I’m actually waiting for male birth control pills so bad
They would give men more agency on reproduction, aside from vasectomy, which is permanent, and condoms, which can rip or be intentionally poked.
Also, they can be used in couples where a woman is hesitant to take pills herself, either out of reproductive concerns (fear that pills would make them permanently sterile), or the overall influence of hormones on the body and the menstrual cycle.
Not really…
On the biological level it is trying to stop millions of sperm-cells to sneak in or prevent one egg-cell from being available. In the numbers game it is less risky and more reliable to make the one cell unavailable then to try to prevent the millions from being viable. Even if you shut 99.99% of them down, you still have more risk than having 99.99% chance of preventing the one cell being available.
I’m afraid that however we want the world to be equal for man and women, the biology itself is unfair and needs a lot more time and research if you want to equalize that.
Or use the tie-off snipsnip solution. It is a bit more permanent, but is pretty reliable in preventing.
That’s why I got the chop. Firing blanks for the last year.
Can’t females develop antibodies that destroy the sperm?
Evolutionary skill issue
I’ve never wanted children and got a vasectomy in my early 30s. I think a lot of men don’t do this because they have this cartoonish belief that it makes them less of a man to shoot blanks or the erroneous belief that they’re family lineage is so god damned important that they’re obligated to continue it.
Alright men here’s what we do:
1: Once you had your kid(s), if you want to have them someday, get snipped. It’s no big deal and you’ll both be A LOT more relaxed.
2: Don’t be a fucking rapist.
Why tf are we talking about the pills thing.
That’s because hormonal birth control for women takes advantage of existing biological processes to prevent pregnancy.
Men don’t have any known biological processes that can be utilized like that, although it’s been consistently studied for decades.
And there is some progress too afaik
There’s been “progress” every few years for decades. Male birth control is basically the medical equivalent of battery technology.
I’ll believe it when a pill makes it to market.
Just like cold fusion
I mean… you know that you can buy batteries today, and they’re much better than the ones you could buy a decade ago?
The point is that on a regular basis there are articles about some amazing new battery breakthrough, but it never leaves the lab.
Genuinely kinda wonder why that keeps happening
Tech illiterate media writing hype articles. Repeats yearly also with flying cars or vacuum tube trains.
Most progress isn’t made in sudden huge jumps, but small incremental improvements.
When pubsci articles promise a breakthrough, remember:
- it takes a long time to bring such research to market (think ~decade)
- most breakthroughs are only applicable to narrow niches or work under specific conditions
- real-life results will usually be worse than lab results
- startups have incentives to make their research appear as important as possible
But instead of waiting for huge breakthroughs, just look at the progress made in commercially available batteries. There have been many improvements in cost & charge density.
I had thought that another part of it was the levels of harm compared to the problem; getting pregnant is incredibly stressful and possibly harmful, up to and including death as a possibility. A medicine that can stop that but has side affects that are less harmful than pregnancy is a lot more palatable. Whereas, for men, the harm caused by pregnancy is zero, so any harm caused by the pill is weighed a lot heavier.
It’s really frustrating how often this gets framed as sexist, when it’s a totally different problem. I get why people would equate them but they are very different biological processes. Producing a baby is a complicated process, and there’s a lot of steps that we can intervene in to prevent it. Producing a million sperm is, maybe surprisingly, less complicated and it’s harder to target a specific thing and produce easily reversible results.
Men have had vasectomy on the table for a long time now. It’s just more serious than most forms of female birth control, in terms of implementation and recovery, still not foolproof, and not as easy to reverse.
Even more frustrating is that sexism definitely does exist and play a role. It’s just more about the human parts of the process, like dealing with medical staff, dealing with insurance, dealing with local, state, and now federal governments that want to bar access to women. Looking at the pill side is misplacing the anger.
I am pretty sure there have been attempts at temporarily blocking sperm so not having to do vasectomy for decades and it was not yet successful, it’s not like this problem is not being worked on because scientists are sexist or something
Vasalgel, I was signed up for updates, but after about 10 years I gave up on that and got a traditional vasectomy.
There are also medical benefits to female hormonal birth control besides not getting pregnant.
We do have to remember that “First do no harm” is not a universal law of ethics or anything, it’s just the way the powers that be think about things.
I think men should consider the potential harms to their partner in their calculus. If a man participates in causing a pregnancy that results in serious complications or death, I would sincerely hope that he would be as devastated by the loss of his partner as he would by suffering the harm himself. If men can’t empathize with their partner enough to consider the risks to her, then he shouldn’t be having sex in the first place.
