Male Pill

As talk resurfaces of a male birth control pill, Dana Goldstein asks " men out there: Would you take birth control pills if you knew they were safe and their effects were reversible? Would you trust yourself to remember to take them at the very same time every day?"

I say sure, why not, though it seems to me that most women are skeptical of the idea of offloading the responsibility to someone else, since a man can't promise to become pregnant if he screws up. But for me (and probably for most people) it would all come down to whether or not there are some terrible pill-related side effects.

Comments

Hell, yes, and I wish such a pill had been available when I was young enough to matter. I'm not that many years away from a mid-life crisis, so maybe I'll put some in the glove box of the sports car I don't own yet.

Posted by Will Allen | April 14, 2008 5:42 PM

Also don't forget costs. Is this something that will be covered by your insurer? Some birth control is more expensive than others. For example, my lady was able to get an IUD for 10 dollars with our old insurance. That is 5 years of the most effective birth control available for 10 dollars...well you do the math. Pills are a lot less attractive economically speaking. Plus you have to remember to take them.

Posted by freddiemac | April 14, 2008 5:43 PM

I was fixed and am thrilled that I don't have to worry. I really don't know if the women trust me or not but none has ever complained or refused.

Posted by neil smith | April 14, 2008 5:45 PM

To throw this question back to the women, would you be more likely to sleep with a guy if he took the pill? How much more? Like does Matt have a shot with some Brazilian supermodel if he takes the pill?

Posted by citizen (world) | April 14, 2008 5:45 PM

Strikes me similar to the argument between the pig and the chicken when the topic of ham and eggs comes up.

The chicken is involved; the pig is committed. In this case, I'd say the women are the committed ones, for the obvious reason.

Men and women will do the wrong thing on occasion, for a variety of reasons. In matters of birth control, I've always liked President Reagan's approach to arms control with the Soviets: Trust, but Verify.

Sound advice for all.

Posted by John Rich | April 14, 2008 5:46 PM

I would prefer something like the patch or the shot to the pill. I'm a horrible pill-taker. I'm on a medication right now, and I seldom go a whole week without missing a dose. I don't know how women do it.

Posted by Greg | April 14, 2008 5:47 PM

The problem with the male pill is that this is a much bigger change in the man's body chemistry than the Pill is to a woman's. There are times in a woman's life when she does not ovulate (when pregnant or lactating), and the Pill makes use of this natural fact by counterfeiting the body's natural cycle. On the contrary, there is no time in a man's life when he is not producing sperm. For this reason, I would be very wary of the male pill. It makes me feel a bit queasy, to be honest.

Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 5:48 PM

On second thoughts: 'counterfeiting' isn't intended to be a criticism, more of a neutral description of what's going on. I am a supporter of the Pill and other modes of chemical contraception. The male pill, for the reason stated above, I'm much more concerned about.

Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 5:52 PM

As a married man I can easily see taking this.

However, I wouldn't suggest any unmarried woman believing a guy who claims "trust me, I'm on the pill."

Posted by Mark | April 14, 2008 5:52 PM

I'm not sure I would trust myself to take it reliably, but there are also plenty of women who have trouble remembering to take the pill reliably. One of the advantages to the availability of the male pill would be that a given couple could theoretically assign the responsibility to the partner who has the greatest ability to reliably take pills on a schedule. Alternatively, both partners could take the pill if they wanted to have a safety net in place.

What I would be more worried about is the fact that male to female transmission of STDs is higher than female to male transmission and men tend to be the ones more opposed to condom use. I can imagine a scenario in which promiscuos males take the pill in order to protect themselves from accidental fatherhood and to have an argument against the need for a condom, but in doing so create a larger increase in the risk of STDs among the female population than among the male population. That's not an argument against making the male pill available, just a possible risk to be managed.

Posted by Galen | April 14, 2008 5:53 PM

Just get a damned vasectomy and be done with it. Chicks dig it. They know you can't get them pregnant and have no plans on screwing up either of your lives producing a brood of damned curtain climbers. If she is turned off by it you're better off kicking her to the curb anyway. You'll just end up divorcing her fat ass when the brats are halfway to college and be saddled with support and tuition bleeding you dry until the barrel of a gun looks inviting to your teeth. Sperm are bad! Bad, bad sperm! Snip, snip, party party. Nihilistic hedonism reigns supreme over diapers and babysitters (yeah, too bad this route puts a kink in doing the babysitter, sorry guys). Call the doc now and just get it done.

