I kinda-sorta understand why our corporate overlords might be against male contraception - since family life is a huge consumption-generator - but I can’t get my head around Big Pharma passing up another Viagra-like windfall. An industry that in other cases, as you point out, invents problems to sell pills seems to be acting against its self-interest.

As far as saving the Males goes.. WTF? It’s never been about saving men, per se, but about saving male power. That’s what makes this story so confusing - male contraceptives would add to that power.

Sfgary - I think the big thing is that you only add to male power (in their mind) by taking away from female power.  If female BC switched to male BC, rather than male BC supplanting it, I think they’d be more supportive.

Why would any REAL MAN(tm) willingly castrate himself?

And if women didn’t risk pregnancy, how could you tell the sluts from the virgins?  Besides, REAL MEN(tm) just walk away if they don’t want the kid and then fight for the right to terminate their parental rights whenever they feel like it’s cramping their styles.

Hey, if she doesn’t want a kid, she shouldn’t open her legs.  THAT’S the method that really works, ya know.  Only sluts have babies out of wedlock.

What’s the point if men can have sex without causing consequences for women?

/snark off

This is PRECISELY why the market must be removed from healthcare.  It’s a stupid decision, most likely a money-losing decision, but b/c capitalism tends toward monopoly, Big Pharma says no.

Healthcare is not a market driven phenomenon.  Capitalism needs to be taken out of the equation--otherwise we get lots of Viagras and no cancer cures.

There are guys for whom a male BCP would represent some sort of psychological castration...but to those guys a vasectomy would be as bad or worse, and they probably have a problem with condoms too.

Fuck ‘em.  Sure, some guys are so mentally tied up in specific expressions of masculinity/machismo they are unreachable.  But that doesn’t mean all men are as stupid and hidebound as those idiots.

“In the past fifteen years, I’m now intimately familiar with marketed treatments and cures for diseases that I’m pretty sure didn’t exist before the pills were invented.  If necessary, I know a pharmaceutical cornucopia of options that would give me the ability to hang drywall with my penis after a five-second flipthrough of Playboy.  Within five years, a marketable option to give me death ray-eyes will be on the market, and I will be tempted to take that shit, side effects of partial paralysis and spastic colon be damned.”

The problem is Big Pharma isn’t driven by consumer needs.  Big Pharma invents something and then tells us (and more importantly doctors) what is wrong and offers a “cure”.  They create/control markets, not the other way around.  (The fashion industry is very similar.)

It reminds me a lot of the way the mature American auto industry “functions” — marketing is all about making people feel inadequate about something and offering a piece of shiny metal to “fix” it…

I think the real stumbling block here has something to do with sperm. Any form of male birth control is going to involve doing something to a man’s sperm—stopping ejaculation completely (but not orgasm) or causing no sperm to be made or released, or keeping them from maturing. I think this freaks a lot of men out deeply—like their virility and masculinity will be compromised if they are not a mobile pregnancy-causing machine, a danger to any fertile womb.

I remember seeing some television and print interviews with “men on the street” when the drug that inhibits ejaculation was discovered, and they also asked about other forms of male birth control. Almost every single guy was like “whoa, no way” and some of the women as well. I guess I can understand why people might feel weird about an ejaculation-less orgasm when they’re used to it, but seriously, they are not that bad at all. What’s even weirder to me are all the men who seem to have the heebie-jeebies about doing anything at all to their sperm or to how thick and white and virile their semen is, claiming fear about permanent infertility, not wanting to mess with the natural order of their little guys down there, what if you caused some damage that led to birth defects, etc.

Women, on the other hand, are expected to just accept interference with reproductive systems as a matter of course. We all know that motherhood and pregnancy and fecundity are strongly linked to our ideas of womanhood, but there’s not this crazy “always on, always ready, always gushing” requirement. Maybe that’s because female fertility is naturally cyclical, maybe it’s because we have so many millennia of women practicing some form or other of birth control based around the female body. I don’t know, but it’s kind of depressing that people can’t think outside of this box.

I doubt they’d sell as well as the female version, of course, but let’s look at the facts---slightly over half of American men are married and even more than that are in committed relationships with women.  That’s your audience for this pill.  Unfortunately, we still live in a culture that teaches that contraception is a woman’s responsibility, so I think reaching single men with the “Add protection to your life” message might not work.  Barring a few super smart liberal men, of course, but that’s also the same audience for messages about riding your bike instead of driving, i.e. already uniquely conscientious people.  But I think middle-of-the-road type men become a lot more aware of how pregnancy prevention is an “our” problem instead of a “her” problem, especially those men whose female partners can’t use the pill, making condoms a permanent feature.  Those men would probably love a birth control pill.

That said, I also think that rising vasectomy rates indicates that men view it like this---in your youth, birth control is a woman’s responsibility.  After commitment and maybe kids, you pay her back with interest by taking on the responsibility for the rest of your lives together.