Iirc there are trials for pills for men right now
So far, there’s no male birth control pill on the market. But there are two types of birth control pills in the works: YCT-529 and dimethandrolone undecanoate. YCT-529 is a hormone-free male birth control pill that aims to stop your body from making sperm by targeting the vitamin A signaling that makes sperm production possible.
Researchers studied the effects of this male birth control pill on animals. They found that in mice, after four weeks of use, it was 99% effective in preventing pregnancies. In primates, sperm counts dropped in just two weeks of use. Researchers also completed a phase 1 human study to test how safe and tolerable the drug is. Now, they’re recruiting participants for a phase 1B/2A study, but more research is needed before this drug can hit the market.
The other male birth control pill, dimethandrolone undecanoate (DMAU), may also be available as an injectable. This one is a hormonal birth control, meaning it impacts your male sex hormones, causing them to temporarily stop your body from making sperm.
In a phase 1 study, participants took DMAU for 28 days. But the participants weren’t relying on DMAU for birth control, so more research is needed. Even though a phase 2 trial is in the works, it’s not complete.
https://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/male-contraceptives
Huh. I thought the trials had been completed, but I guess not. Feels like I remember hearing about them like 4-5+ years ago.
You’ll continue to hear about them every few years for the rest of your life. Its always “just a couple years” away.
Also, that imply i have to plan doing sex weeks before if i have to take the pill
Also, that imply i have to plan doing sex weeks before if i have to take the pill
Same with the female pill. The intended usage is that you take birth control regularly, regardless of how often you actually have sex.
Also we have condoms too so i don’t get what everyone is talking about
Yes, but even when used correctly the chance of pregnancy is still significant.
And many people do not know how to use them correctly.
This is a yes and situation. (You should use condoms regardless of other contraceptives, for sexual health reasons)
I know I should use them but I really don’t like using them.
As long as you both don’t mind, enjoy
Happy father’s day.
Condoms are horrible for birth control.
Nature is sexist, got it.
Basically. There’s no biological advantage for men to shut down sperm production, so evolution never pressured a mechanism to do so.
It’s been attempted multiple times and every time the effects are non-reversible and have horrible side effects.
It’s essentially all the negatives of hardcore anabolic steroid usage without the muscles.
It sucks but the reality of it is guys are basically too simple to disrupt without seriously fucking everything up but woman are more complicated so relatively minor tweaks can achieve the desired effect.
It’s more that there’s not any reason for the body to have developed a mechanism to stop sperm production.
Success in evolution is largely accomplished by reproducing better than those without your mutation. Shutting down sperm production does the opposite.
So basically it’s like jailbreaking an iPhone?
More like trying to root a Samsung phone with Knox (for men)
Weird how it seems like it’s all for women and safe sex but then criticizes a tool women have to checks notes take control of their sex lives and make decisions about getting pregnant.
Non-surgical birth control options for women tend to come with a lot of side effects and a number of risks that don’t always outweigh the benefit. Hormonal birth control can cause tons of problems for the women taking them and some of them are associated with life-threatening side effects like increased risk of clotting leading to DVTs, PEs, and strokes.
And it’s their choice to pick that option and it’s not my place to remove that option because I’m done rando on the Internet who thinks he knows better
I’m absolutely not advocating for removing that option. However, increasing the options for male birth control is necessary for a wide variety of reasons, including allowing male partners to take the burden off of their female partner if she isn’t able to tolerate the side effects or can’t find a birth control method that actually works well for her. It is, in effect, another birth control option for women to be able to defer some responsibility to a male partner in a committed relationship.
I just checked and yeah, your comment didn’t say anything about birth control options for men and only talked about the negative effects of the pill.
So you see why one would think that you were trying to say that the birth control pill is a bad thing and that we should remove it.
Yes, and male birth control doesn’t solve these problems because the only way to be 100% sure is to be on birth control yourself, especially important with huge chunks of the US banning abortions
It’s not a great option for more casual encounters or early in relationships, but for established couples that already have children and don’t want more or are in a committed, trusting relationship, male birth control opens the possibility for the male partner to ease the burden of birth control effort and side effects.
I not sure I can impregnate 9 women in a day but I’m willing to participate in a scientific study to find out if anyone is doing that.
For nine months.
starts doing warmup stretches
If you insist.