Posted by steve duncan | April 14, 2008 5:55 PM

Of course I'd use it. And given that there's hopefully a level of trust already by the time it's relevant, and that women don't like condoms any more than men, I imagine it would be accepted as the primary birth control in many situations.

Realistically, tho, I imagine the main use would be in addition to other forms of birth control.

(And why am I not surprised that Hector is the one worrying about his precious bodily fluids?)

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 14, 2008 5:56 PM

Wasn't this an episode of Blossom once?

I think Six was pro-man pill and Blossom against.

Posted by Dave | April 14, 2008 5:57 PM

Mr. Duncan,

What you call 'damned curtain climbers', I call little bundles of joy.

In my experience, women tend to prefer men who love children and enjoy holding them in their hands and making them laugh, not those who refer to them as 'brats' and 'curtain climbers'.

Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 6:00 PM

Some birth control is more expensive than others. For example, my lady was able to get an IUD for 10 dollars with our old insurance.

Yes, but paying for a pregnancy, delivery, and follow up care of a child until age 18 is a LOT more expensive. Many insurance companies understand that birth control is cheaper in the long run.

Posted by LFC | April 14, 2008 6:00 PM

Just get a damned vasectomy and be done with it.

Somehow I doubt this is an issue for you, Steve...

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 14, 2008 6:01 PM

It's rapidly becoming obvious that there aren't any women who read this blog. A few more comment threads like this and Matt will be in a good position to get his blog sponsored by Budweiser and "Just for Men" hair products.

Posted by Jorge | April 14, 2008 6:04 PM

I don't see how a male pill will be any more successful than the female condom, unless the male pill is somehow easier to take or more effective. (I'd take it, if I were in a committed relationship and the side effects were few, but I don't think people will en masse switch from one effective solution to a less proven solution without some clear benefit.)

Posted by brad | April 14, 2008 6:06 PM

"In my experience, women tend to prefer men who love children and enjoy holding them in their hands and making them laugh, not those who refer to them as 'brats' and 'curtain climbers'. "
Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 6:00 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Sure Hector, we all know those women. They bite Tootsie-Pops before they've licked to the center because they just want to be done with it. After all, there's laundry to do. Have at it.

Posted by steve duncan | April 14, 2008 6:08 PM

I would absolutely take the male pill. Just because on average there may be more irresponsible men than there are irresponsible women doesn't mean there aren't still enough of the later in the dating pool that it's always better to be safe.

Posted by Will Hutchinson | April 14, 2008 6:14 PM

Would you take birth control pills if you knew they were safe and their effects were reversible?

If I could handle this pill, yes. However, many of these pills are hormonally based -- I got 'roid rage from taking frickin' prednisone. I highly doubt that I'd be able to handle a testosterone derivative on a regular basis -- if these hormones are so safe, why the fuss about anabolic steroids (and what'll the male pill due to the ability to test for steroid use?)?

Would you trust yourself to remember to take them at the very same time every day?

No. I could barely remember to take my twice daily allergy medicine when not taking it had the rather marked negative re-enforcement of angioedema. How am I gonna remember to take b/c?

*

BTW -- Hector has a good point. Contrary to the "if messing with body chemistry is good enough for wimens, you're a sexist if you don't believe that it's good enough for mens" rhetoric you see on some feminist blogs, there is a big difference between a hormone-based female pill (which merely reproduces -- pun not intended -- what happens frequently in a woman's body without the pill) and a hormone-based male pill (which does not).

That being said, spermatogenesis is a pretty complicated process (as well as a continuous one), and it seems to me (but what do I know -- I'm a biochemist, so I only understand living things if they are ground up and put in a test tube) that it should be relatively easy to develop a non-hormonal drug that mucks up a later stage of spermatogenesis, without affecting future sperm production. It seems to me that the focus on hormonally based male pills ('cause that's what works in the wimens) is a bit stupid.

Posted by DAS | April 14, 2008 6:18 PM

Of course Shawn Kemp could do the "If only these pills were around when I was starting out" commercial. Shawn actually had a vasectomey at the age of 21. His sperm revolted and built replacement vasa deferentia when he was sleeping. The rest is history. Many curtains in peril.