“After commitment and maybe kids, you pay her back with interest by taking on the responsibility for the rest of your lives together.”

That’s the way it worked for us and a lot of people I know.  Vasectomy just ain’t no big deal.  And it’s often better than expecting her to take BCP until menopause…

The problem of course is the in-between years when permanent birth control is too severe but reliability is paramount.  There should be a range of options available, with a male BCP one of them.  And if some guy just can’t accept limiting the potency of his spooge, choose something else.

But Big Pharma shouldn’t decide ahead of time to stop research on the male BCP and just give up…

I don’t know...I am not saying men would not take a birth control pill. But what are the rates of vasectomy vs tubal ligation? One is an out patient procedure you can drive home from, the other somewhat invasive surgery. I don’t know the rates, but I have a strong suspicion that there are more tubal ligation than vasectomies every year.

I think this article misses the real point, which is that the male contraceptive would act as a product replacement for the female contraceptive. Gaining male contraceptive market share will reduce female contraceptive market share. No sane company will spend even a cent on R&D;for such a product.

Amanda makes the point about the target audience of men in committed relationships. If anyone in these committed relationships is willing to use chemical contraception, one of them already is. Were a drug company to market a male pill to these people, then what would happen is the woman currently taking the pill would stop and the man would start. It’s highly unlikely that the man would start and the woman continue.

The other market segment - single men - are obviously a waste of energy, but these people (of either gender) are not the main focus of pill marketing, particularly now that doctors’ first responsibility with young people of both sexes is to push condom use.

I’m sure male reluctance and laziness would factor a bit here, but the main driver is this market share issue. If the drug companies thought they could successfully market to men and increase their contraceptive sales they would grab it. But even if they successfully market the product, it just means that they will lose female consumers.

I have read articles in medical journals, I think, from pharmaceutical companies outlining this logic. I don’t think that pharma corps have any doubt about their ability to convince men to buy such a product in and of itself, they just don’t think they will gain nett sales by doing so.

Of course, if they could develop a pill with another benefit, say a steroid-like effect, it would be a different story…

The problem is that it won’t replace female contraceptive.  Male contraceptives won’t be able to get the huge pre-generic drug profit boost because it will complete against less expensive female contraceptives and barrier methods.  Add in insurance companies not covering it and you have a limited market.  Here we really have the flaws of the patent system for drugs exposed.  Sold as marginal cost and male contraceptives would have a huge benefit, but unless the government steps in to provide the research/prizes it won’t happen.  And the government doing anything about sex causes certain people to go ape shit crazy.

I think this article misses the real point, which is that the male contraceptive would act as a product replacement for the female contraceptive. Gaining male contraceptive market share will reduce female contraceptive market share. No sane company will spend even a cent on R&D;for such a product.

No.  Male contraceptive acts as a product replacement for a vasectomy.  It does not act as a replacement for female contraception.  Women who use birth control will still do it, for a variety of reasons not the least of which is the more variety of birth control you use, the more you reduce the risk of pregnancy.  But this gives another option for men who either want to put off having children or who just don’t want to go under the knife for a vasectomy.

And that’s the market that the drug companies could exploit.  Vasectomies are freaking painful and sometimes irreversable.  Male contraception is controllable.  So if you decide at 30 that you’re never going to have kids and then at 35 regretting that decision, you don’t have to go under the knife again to have your vasectomy reversed.

Big Pharma invents something and then tells us (and more importantly doctors) what is wrong and offers a “cure”.

True with psychiatric drugs, slightly less so with V*ag*a. That was discovered by accident, after a trial of a heart medicine gave people boners. Now it gives people boners and heart attacks.

You’re telling me that I was worrying about should I get surgery on my reproductive system, get my tubes tied & whatnot, when there might just be a pill I could take to eliminate most of the worry?

Thanks a lot, corporate assholes.

No NonyNony, male contraceptive does not act as a product replacement for vasectomy. Vasectomy is an irreversible decision to end your reproductive ability, usually adopted by men who already have children; male OCP is an opportunity to have babyfree sex without long term harm. Very few men are pursuing the former, most men want the latter.

For this pill to be profitable it has to capture the large market of men who want babyfree sex, without displacing any current female consumers of same. Given that the women tend to be having sex with the men, the drug companies would only profit if the couples involved decided that they were interested in doubling their contraceptive expenses, with a marginal reduction in risk of pregnancy of pretty much nothing. It’s just not going to happen. These couples will choose one of them to take the pill, either the woman continuing what she has already been doing, or stopping and the man taking it up.

As Rob observed, the cost of the male OCP will be higher at first, so very few couples will make this decision. And a lot of women also take the pill for other reasons, so they might not want to stop anyway.

