maybe theyre taught to admit it. You remember early in the pandemic when there were stories everywhere of cis men who were refusing to wear masks. And it feels like in retrospect, that shouldnt have been a surprise to any of us, given that they wont even wear a condom for 45 seconds or whatever the hell it, you know, right, right, right. For sure. So this like this is certainly something i think about a lot is these myths about condoms and how harmful they are. I mean, the more i worked on this book, the more pro condom i became. Because not only are they very effective for preventing pregnancy, they are only option for for not passing along stds like this is it. This is there is no hormonal Birth Control that is stopping sexually transmitted infections like that. Thats just not and youve got condoms. Thats it. So we should be so excited about condoms and how easy to use, how accessible they are. All these and how much theyve improved. And that was something i also didnt know. But im again in this research, ive talked to so many men who said, look, if you are willing to learn how to use them, that means trying a lot of different kinds, finding the right brand, the right size, the right lubrication, troubleshooting, basically that they could confidently say sex with a condom, sex without a condom, not enough of a difference to even ever hesitate using a condom and i know if thats that feels like a lot to ask to say, hey, get out there and learn how to use condoms. But women have to learn to use Birth Control, too. Like these are these are this. Its not a big ask and it should be something that we can talk about freely. And if if theres if you have a partner that does like condoms, then like, well, lets go buy a box of every kind and figure out how to make that happen. You know how to make it work for you. I, im certainly not out here wanting people to have crummy sex. That is not my goal at all. But i, i think ejaculating responsibly is how you respect your own body and your partners body like that is just that is not a lot to ask. Absolutely. Absolutely. You talked about specifically the, i would say lack of Awareness Among a lot of men in negotiate in how to use condoms because, in fact, most men dont know how to use condoms. They dont know how to properly use them. Like you have to like, you know, try different ones or, you know, try different lubrication techniques. But i think most men honestly believe that if they if one condom doesnt work, none of the others will work because we lack Sex Education in this country. Do comprehensive site education. So yes, everything is it is exactly right. So there are 11 states that dont require any sex ed at all. Some of the states that do allow sex ed only allow you to talk about abstinence to teach abstinence, which is been proven over and over again, to have no effect on lowering the incidence of unwanted pregnancies. So its just kind of abysmal. I mean, and and beyond are poor sex ed. I mean, i got like one maturation clinic in fifth grade. I think that was my that was my sex. And but beyond that, we have all this other education happening, too. Thats, again, this cultural myth. I grew up in a very conservative religion, conservative town. I didnt know almost anything about sex. Even as a teenager. I was very naive. But somehow i knew that men dont like condoms. Like, its just that pervasive. How. Why would i know that . But if i dont know if its in our music, our movies are where it is. But i certainly understood that. And i and anyway, so our education as a as a huge issue. And the thing is, if if you are talking to someone that is interested in reducing abortions, one of the only proven ways that we have for reducing unwanted pregnancies, which is what leads to these abortions, is is free and accessible Birth Control, like and sex ed, those are sorry. Those are the two things that work. So anyone who is trying to tell you they want to get rid of abortion that really the the only thing to say is. So then whats your plan for sex ed . Whats your plan for free and accessible Birth Control . Because these are the only things that work. And they do work. They work really well. Its not magic. We know how to make this happen, if thats what youre interested in doing. We in the book, i talk about the netherlands. They do agitprop really sex ed at every every grade. And i want to emphasize age appropriate and it works. And they have a very low incidence of unwanted pregnancies and we just need to do this. I mean, were were really prudes in our country like we we dont dare talk about this this stuff. And we just have to talk about we have to talk about it openly. And thats part of why i really love the title. It kind of jars people or they feel like its provocative, but really its just this clinical term. Its this so unsexy, like you can talk, you know, theres just you can talk about ejaculation with your kids and no ones getting turned on. Theyll want, you know, its just so unsexy and its, its its exactly right for that. And because you have to be able to talk about this stuff openly as a parent, but just also in communities, i can talk about condoms all day long, but i dont have authority to tell someone this is this is how to use a condom or this is what it should feel like. They need to hear that from other condom users. You know, they need to hear that from men that can that they trust and we have to be able to talk about this stuff openly. You point out that were prudes, which is correct. But but also there are i would describe then and, you know, im going to be very direct here. I would describe social conservatives as hypocritical prudes, because in sunday morning, like you and i are religious, we go to church on sunday morning, we go to church with people who will be firmly against any premarital sex, any public displays of, you know, sexual or whatever. And then theyll go watch an nfl game where there are cheerleaders. So i fully support do whatever they want. But, you know, theyre just, you know, fully expressing their sexuality. They have no problem with that at all. None whatsoever. Because if its to appeal to primarily cis men, no one should care about it. Right . Well, its the same conversations were having about this this total moral panic about kids transition to early, but no issues with 5000 breast in augmentations for teenage teen