Posted by steve duncan | April 14, 2008 6:27 PM

I'd take it when my girlfriend or wife wanted a child and I did not (yet)

Posted by fakeo nameo | April 14, 2008 6:30 PM

I think this is an abomination, and it will turn out that if you take this, your penis will fall off.

I am very much against it. Connie Chung too.

Posted by Maury Povich | April 14, 2008 7:33 PM

I like the idea of sharing responsibility for birth control with my partner. I wouldn't trust most men with it but then again, I wouldn't sleep with most men so there you go, I've already pre-selected for men that I would entrust my health to.

Posted by Susy | April 14, 2008 7:36 PM

I like the idea of sharing responsibility for birth control with my partner. I wouldn't trust most men with it but then again, I wouldn't sleep with most men so there you go, I've already pre-selected for men that I would entrust my health to.

Posted by Susy | April 14, 2008 7:37 PM

A predictable market failure. The women won't and shouldn't trust it. The men will rightly find that their libido disappears and their precious bodily fluids don't ejaculate like they (imagine) they should.

Consider the case for vasectomy: guaranteed to work, inexpensive and sometimes reversible (rarely). Why aren't the men lining up for it?

Let's face it, men dream of being Donald Trump rich (when that condition sometimes occurs for Trump), with lots of young women hanging off their arms and wanting to make babies with your sperm. They're all dreaming of being grandad and dad all in one when they are seventy.

Unless the failure to take the pills every day on time turns your penis skin green, no one will trust it and use it. Then the fear of being the green weenie might shame them into compliance.

Posted by JimPortlandOR | April 14, 2008 7:56 PM

Hormone manipulation

The male birth control pill won't be happening any time soon, and may never get here. That's because these pills all rely on supressing the testosterone signal that encourages sperm production. Valid concerns for the potential resulting side effects aside, suppressing testosterone production, or even just messing (hopefully in a selective manner) with tissue response to testosterone, tends to get at guys where they live.

Yes, female BCPs rely on hormone manipulation as well, and, yes, quite apart from concern over physical side effects, women tend to have as much invested in the perceived wider implications of fertility as men do in what is, after all, the technical meaning of "virility. And yes, it is not unreasonable to see sexism in the fact that 60 years ago, when we were developing BCPs, we went ahead with messing with women's hormones, and not men's. But whatever the reason for that questionable choice, in the 60 years since that time, the rules on getting new treatments approved have tightened up considerably, and it would predictably take awhile to get a BCP that relies on male hormone manipulation through the approval process. If fenale BCPs were an innovation right now, they too would face a long approval process.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | April 14, 2008 7:59 PM

Hmm... I do see the concerns about messing with hormones. A member of my family got breast cancer probably cause by HRT (she's pretty much okay now, but it's not something I'd like to repeat). I guess I'd probably wait a while to see about the long term effects.

Now, if you could make a male pill based on somehow finding some type of enzyme that's involved in meiosis and pretty much nothing else, then design an inhibitor for it, derailing the process and leading to the creation of dummy sperm with missing or garbled chromosomes, that would be pretty neat. I don't really know any biology though and don't know if any such enzymes (critical for meiosis, but not also critical for, say, brain function) exist, or would be inhibited readily, or much of anything about anything really. I think I might incorporate it into my sci-fi story, though.

Posted by Julian Elson | April 14, 2008 8:15 PM

Even if a pill had been available 10 years ago, I think I still would have opted to have the doc jab a knife into the nads and been done.

A pill couldn't replace the memories from the vasectomy: the doctor in black lace gown (dinner party after); my wife just five feet away, watching with rapt attention; gut-splitting laughter heading out of the office as we imagined how many men strode in like they ruled the world, and lurched out like victims of scurvy.

Posted by cmholm | April 14, 2008 8:49 PM

I'm thinking and hoping most women are too smart for that.

Posted by aleks | April 14, 2008 8:58 PM

I can't see real men taking that shit. Sounds like something gays would do.

Posted by strife folly | April 14, 2008 9:03 PM

Yeah, men are too stupid to take these pills everyday. Menz are real stupid, and then they will stupidly make it all about the menz.

No way can mens figure out likes women how to take a pill everyday. Mens are too stupid.