The only way its profitable for the companies is if they can convince single men that its in their interest. This would be very very easy - if women didn’t have access to the pill, and/or if condoms weren’t an essential part of modern sexual culture. But since most single people use condoms, and a good proportion of the women using condoms are already on the pill, the marginal benefit for a single man of using the pill is limited. I bet, in fact, that many single men would eschew such a device for fear that it would encourage them to risk unsafe sex.

I have no doubt that drug companies targeted a woman’s OCP first for sexist reasons, because they thought uptake would be better (women having more to gain from spending the money in 60s society than men). But these sexist reasons weren’t created by the drug companies, they stood out like dogs balls at the time. Now the companies are simply reacting to the market conditions their initial success created.

Amanda makes the point about the target audience of men in committed relationships. If anyone in these committed relationships is willing to use chemical contraception, one of them already is. Were a drug company to market a male pill to these people, then what would happen is the woman currently taking the pill would stop and the man would start. It’s highly unlikely that the man would start and the woman continue.

I don’t think that would necessarily be true, at least for a significant number of women. 

I know that for me, if my husband had a birth control pill available and he decided to take it, it wouldn’t cause me to quit taking mine.  It would, however, allow him to stop using condoms, because we *always* double up on birth control methods.  Hell, even if I had a tubal ligation and he was taking a birth control pill, I probably would also stay on the pill anyway, partly because I’m completely paranoid about pregnancy (with good reason--I and most of the other women in my family are amazingly fertile) and partly for the control of periods.  Same goes if he gets a vasectomy (I really want him to do this).  And while maybe I’m not like the majority of women in that, I’d imagine that there is at least a very large minority of women who would do the same thing.

My wife’s cousin has a funny story about vasectomies. Her husband had one 4-5 years ago, when their oldest daughter was about to begin college. The hospital called her up and said, hey, your husband’s vasectomy didn’t work. She told them she knew--she’d just found out she was pregnant. So know they have one daughter in medical school, another in college, and a pre-schooler.

You would think MRAs and NiceGuys (tm) would be big markets for these pills, since they hate having to pay for child support when the slut tries to trap them into marriage.  If they saw it as a controlling device--she can’t force me to give her money by getting herself pregnant, but if she wants to leave me I can “forget” my pill and knock her up so she has to stay--they’d have a fine market.

I know reproduction is supposed to be women’s work, but since guys lose out when they reproduce when they don’t want to, what is the issue?

Oh yeah.  Men are just raging hormone animals when it comes to sex.  Their infinitely better logical skillz only work for business and sports stats.  When it comes to interacting with the other sex, men are just rape machines who are only civilized by the proper Lady who knows when to open and close her legs.

----

There are guys for whom a male BCP would represent some sort of psychological castration...but to those guys a vasectomy would be as bad or worse, and they probably have a problem with condoms too.

And there you have the Catholic Church’s policy in a nutshell.

-------

The problem of course is the in-between years when permanent birth control is too severe but reliability is paramount.  There should be a range of options available, with a male BCP one of them.

Sing it, MikeEss.  If healthcare were about people’s health instead of making money for Big Pharma and insurance agencies, there would be plenty of options for people to choose from as best fit their lifestyles.

IUD is a good semi-permanent solution, but again, female-based and generally post-childbirth.  My Mirena has hormones, too, and actually has a lower failure rate than sterilization.  Fully reversible, should we ever lose our minds and decide to have another offspring.  (I love the ones we have, but three is just about untenable.  Four?  Only if you have the money for the nannies and maids the Jolie-Pitts do.)

I second the “doubling up” idea. I think that in a committed relationship it could eliminate the use of barrier methods of birth control (in a non-committed relationship, eliminating barrier methods would of course increase the potential of one or both partners contracting an STD), and I know more than a few people (guys and gals) who would not object to that in any way.

Of course price is an issue. If this is a replacement of another form of birth control then you have to see if it’s priced similarily to that form. Would the Male BCP be similar to the monthly price of condoms? If not, it’s an extra monthly expense that would need to be addressed.

male contraceptive does not act as a product replacement for vasectomy. Vasectomy is an irreversible decision to end your reproductive ability, usually adopted by men who already have children; male OCP is an opportunity to have babyfree sex without long term harm. Very few men are pursuing the former, most men want the latter.

Actually, it would be a product replacement for vastectomy. Currently, there IS no opportunity for baby-free sex without long term harm for men. It’s a vasectomy or a condom: there is no “intermediate” option. Many men who go for the vasectomy would opt for the “temporary” solution if it were available. (I personally know three men who fit this category.)

There are many men in committed relationships with women who (for various reasons) can’t take hormonal birth control or have problems with IUDs and such. For these couples, though, there is just no other option other than a vasectomy.