The only people thinking a man can impregnate 9 women in a day are other men, coz they lie to each other
How does this unscientific instagram vomit has 500 votes on lemmy? Are we turning into reddit?
Those 9 men could prevent women getting pregnant by cumming in me instead.
based
Honey your desperation is showing.
Not everything is a conspiracy against women
You say that as if women haven’t been treated like property in nearly every society ever since we learned how to farm
This is one of the dumbest wagons to hitch that argument to in particular.
It’s less of a conspiracy and more that it didn’t even occur to society until pretty recently (in historical terms) that reproduction isn’t solely a woman’s responsibility
Well yes. But it also occured to society that stopping 1 egg per month is easier than millions of sperm every day.
This sounds like it would make sense on the surface, but is just not true. You can look up pretty easily that there wasn’t really any research on the viability of male hormonal birth control until half a century after female hormonal birth control became a thing, so it’s not like they made a rational decision based on scientific findings. When they found out how to do it for men, it was roughly comparably complicated, with similar side effects. This too is easy to look up.
It makes sense that the side effects were too much to legalize hormonal male birth control because today’s standards are much higher. Which is a good thing ofc- im glad they don’t allow new medication as easily as they did in the past. Female birth control wouldn’t be legalized if it was invented today, and neither would, for example, aspirin. They get to stay around because they don’t take that stuff back out usually, even if it wouldn’t pass modern standards. That’s a bit of a tangent though.
Many men would LOVE a reliable, non-condom, male-controlled birth control method
Currently for men there are two options — condoms, which are problematic and difficult in several ways, or vasectomy, which is essentially permanent or at least difficult and uncertain to be reversed.
The third method is to take WAY too many TOO HOT baths, but that also has uncertainty and is a real hassle.
As it stands, really for men they either need to use a condom, or trust that your female partner is reliable.
100% agree. The fact that they’re only researching it now has been hurting everyone involved.
Is that why men have been wrapping their dicks in all sorts of weird shit for thousands of years? Animal intestines and bladders to name but a few. Fuck your “in historical terms”, youre talking out of your arse, just like every other sexist who makes hating men part of their personality.
Why is everyone in this thread acting like men are always the ones providing and insisting on using barrier methods? Have yall talked to a woman who’s had casual sex before about what it’s like out there?
Yes, men AND women are both taking responsibility. Just because you can point to few cases of morons, doesnt make “women are sluts who use abortion as birth control” anymore true than the bullshit youre pedalling. But nice try, trying to get out of the “historical terms” bullshit, but shifting the focus to modern day… Doesnt at all make you look desperate to be right, regardless of facts…
Theres bad apples in every bunch. Only a bigot tries to frame that bad apple as the whole bunch.
Ok I’ll ignore the name calling one last time.
I’ll put it super simply, in the hope that you misunderstanding me wasn’t as intentional as it comes across
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barrier methods have always been, and continue to be, a shared responsibility
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all other non-permanent methods have been purely on women until very recently.
Ignore whatever the fuck you like. Youre bigoted cunt, and thats all there is to it. You dont like being called out? Have you tried, not being a perpetually online sexist piece of shit? Fuck you.
Can you please point out the thing I said that you consider sexist, and why? I’m striving not to be, and like to learn where I can.
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I do think that birth control pills having 1 week of sugar pills to force periods rather than 1 week of optional pills to allow skipping periods is pretty fucked up though. The term conspiracy is pretty intense though. But it’s super fucked.
Was curious about the placebos and came across this if you are interested.
https://srh.bmj.com/content/familyplanning/44/3/214.full.pdf
A paper that suggests there is no medical evidence why there should be a break in hormonal pills and that you can simply just start a new pack of pills and continue going on with your life
Yes and your prescription then runs out early, leaving you without birth control for multiple weeks
Sounds like a logistical problem, not a medical problem.
I used the word should.
As in the system right now is flawed and could be better.
What point are you trying to make because I’m not picking up on what you are putting down
Gotcha, I thought you were implying that women on birth control can just skip the placebo pills by starting the next pack each time to avoid having a period altogether. Which is absolutely true, and has been known for decades.
My point was: because of the placebos being factored into the number of days for a prescription, if a woman decides to do that, then she will eventually run out of birth control well before her next prescription is available for refill. Afaik, doctors can’t prescribe an additional pack or 2 of birth control for a specific prescription timeframe, and insurance would likely deny that anyways if they did. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my understanding here in the US.
(Sorry for the slow reply, I’m terrible about checking notifications)
I’m not sure who’s she targeting because I know a lot of guys who would love to have birth control pills.