Mens like to pay child support too, which is one reason why they are too stupid to take the one pill a day that would guarantee they don't have to pay child support.

they'll brush their teeth, shower, put deodorant on, and maybe take their paxils/zolofts/prozacs but no way will tehy be able to remember to take their penis plug pill. cause their stoopid.

did I say men were stupid? yeah, menz are teh worst.

oh, also want to say that barack was not being elitist in the slightest.

Posted by wrongo | April 14, 2008 9:07 PM

I applied for a position in a drug discovery organization to work on non-hormonal male contraception. Thankfully, I got a job in another company working on cancer. Whew.

(There's always the irrational thought: what if it works too well?)

Posted by Klug | April 14, 2008 9:08 PM

And yes, it is not unreasonable to see sexism in the fact that 60 years ago, when we were developing BCPs, we went ahead with messing with women's hormones, and not men's.

yeah, we can see now that the ph.ds and mds were chicken shit misogynists. and that includes the thousands of women phds and mds too that worked on these drugs. because they were chicken shit misogynists to think that stopping one egg per month would be a much easier solution than stopping millions of sperm a month.

chicken shit misogynists. scientists. most hate women, I see that all the time at sites like echidnes.

Posted by wrongo | April 14, 2008 9:11 PM

"oh, also want to say that barack was not being elitist in the slightest."

Well, bitterness do make some of those rednecks cling on their sperm.

Posted by strife folly | April 14, 2008 9:14 PM

*does*

Posted by strife folly | April 14, 2008 9:24 PM

To the commenters:

I love when men tell me that my birth control hormones don't make a big impact on my body because something very traumatic (pregnancy) is supposed to happen and also tends to cause these changes. I wonder if pregnancy will also make me irritable and dry and fat and prone to infections you don't want to know about. I know it'll make my tits grow uncontrollably. That hasn't stopped since I went on the bc.

Real cute.

If they market it, it will be such a thing that does not strongly impact your life. Stop worrying about whether your dick is going to fall off or you're going to become a "pansy."

It's not about who is most affected, it's about having safe treatment available to everyone who wishes to control their fertility.

Now. For the poster. I just found your blog through a friend. It seems interesting. Thanks for being there to read. I'm a double method user and always have been. I'm currently using depo because it treats some more serious hormone problems I have suffered as well; and we always use condoms. I would jump and cheer if there was some form of internal sperm control for men. My husband would, too. We've discussed it and vigilantly await the day. It would give us the chance to still be doubly protected and not have to use condoms. Or maybe I'd get the chance to be a normal human being again. Either way, it would give rational people the chance to have another option.

Posted by brennakimi | April 14, 2008 9:43 PM

I feel like it would be appropriate at this juncture to point out that natural family planning (i.e. fertility awareness) has actually a lot more efficacy than people give it credit for. When done correctly, it has an efficacy comparable to condoms, although not as good as the Pill. It isn't right for everyone but it can be a good option for some people, especially as people have pointed out in this thread there are some women who don't like to use the Pill.

Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 9:56 PM

The article says that a birth control pill for men is now a reality. A morning-after pill for men is, I suppose, still in the research stage.

Posted by Robbie | April 14, 2008 10:23 PM

Assume a miracle of science eliminated serious side-effects, this might have a substantial impact on a society's ferility rates.

As DNA testing becomes more effective and the goverments efforts to attach dads' incomes become more difficult to evade, avoiding inadvertent childhood becomes more important for men. Married (for now) or single.

A non-trivial number of births are unplanned, by the male at least. And the effects are, while not as life-changing as for the women (unless abortion or adoption), they are likely long-term expensive.

Posted by Fabius Maximus | April 14, 2008 10:31 PM

It all depends on the side effects. If the pill kills the libido, what's the fucking point?

"In my experience, women tend to prefer men who love children and enjoy holding them in their hands and making them laugh, not those who refer to them as 'brats' and 'curtain climbers'.

Posted by Hector | April 14, 2008 6:00 PM"

Some of us prefer women who don't want kids and having their vaginas ripped in childbirth.

Posted by Reality Man | April 14, 2008 10:48 PM

natural family planning (i.e. fertility awareness) has actually a lot more efficacy than people give it credit for. When done correctly, it has an efficacy comparable to condoms

Right. "Done correctly" is the looming caveat, there.