When I started having hormonal-based health problems, I asked my doctor if she recommended I go off the pill. She said no, don’t worry, there’s no reason for that, etc. When I mentioned that my husband was willing to get a vasectomy, she was visibly relieved and said, “Oh, yeah, if that’s an option fo you, yes, you’d be much better off without the pill.”

I found it interesting that she didn’t even think the possibility of my going off the pill was on the table, despite the hormone-specific issues I was having. It was just assumed that I would compromise my health in exchange for pregnancy protection, because, you know, that’s just how it is.

“So know they have one daughter in medical school, another in college, and a pre-schooler.”

...which is why any competent urologist requests samples for proof, even up to a year later…

Ropty, there are more tubals than vasectomies, in part because of sexism and in part because a lot of women just get it done while they’re in the hospital for childbirth anyway.  But vasectomies are increasing all the time. 

Another factor:  They don’t know how to market it.  Viagra is pushed as a relationship saver.  Birth control pills for women are sold as a way to control your periods, and it’s assumed that women will just fill in the real use themselves.  I’m not sure how you sell a male birth control pill outside of “Want sex but no babies?”

Amanda makes the point about the target audience of men in committed relationships. If anyone in these committed relationships is willing to use chemical contraception, one of them already is.

Except not.  A lot of committed couples with “chemical willingness” suffer from the fact that the woman is willing but unable to take the pill for hormonal reasons.  If she’s willing, but unable, but her husband is able, a lot will be willing.  This pill would be a great innovation for monogamous couples that have to use condoms now but would be interested in other options.

Ks, to be fair, people like you are so rare as to be statistically insignificant.  Most people use one method in monogamous relationships.  But a lot of couples use condoms as their primary method, and I sincerely think a lot would like another, simpler option.

Vasectomies are VERY POPULAR. I would expect that reversible male birth control would be even more popular among a wider range of men. Yes, women in non-marital / non-marital-substitute relationships would still want to have their own control, and still ought to use condoms - but why men wouldn’t feel that a little less risk for 18 years of child support would be good, I am sure I don’t have a clue. Men are always complaining about worrying about the reliability of the woman’s memory (to take pill, to avoid grapefruit juice and herbal remedies, etc).

I got snipped three years ago, after the birth of our second child. If there was male BCP available I would have taken it before the vasectomy, but I would have had the vas regardless; not having to bother with BC at all is great. (You do have to wait 12 weeks and submit at least 2 semen samples to make sure that you are, in fact, All Juice, No Seeds; most post-vasectomy pregnancies happened because the man didn’t make sure he was in fact sterile.)

One issue I can see with male BCP is trust, which is why it only works in the context of a committed relationship. If that’s the only BC method used, the woman has no way of knowing whether the man remembered to take his pills that day.

the woman has no way of knowing whether the man remembered to take his pills that day.

Sure, but “The Pill” has the exact same problem, and it’s been pretty successful.

Another factor:  They don’t know how to market it.  Viagra is pushed as a relationship saver.  Birth control pills for women are sold as a way to control your periods, and it’s assumed that women will just fill in the real use themselves.  I’m not sure how you sell a male birth control pill outside of “Want sex but no babies?”

No joke, this would be an actual problem for them.  Notice that condom ads only talk about preventing communicable diseases and not the use that they were invented for millennia ago, or that pregnancy tests, if they have actors in the ad, don’t show them relieved it came up negative.

I’m not quite a Christian Scientist, but I believe in the minimum of medical intervention—for example, after I had my wisdom teeth out I took just a couple of tylenol. Further, if used faithfully, barrier methods work just fine, with latex allergies the only possible health risk. (Still child-free after all these years, but I want to preserve my options.) I’m not going to take anything till there’s 30 years of experience with it and the side-effects have at least been identified if not eliminated.  Some early adopters probably wouldn’t mind sprouting a set of C-cups but it would bother me.

“male contraceptives, including an implant-injection system that delivers testosterone via an implant in the arm, plus a progestin in four yearly injections.”

An internal steroid drip? How would Pharma even begin to market a drug that is effectively long-term chemical castration requiring hormone replacement? Pharma certainly couldn’t get any professional athletes to act as spokesmen for a product that is already banned in most sports.

“industry representatives refused to speak to the marketability question”

Too bad, because without that information, discussion of this issue will be primarily speculation.

Notice that condom ads only talk about preventing communicable diseases and not the use that they were invented for millennia ago ...

Actually, condoms were originally invented to prevent syphilis and other (at that time) incurable STIs.  The fact that they could also prevent pregnancy was a happy by-product.

Women who specifically wanted to prevent pregnancy in early modern Europe would use a diaphragm, which has been around since the early 1700s or so.

You guys are the first people I have ever heard of who double up birth control. Sure, at the beginning of a relationship people use a condom and maybe the woman is also on the pill, but after that everyone just uses one option, and usually the pill on account of its reliability. I have only ever had one partner who couldn’t use the pill for hormonal reasons - much more likely is women who are using the pill for hormonal reasons.

