The Pill for Men

So with the semester just ending I should have a little more time to blog, the next few weeks might be an exception since I will be out of town. It also means I will be busy doing research and spending most of the day locked away in the basement so there maybe many days I just need to get away from the computer so I am not going to make any promises right now. But enough about me lets get onto the post.

Apparently earlier this week was the 50th anniversary of The Pill. Yes the birth control one. Well that is a pretty major accomplishment and there is no doubt that the pill has changed the way that sex is viewed in most of the western world, for good or bad (I am not going to argue that point but you can probably guess how I feel). Well talk has been going for at least the last 10 years about working on a male version of the pill. Now as with all medicine the past versions have problems that are currently unacceptable to get it through but now they are saying one will be ready within the next decade.

Now as a guy myself I feel that a male version of contraceptive would be another huge leap forward. So you can imagine how I felt when I saw a headline that read A Birth Control Pill for Men? In Your Dreams, but I figured I would hear out what the author had to say.

She starts with a basic history of the pill and then goes on to say this:

"Probably most women would agree that the Pill heavily contributed to the achievement of that aim," Dr. Djerassi wrote, "but at the same time the convenience of the Pill and its wide acceptance by women gave many men the excuse to abandon their own responsibility." Only the threat of HIV/AIDS and other virulent STDs jolted men from their happy contraceptive slumber.

This is a good argument against giving men the pill. We [men] are not always thinking about what is right a lot of times with think with our penis and not with our heads. So this argument bases off of the rise of STDs after women first started using the pill. When it finally got into every one's head that maybe the spread of STDs were due to this unprotected sex and that not only can men give it but they can get it too. So it became beneficial for women to not admit that they were on the pill to help prevent the spread of STDs by still making the man put on a condom. There is a chance that women would say they aren't on the pill the guy would say, "That's alright I am!" Yes this is a good argument against it, too bad that isn't the way the author went. The very next sentence she says:

And yet, disease is not a pregnancy.

Yeah you are right I would so rather have HIV/AIDS and die young than to get a woman pregnant. And then to wrap it up she ends it like this:

And if it does, as promised, finally finally make it to market? If we finally convinced Big Pharma to invest and the FDA to approve, would women even trust men to take it while the consequence of forgetting remains our bodies that get pregnant? With just a handful of particularly fertile exceptions, men can't gestate babies. Until they can, it's hard to imagine women handing that responsibility over to a man, who might forget to take his Pill or change his patch. Shudder.

Seriously the argument that you choose to use is that you don't trust men to take their pill on time. Yes not all men are responsible but you want to know how best to take that worry out of your mind? Simple stay on the pill yourself! As is most Doctors recommend that you don't rely on the pill or the patch but you also use a condom. What harm would a third level of protection do? Look I am all for a woman's right to choose but why not a men's right to choose. If a pill for men came out and I could get even closer to shoulder even the amount of the contraceptive control that my significant other shoulders than how does that harm her right as a woman to choose.

Now normally I don't discuss what people say in the comments but I saw a lot of arguments similar to this one:

I have to agree on a few points. A birth control pill for men is just asking for trouble. Imagine, a rapist male, he buys this. What happens next? Should be obvious. A birth control pill for males is an invitation. Not a good one. Some males would disagree but it is a bad thing to have something like that around. Some would take advantage of it and the results, less about actually love and just "what chick can I nail next." I don't like to say this since I'm a male, but, Most guys think about sex alot, and some get in a relationship for that reason. A pill like this like I've said is an invatation that's not wanted or good natured.

Your concern is for a rapist using the pill and then raping someone. It does not seem to me that rapist care now. They could care less if the woman they rape has a kid or gets an STD and I doubt a pill for men would prevent DNA tests from being useful in finding the rapist. The next comment about what chick can I nail next pleads a bigger question. You think guys don't do that now? Go to any bar or party near a major college in the US and I think you will find that same mentality in "some males."

I don't know let me know how off base I am if you think I am wrong/crazy.