For one thing, that's not how we calculate failure rates - not doing it correctly counts as a failure of the method, so comparing a subset of that failure rate - every failure that isn't "didn't do it right" - to the whole failure rate for condoms or other methods is disingenuous. Secondly, natural family planning is simply too hard to "do correctly", reliably.

The only reason it has any efficacy at all, basically, is because it turns out to be not that easy to get a woman pregnant in the first place. (The vagina is actively hostile to sperm, women don't signal ovulation, the ova wall is difficult for sperm to penetrate. It's clear from all the natural "defenses" against pregnancy that have evolved in human women that sex in the human species is primarily for social bonding, not for reproduction.)

It's an equal rights issue, to me. A minor one, but women have dozens of BC options available to them, many that work transparently and don't affect sexual pleasure; why should men have only three options, each with significant pitfalls?

Because women won't trust them to use it? What the hell does that have to do with it?

Posted by Chet | April 14, 2008 11:06 PM

"Now, if you could make a male pill based on somehow finding some type of enzyme that's involved in meiosis and pretty much nothing else, then design an inhibitor for it, derailing the process and leading to the creation of dummy sperm with missing or garbled chromosomes, that would be pretty neat. I don't really know any biology though and don't know if any such enzymes (critical for meiosis, but not also critical for, say, brain function) exist, or would be inhibited readily, or much of anything about anything really. I think I might incorporate it into my sci-fi story, though.
Posted by Julian Elson | April 14, 2008 8:15 PM"

The same general concept is the basis for most anti-virals. Though the enzymes that control viral DNA replication and transcription are mostly very similar to those of the host (hell, viruses are such dependent parasites that they mostly are the host's enzymes), there are differences big enough, or extra steps (like the reverse transcription that RNA viruses use) with enzymes foreign to anything the host has, that create enough of a difference that you can make something that will poison the viral transcription without poisoning the host's transcription -- too much. But anti-virals tend to have significant side effect profiles because, bad as it is to fool with Mother Nature in respect to sexual reproduction, it is really no joke to fool with human mitosis.

I don't know if anybody is working along similar lines on a meiotic poison that would exploit differences from the mitotic process so as not to also poison mitosis -- too much. It may be that there are differences that could be exploited, but the "problem" of male virility isn't great enough, and there are already too many alternate ways of dealing with it, that folks can't get the grant money to do the work when they have to compete for limited funds with much worse and more intractable problems. But it's possible that people have pursued this and simply not found exploitable differences. One practical problem would be the blood-testis barrier which protects the seminiferous tubules from potential toxins in the blood. The enzymatic array that handles meiosis is almost certainly chemically very close to that which does mitosis. Perhaps the strongest evidence for Evolution is, not fossils, but the extreme biochemical parsimony of living organisms. The same basic chemical pathways get used over and over again, with only very slight changes, for new needs, because it would be almost impossible to come up with completely new biochemistry just from single mutations to what is already there. So anything that poisons meiosis is almost certain to also poison mitosis somewhat, if only at a higher concentration. But the concentration would usually have to be higher on the body side of the blood-testis barrier to get enough concentration inside. The blood-brain barrier provides a similar problem with cancer chemotherapy, which is also mostly made up of mitotic poisons, most of which don't cross the blood-brain barrier in concentrations high enough to work inside, until the concentration on the outside would be so high as to kill the patient. You have to get around the barrier by doing intrathecal chemo (through a lumbar puncture) at the same time as systemic chemo. Tell you what, no one's doing intratesticular injections on me to get past the blood-testis barrier unless I really need it, and birth control don't cut it as really needing it.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | April 14, 2008 11:12 PM

Most of you guys (mostly guys, isn't it) must be single. Being married, I can see the appeal of a pill for me. My wife took the pill for awhile because we didn't want to have children yet, but did want them eventually (now have two) so obviously a vasectomy for me was out at the time.

Unfortunately, for health reasons she was unable to take the pill for a few years, which meant we had to use condoms, not really my favorite. A pill for me would have been definitely preferable.

Posted by m | April 14, 2008 11:42 PM

Be careful men. You could be showing how much of an inconsiderate jerk you are. Women have been putting up with side effects from the pill for decades, and since only now are women who've been on it throughout their lives reaching their final years, some effects are still unknown. I'd hazard a guess most of you have never read the information that comes with a woman's prescription and are woefully uninformed.