I don’t know any statistics on this but I’m pretty confident the drug companies do, and from what I have read of their explanations for the lack of a male OCP, they seem pretty certain that doubling up, vasectomies and hormonal problems are not a market driver for them.

Also it’s pretty amusing to read Amanda saying the pill is marketed as being about periods. In Australia and the UK it’s not “marketed” per se (no drugs are), but I’ve never heard of anyone suggesting such a euphemistic fiction. In medical journals the pills are advertised in terms of reduced side-effects, but they are always described as such - side-effects to the contraceptive purpose of the pill. Could this be American pro-life toxicity at work in your drug advertising?

You guys are the first people I have ever heard of who double up birth control. Sure, at the beginning of a relationship people use a condom and maybe the woman is also on the pill, but after that everyone just uses one option, and usually the pill on account of its reliability.

Really? That’s odd to me. My entire group of friends still doubles up on BC, and most of them have been in committed relationships for a while (one couple has been together almost 15 years now), and when we discuss it the reason given is generally the difficulty in relying on the pill. Now it could be that I have a disproportionate number of friends who have been put on the pill for hormonal issues, or who are known to be slightly forgetful at times and might miss a day by accident, and so feel that the pill could be less reliable. And it could be that, having been drilled as a teen on safe sex from puberty to highschool graduation we just assume that two is better than one the way I assume a car isn’t to move until everyone has their seatbelts on… maybe it’s just an ingrained habit. But at least among my late-20s early-30s friends, doubling up is the norm.

(and you know I’m going to have to have this discussion with my friends now that it’s in my head...)

A problem with sterilization for men is similar to one for women : the reluctance of doctors to perform the procedure if you’re childless, especially if you’re still in your “childbearing years.” In such cases, good luck finding a doctor outside of Planned Parenthood willing to do it.  It’s even moreso if you live in a backwards, Gilead-wannabe place like much of the southern U.S.

Given the number of men who are *not* in committed relationships but don’t want to accidentally knock a woman up and run the risk of being stuck with her for life, the number of men who are married to or living with women who have problems with hormonal birth control, and the number of men who for whatever reason don’t actually trust their wives or girlfriends to remember to take a pill, I think there is a huge additional market for male birth control that you are overlooking, flashheart.

Hell, every MRA in the country sounds like he *should* be a major consumer of the stuff, since they all talk about how they can’t trust women.

Dude, every sperm is sacred! Taking male birth control pills would be like each man having eleventy bajillion abortions every single fucking day!! WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES!!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

You guys are the first people I have ever heard of who double up birth control. Sure, at the beginning of a relationship people use a condom and maybe the woman is also on the pill, but after that everyone just uses one option, and usually the pill on account of its reliability.

Are you kidding? Under ideal circumstances, I TRIPLE-up on birth control. Pill, condom, spermicide. That applied when I was married, too. No babies for me, not ever, no how, and whatever it takes to keep it that way.

Yeah, I’d say that among my acquaintances and friends, doubling up is very common.  I know a married couple that doubles up, in fact.  I’ve been with someone for 6 years, and except for a very short time period early in the relationship, we’ve always doubled up.  (That very short time period was the time of much unhappy baby paranoia as well.)

It could be generational; most everyone I’m referring to with this comment is under 29 (my age).  So none of us are ready to take “permanent” measures (and most likely, doctors would refuse to perform tubal ligations for the women in the group, which is another story altogether) like vasectomies and tubal ligations.  We may want kids some day; we just emphatically do not right now.  If male BC went on the market, I’d be really into the idea of my partner using it.  And I think he’d be happy to try it as well.  I suspect we’re not alone in that among our friends. 

Frankly, I insist on on condoms because I expect both of us to be responsible for ourselves in terms of fertility control.  I refuse to be the only one doing something about it, and that leaves him with what options?  So yes, I think male birth control would be welcome in our house.

Really? That’s odd to me. My entire group of friends still doubles up on BC, and most of them have been in committed relationships for a while (one couple has been together almost 15 years now), and when we discuss it the reason given is generally the difficulty in relying on the pill

Yup. My ex and I doubled up until we got into the range of where we decided to have a kid, and after the kid, we doubled up again until we divorced. Why? Because we didn’t want to have an unplanned pregnancy, duh.

Let me tell you, I’d have preferred to double up with the male pill as opposed to the condom. And as a single guy, I’d love to have the option of controlling reproduction other than condoms, not because I’d choose to avoid condoms, but because I don’t want another kid. I already have a perfect kid. Any more would suffer by comparison.

Um...slightly OT, but can anyone tell me what the big deal is w/ condom-free sex?  I can think of at least a handful of guys who totally hate condoms, and consider them a fairly large imposition.  Is it really that big of a difference for guys?