This is just logically wrong.
If birth control was only made for men, and 90% of men were on birth control, you could end up with far more pregnancies than if it’s for women and 90% of women were on it.
The conclusion is exactly the opposite of the argument.
I don’t understand you logic. Are you saying the remaining 10% of men would impregnate a disproportionate amount of women?
By the logic of the image, yes.
Yes. Because 10% of men is enough to impregnate all the women.
As a guy though, I wish there was male birth control. I do not love that women get to decide if they are going to make me a father or not.
I mean there’s condoms, and there’s not ejaculating inside women. If you don’t want the risk of being a father, those are things you can control.
Not ejaculating inside is risky and not 100% reliable, but it surely gets the odds in your favor indeed
For what it is worth, my son was the result of the mother deciding where I would ejaculate through the use of “in the moment” physical force. So no, it was not really something I could control (though the risk of being there was my doing I understand).
What bejeesus does in the moment physical force mean?
Besides, I believe there have been drug trials for hormonal birth control for men, but they never got approved.
Take with this a mountain of salt though, I need to check my sources. I’ll update later if I can find them again.
Oh I see. In my head, the 10% of men weren’t having sex with 100% of women either way.
I assumed the number of partners they had wouldn’t change.
Yes, that’s exactly the point of the post in the first place, 1 man can impregnate many women, a woman can’t get impregnated (contemporary) by many men
But a woman can deny as many potential pregnancies. The count ignores women who are already pregnant, both as men or women.
A man can cause up to X pregnancies and thus prevent as much, a woman can only cause 1 but can prevent as much as a man. The important point is that this all matters before pregnancy. After, it doesn’t make sense anymore.
Idk why I got downvoted. I just don’t understand, I’m not trying to make a point.
I meant the 10% of men aren’t having more sex to make up for the 90% that are on birth control. They would be having the same amount of sex either way.
Maybe I’m over thinking it.
Dumb. It’s a lot easier to stop one egg a month, than zillions of sperm multiple times a day. Simple as that.
Not only that, there’s an interruptible cycle of egg release. There’s no regular interruptible cycle in men.
Condoms are a lot cheaper than the pill and don’t come with side effects
Many people of any gender find sex much less enjoyable with a condom.
You know what’s a lot less enjoyable than sex with a condom? Everything it prevents
Sure but you can’t argue that Condoms don’t have side effects when the clear and obvious side effect is that sex is less enjoyable.
I find sex less enjoyable with a condom. Im still able to have a good time NOT getting pregnant.
Condoms are horrible for birth control though.
Based on what?
Science and Statistics.
A 15% failure rate counts as “horrible” in my book.
So you picked the local stat that makes your case instead of the 98% effective against unplanned pregnancy when used as directed cited by the World Health Organization and everyone else on the planet. What your NHS statistic proves is that without sex education, condoms are less effective. What does that not apply to?
No, the same study that said “when used as directed,” also pointed out “real world practice,” and that’s what I quoted, because most of us, myself included, live in the real world, so that’s the statistic that is most relevant. The other statistic is going to get people pregnant.
My car’s manufacturer tells me that my car will get 30 miles a gallon. It gets about 24. If I ignore my gas gauge, and calculate my gas milage based on the manufacturer’s claims, I’m going to be sitting on the side of the highway, waiting for AAA. If you rely solely on condoms for birth control, you will get pregnant.
Real world is the only thing that matters.
Well, the pill’s effectiveness also depends on using it correctly. So the point is a bit mood, isn’t it?
So don’t use one. Happy father’s day.
And everybody DESPISES them.
Besides, they aren’t very good at either birth control or preventing disease, and they are the most effective anti-sex invention ever.
And everybody DESPISES them.
That would be wildly incorrect
Not if ya snip snip
Exactly. In the case of men, that has turned out to be the most effective method in blocking a literal flood of sperm.
People claim that men wouldn’t use a daily pill, but guys don’t want their women getting pregnant any more than the women do, at least not until they are ready. If it existed, most guys would gladly take a pill that would keep them from 18 years of child support, just like most women do. In fact, having double contraception would reduce unwanted pregnancies significantly, which would also reduce the abortion rate, which might help bringing down the political temperature a bit (no, it won’t).
It’s not us men resisting male contraception, most of us would love it. It’s just not mechanically as easy to do for men as it is for women. It’s a science problem, not a market segment problem. Make it, and there will be customers for it.