There is nothing natural about the pill. My favourite side effect, though not one for all women, death of the libido. Oh, the irony.

Posted by J | April 14, 2008 11:42 PM

From J:

Be careful men. You could be showing how much of an inconsiderate jerk you are. Women have been putting up with side effects from the pill for decades, and since only now are women who've been on it throughout their lives reaching their final years, some effects are still unknown. I'd hazard a guess most of you have never read the information that comes with a woman's prescription and are woefully uninformed.

The apparent argument here is that since women have been subjected to unpleasant side effects from the Pill, then men must also be subjected to them. Some of the effects of the Pill are still unknown? Guess what - ALL of the effects of the "male Pill" are unknown. And another news flash: no one forces women to take the Pill. Don't want the side effects? Don't take it. I won't be taking the male version either - I'd far rather stick with condoms. If that makes me an inconsiderate jerk, oh well.

Posted by Sean Peters | April 15, 2008 12:14 AM

Lmao, who gives a fuck what women think about this issue? Somehow, I doubt these same women were thinking about what their male partners would think of them when they chose their form of birth control

Why the fuck should we care what they think when it comes to our body chemistry? Amazing how feminists who demand (rightfully) that women should make the choices regarding their body suddenly believe that women should make the choices regarding mens bodies as well.

Posted by soullite | April 15, 2008 12:58 AM

Thanks Glen. I had no idea that there even was such a thing as a blood-testis barrier! Quite an illuminating comment there. I figured it couldn't be as simple as I made it sound, or there would already be five male BC pills on the market with slow-motion ads of pretty couples laughing with a sunset in the background followed by "Ask your doctor about Zylaplox," but it's good to no exactly the challenges such an approach faces.

soullite, I'm not quite sure there's symmetry with regard to men trying to influence women's use of birth control and women's trying to influence men's use of birth control. If a woman uses a given form of birth control, all of the effects are in her body -- it doesn't have any impact on the man's body. On the other hand, male birth control, or lack thereof, can make a significant impact on a woman's body. I'm not saying that we guys should have to take the pill (if it comes out) or anything, but I don't think the situations are exactly parallel.

Posted by Julian Elson | April 15, 2008 2:02 AM

Women have been putting up with side effects from the pill for decades

Yes, but men have a perfectly side-effect free, inexpensive, highly effective, non-pharmaceutical alternative.

Why would they take a pill instead?

Posted by Jinchi | April 15, 2008 2:21 AM

I would definitely take a male birth control pill if the therapeutic index is reasonable. While there are certainly bad side effects of altering hormone chemistry, there could potentially be good side effects, too. The erections observed by patients participating in a trial for an anti-hypertensive, after all, led to Viagra.

Also, this is not an issue, of course, of whether women will "trust" me to take the pill on time. It would be for my psychological benefit first. After all, it couldn't hurt for both partners to take birth control medications. Let both partners take control of their reproductive capacities. Frankly, it's sometimes a little jarring to me that only the female has medications available to prevent a parenthood that would obviously affect both partners for decades after the pregnancy. People make mistakes, regardless of sex. A male equivalent of the ring or the patch would be preferable, of course.

Posted by Chuck | April 15, 2008 2:49 AM

But for me (and probably for most people) it would all come down to whether or not there are some terrible pill-related side effects.

Don't know if this was mentioned upthread but the female b/c pill often does have terrible side effects. When my wife stopped taking the pill, all of a sudden her libido returned, her mood became consistently sunnier (she wasn't "depressed" before per se, but definitely a difference) and she reports feeling generally "better."

I think so many women start taking the pill early and tend to forget about their natural libido (and I'd guess some never really experienced it before taking the pill). That's not to say that the pill for women is the wrong choice for many couples, but it seems to me that the negative side effects of the pill in females is under-recognized and certainly under emphasized when making the decision to prescribe.

P.S. Did I mention the increased libido...

Posted by drjimcooper | April 15, 2008 10:56 AM

Regarding the issue of side-effects with the female pill vs. a (hormonally based) male pill: true, some women have horrible side effects from b.c. pills (my mom couldn't take the pill, e.g.), including depression, libido issues, skin problems ... but some women actually feel much better taking the pill. The female b.c. pill is not for everyone -- which is one reason why it would be nice to have a male b.c. pill.