“Hell, every MRA in the country sounds like he *should* be a major consumer of the stuff, since they all talk about how they can’t trust women.”

...and I thought just being an asshole was already an effective form of birth control.  You learn something every day…

Alara, your population of single men would be, to coin a phrase, pissing in the wind. There is no woman in a one night stand or a casual fling who is going to trust a man who says “I’m on the pill.” A single man on the pill is likely to think he is wasting his money, unless he is very paranoid about condom safety.

Which, again, I’m flabbergasted to hear about all these doublers and triplers. In 17 years of sexual intercourse with, ah, quite a few women, I have never met a woman who would be interested in such a plan or heard of a couple who do it. I’ve never had a condom breakage, I’ve never heard of, met or been with a woman who got pregnant while on the pill. The pill is statistically absolutely the most reliable form of contraception outside of slow-release implants. Doubling up on any other form of contraception on top of the pill is going to reduce your risk of pregnancy by a fraction of a percent. Which is why I have never heard of it, I suspect. I’m in my mid-30s, so my entire sexual life occurred against the backdrop of the HIV epidemic in a country where abortion is still (technically) illegal, but I have never met or heard of such people. Either you guys are special or I am special or there is something very different in the US attitude towards birth control (which I suspect might be the case, if what Amanda says about the pill being marketed for menstrual control is true).

Is it really that big of a difference for guys?

Yes, but if you’re not a douchebag, you wear them anyhow, because you don’t want your partner to get pregnant unless, you know, you both have decided you want to get pregnant.

Count me in as another person that was until very recently a doubler. Canadian, taking the minipill and using condoms until I got an IUD. Certainly worth the peace of mind. Reducing the risk of pregnancy by a fraction of a percentage is a good thing. Or, it may not be such a small percentage. Its not as though anyone can guarantee their pill taking will be perfect (stomach virus, vomiting, forgotten pill, taking the pill at the wrong time). You can use backup methods of birth control after those things happen, but if something does throw off the pill taking you can’t go back in time and say ‘ we should use condoms because I’m not going to be able to keep the pills down for two days’.

My SIL got pregnant on the pill.  Typical use failure rates are something like ~2-8% per year. It does happen fairly commonly. I would think most people would know a woman that got pregnant while using the pill.

Pill baby right over here!

Ain’t takin’ my chances. Abortions are fucking costly.

mustelid, I have met many women who agree that condom-free sex is better, for a host of reasons (not, generally, including the mess). In some countries (e.g. Australia) it is also very difficult to get non-latex condoms (which are vastly better, including the property of conducting heat). I remember a woman I knew who worked for the student Union at an Australian university and referred to the free condoms distributed there as “the wetsuits”. I think a lot of the difference for most people is primarily “just” the spontaneity and the touching. But that’s a big difference, imho.

One True Vegan, even though it remains (technically) illegal in many parts of Australia, abortion is publicly funded. And readily accessible. So the expensive bit is irrelevant. Do you think that makes a difference to peoples’ interest in doubling up? Interestingly, in Japan where abortions are viewed very differently to the West and, I would assume, much more readily available, pill use is relatively rare. Which does suggest that the attitude towards abortion influences how willing people are to use a particular contraceptive technique, or to double them up.

flashheart, well abortions are publicly funded in Canada too and MJ still doubles up… so I don’t think that’s it.

Asking wrong question ya’ll

The big one: what happens if it works and men buys it?

(think about it: all of a sudden family planning is not women “stuff” too, in practical level.  Worst, what happen if this pill is effective? ...and people are having sex like crazy? D you know how big abstinence only industry is?)

You’re missing the point, flashheart.

In a situation where there is no trust, each person will contribute their own birth control to the situation. So, if the man does not trust the woman, he will be on the pill. The woman probably does not trust the man in the same circumstance, and *she* will be on the pill. Two customers where before there was only one!

In a situation where there is trust, but medical necessity prevents the woman from being on the pill, the man being on the pill creates one customer where before there was zero.

You assume the fertility that needs to be controlled is the couple’s fertility, but the model I am proposing is that each individual be responsible for their *own* fertility. Sure, you love her and trust her, but she’s got a stressful job and suppose she forgets her pill one time? Lately she’s been talking about babies, but you just don’t feel you’re ready; what if she slips up and has an accident because she wants to have a baby? Don’t you wanna wait until *you’re* ready to be a dad? And so on.

There are currently men murdering their pregnant wives because they couldn’t handle the thought of being a father. Do you really think men are actually content with a situation where the woman handles all the fertility control? And do you really think, given the cultural history of male insensitivity to the burden of being a woman, that very many women *would* give up their own Pill because their boyfriend or husband is on his? Hell, my husband is one of the numero uno guys lining up to get this shit, and *I* wouldn’t have quit taking a Pill just because he had one too. (Actually, I’ve had my tubes tied and we would *still* like him to have a Pill… because there is an incredibly tiny chance of pregnancy with a tubal, and it would cause me incredible physical damage if it were to occur, now that I am a cyborg.)

In a situation of total trust, yes, one person being on the Pill means the other might not be. Or maybe not. Many antibiotics fuck with birth control pills for women; two people on Pills are much less likely to have an accident than one person.

I can even see how to market this. You have a commercial for women where women tell the camera how romantic it is that he’s got her back. “If something decreases the effectiveness of the Pill for me… I know my husband’s protected, too, and it makes me feel safe.” Tell men, “Make her feel doubly protected.” Market the whole thing around the sexist notion that men protect women and turn the idea that birth control is a woman going it alone, whereas both on the pill is him supporting her or having her back or protecting her, into your central concept, to avoid ever having to say “Men: enjoy baby free sex!” Men will figure it out, trust me. I mean, marketing managed to foist the concept of crappy diamond jewelry as a substitute for genuine affection onto men and women, so why not push the concept that a Sexy Man is a Man Who Protects His Woman From Pregnancy with new Virimax, the male contraceptive pill? (Or whatever.)

(NB: I do not support sexist advertising. I just think that in this case it would work.)

In 17 years of sexual intercourse with, ah, quite a few women, I have never met a woman who would be interested in such a plan or heard of a couple who do it.

maybe, being a man, you just don’t notice these things as much? you’re saying you’ve only used a condom when the woman was not on BC?? what about STDs??

I have been on some form of hormonal BC since i was 15, even though i didn’t have sex until 17. i have always used condoms when i was on the pill. I am on Depo Vera now, which is better for me in that i don’t have to remember a pill or anything.

I’ve never had a condom breakage, I’ve never heard of, met or been with a woman who got pregnant while on the pill.

wow. i’ve had lots of condoms break. i hate using condoms as the only form of BC. thank goodness for EC, which i have used when i had no insurance, and was thus only using condoms…

my best friend got pregnant on the pill. i took her to get an abortion. she uses IUD now…

The pill is statistically absolutely the most reliable form of contraception outside of slow-release implants.

this is not true.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-pill-4228.htm#effective

just as or more effective, no implants:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-shot-depo-provera-4242.htm#effective
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-vaginal-ring-nuvaring-4241.htm#effective
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-patch-ortho-evra-4240.htm#effective

“So know they have one daughter in medical school, another in college, and a pre-schooler.”

This happened to a friend of mine from college. Her mom said to her dad “Guess what?!? We’re pregnant again!” with a caboose child, and her dad said “Guess what?!? We’re getting a divorce, you cheating loser!” and presented her with the paperwork saying that his secret vasectomy had been successful and that he was shooting blanks. It messed my friend up bad, because she was old enough to realize her mom totally deserved it (there turned out to be a PI, and photographs) but too young to deal with the emotional fallout of the nasty divorce that ensued.

Is it really that big of a difference for guys?

Yes, yes and yes. Condoms are horrible: most of my female friends say the same. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, people used them because it was necessary: in my demographic, people found a tolerable partner ASAP so they could quit using the condoms and stay exclusive. Having been married for 13 years, I have no idea what the contemporary etiquette is, but I can’t imagine any woman with any self-respect going ahead and sleeping with a new guy who whined about them.

I have never heard of anyone “doubling up” on BC, and I know a lot of 30something couples who don’t want kids and are willing to talk (endlessly) about it. The only exception is one of these couples where the woman decided she wanted to have a kid after all, and the husband now won’t touch her without a condom and won’t come near her during the fertile part of her cycle. Yeah, they’re doing well.

I’m a 28-year-old Australian woman, and I double up on contraception even in long-term relationships.  I have never been with a guy who’s said, “You’re on the Pill, so let’s not use condoms”: they’re all too paranoid about pregnancy.  The one relationship I had where we didn’t use condoms was with a guy who’d had a vasectomy (and we both got STD tests before doing anything).

casey, family planning UK have a table which ranks all the studied efficacies of the different methods, it’s very easy to read. It has 4 types of sterilisation, 1 implant, then the pill. There might be a “gold standard” IUD above it, I can’t remember, but all the others are below.

Although yes I am a man, it seems unlikely that I wouldn’t notice these things as much - I do have to discuss contraception with my partners, it’s a hands on kind of a thing after all, and I discuss it with friends etc.  I don’t think they lie, and no woman has ever suggested doubling up for extra safety. And yeah, when a woman is not using the OCP (or depo, or whatever) then I would be ... just using condoms. With a zero % record of breakage or ... accidents ... doing that. In all the pregnancy scares I have ever heard of amongst my friends, peers, etc. the cause is deliberately messing around with the pill and being lax with alternatives. i.e. experimenting. I have never heard of a case of a pregnancy where the people involved really didn’t know that they were up to mischief before it happened.