OTOH, while there are specific conditions for which a hormonal b.c. pill for males would provide benefits, I suspect any (hormonal) male b.c. pill would just give the majority of men 'roid rage. Is that something we really want simply because some women have side-effects from taking the female b.c. pill?

BTW -- there is more to spermatogenesis than meiosis ... I would say that DNA packing in the sperm, which is significantly different than in any other cell, would be a good target for male b.c.

Posted by DAS | April 15, 2008 11:11 AM

I'd take the male pill. If I forgot and she got pregnant, so what? It's her body, as they say, and she should've been more responsible with it. And I'd be outta there so fast, not like I need a kid around. And not like I ever told her my real name either.

None of my kids know who I am.

Posted by allan | April 15, 2008 12:20 PM

"The men will rightly find that their libido disappears" But, but - we're talking about a pill that involves putting more testosterone in men's bodies, right? That reduces men's libido how?

I think it's a good thing, because it a) allows couples to assign pill taking to whomever takes pills more reliably, as Galen says, b) allows couples to assign pill taking to whomever happens to experience fewer side effects or have fewer contraindications, and c) allows the person who actually doesn't want children to be the one managing the birth control, in the case where the two disagree.

More contraceptive options are inherently good; the more options you have, the more likely that each couple can find the options that work for them.

Posted by Lynn Gazis-Sax | April 15, 2008 3:55 PM

Lmao, who gives a fuck what women think about this issue? Somehow, I doubt these same women were thinking about what their male partners would think of them when they chose their form of birth control

Why the fuck should we care what they think when it comes to our body chemistry? Amazing how feminists who demand (rightfully) that women should make the choices regarding their body suddenly believe that women should make the choices regarding mens bodies as well.

Posted by soullite | April 15, 2008 12:58 AM

The apparent argument here is that since women have been subjected to unpleasant side effects from the Pill, then men must also be subjected to them. Some of the effects of the Pill are still unknown? Guess what - ALL of the effects of the "male Pill" are unknown. And another news flash: no one forces women to take the Pill. Don't want the side effects? Don't take it. I won't be taking the male version either - I'd far rather stick with condoms. If that makes me an inconsiderate jerk, oh well.

Posted by Sean Peters | April 15, 2008 12:14 AM

Several have argued above that since the Pill doesn't have a "significant impact" on women's health, and is readily available, that there's no reason to put men at risk by making a "Male Pill." The point of this poster, and myself, is that that's a poor excuse. the research should be done and the product made available. You have the choice not to use it. But a couple should also be able to make further choices about which method they utilize.

It's not that women should be allowed to make the choices for men, it's that women shouldn't be forced to bear the health-altering weight of pregnancy prevention. There should be other options for individuals and couples to make.

Posted by brennakimi | April 15, 2008 6:36 PM

To anybody afraid of vasectomy -- any modern technician should have no needle, no scalpel options available. seriously. (I could draw pictures....). Granted if want to have children later it's not the best option.

Spontaneous reattachment of the vas happens -- usually within 4 months. Any reasonable doc should have you tested twice (the first after the chamber's emptied).

A couple people upthread alluded to the fact that it's not popular. Bollocks -- most adult men I know who are happy with the number of children they have (or don't) have had one. Just do it.

Finally: Just because the potential side effects of the male pill are _unknown_ does not make them somehow magically less painful or dangerous than the side effects of women's BCP. Stop trying to weasel out of taking some responsibility.

Posted by dbt | April 16, 2008 4:52 AM

wow. The men commenting here are pretty ignorant about the Pill. It only crudely mimics women's real cycles. It can have devastating effects on women. Sure, lots of women take it without a problem, but I have a friend who almost committed suicide due to the deep depression it caused. I've had less life threatening side effects but still incredibly unpleasant.

It'd be great to have men have the option of their own Pill, for the sole purpose to gain some empathy and help the push to develop and market widely non-hormonally based birth control that is safe, effective and non-disruptive to enjoying sex...

Oh, and don't assume that the Pill is covered by insurance--my certainly didn't!

Posted by Abby | April 16, 2008 6:51 AM