I do think a lot of this discussion may be affected by the differences between american and other countries’ health systems to some extent. Witness Casey not being able to use OCP when not insured - such a decision is just impossible in the UK or Australia, where condoms are more expensive than the pill (if you’re having sex more than 12 times a month, anyway, or 3 times a month for the unemployed) and getting the script is free. I suspect you guys have some serious financial incentives to be careful.

Alara, I can see what you are getting at and I really don’t think that it would work in a young, single audience. Even putting aside the sexism in most young men’s world view, you’re asking them to use two forms of contraception (condoms and pill) to cover themselves against an event (pregnancy) which is probably covered by the girl anyway, when they know that they are going to have to use condoms regardless, and they know the woman won’t (and can’t) believe they are using the pill. But even putting aside the issue of the single community, you still have a situation where at some point a couple will become long-term, and one of them is likely to stop using the pill - at the very least for cost-cutting reasons, especially if one pill is expensive. These are all big marketing risks that the drug companies have to bear, and they aren’t going to do it. I don’t think this is just about sexism or leaving women to carry the can, it’s a historical accident.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the people who invented the original pill may well have done so from a desire to liberate women, and targeted it at women (rather than men) for that reason. According to wikipedia the drug companies weren’t even interested, and it was grants from Planned Parenthood and a suffragist philanthropist which enabled the research. I wonder if this is partly why it is so cheap now? In my opinion there are only really 3 miracle drugs which make modern society radically better than even a hundred years ago - morphine, penicillin and the pill. It seems that only one of these - morphine - is the result of private drug company research. Given this history, it’s hardly surprising that the companies aren’t rushing in to tweak modern OCP provision when it might not even be profitable for them.

Think of the kind of people who do most day-to-day stock trading. Then think what it would do for a company to be known as the people who make guys shoot blanks…

casey, family planning UK have a table which ranks all the studied efficacies of the different methods, it’s very easy to read. It has 4 types of sterilisation, 1 implant, then the pill. There might be a “gold standard” IUD above it, I can’t remember, but all the others are below.

That’s nice, but if you read what i posted you’ll see Depo Vera, the patch, and the ring are all equally as effective as the pill, with depo at the top, being more effective with typical use. so, you are wrong that the pill is the most effective non surgical procedure.

With a zero % record of breakage or ... accidents ... doing that.

Lucky you. I have had them break though, especially cheap ones. and also if you don’t use good lube, or go for a long time. hard to know which condoms, lube, etc, are good though until you go through a few.

i dated a guy who preferred to use condoms, even though we were committed and i was on BC, just because he wanted some control of the situation. which was great, but i wasn’t going to stop BC even though he would always wear a condom. hormonal BC is much more effective than a condom. so we doubled up, i guess. it was really cuz he wanted to control his fertility by wearing a condom, i wanted to control mine, by taking BC, and so we were BOTH protected! don’t think this is really a problem.

i know a few men who have kids where apparently the mother stopped taking BC but didn’t tell them. if we had a male pill, men could prevent this! wouldn’t they want to? i know i feel better taking it myself, and not leaving it to anyone else. (why i mainly use condoms for STDs, and not in relationships.. like many ppl). wouldn’t the guy feel better knowing that even if his gf forgets the pill, HE didn’t, so there’s no chance?

KS, to be fair, people like you are so rare as to be statistically insignificant.  Most people use one method in monogamous relationships.

Well, maybe it is just me and my total paranoid fear of getting pregnant again (although judging by this thread, I’m not completely unique).  But both my sisters got pregnant on the pill, my mom got pregnant with me after having had both her ovaries punctured in a car accident (and was told that she’d never have kids) and then 4 more times over the course of the next three years (with two miscarriages), and I haven’t had a period off the pill since I was 18--I have two kids, both were planned, and I was pregnant within three weeks of going off the pill both times.  So yeah, I’m a touch obsessive about the birth control situation here.

I will say, though, that sex without condoms is a hundred times better than sex with condoms.  And I’m looking forward to when we can go without again--we’ve saved up enough for me to get an IUD this fall (stupid insurance won’t cover it) and the husband has promised a vasectomy for his 40th birthday next year.

No babies and death-ray eyes.  By the hammer of Mighty Thor that is double sweet.

KS, to be fair, people like you are so rare as to be statistically insignificant.  Most people use one method in monogamous relationships.

Only because the only non-permanent method a man has are condoms, and this requires both partners to use, and many people like sex better without them. if they had more options, it wouldn’t be so rare for both sexes to take responsibility.

I feel like I’m the fairy of the male pill, as I like to follow people’s interpretations and understandings of this birth control method. On the academic side, there’s the great book by Nelly Oudshoorn called The Male Pill—which looks at the history and development of the male pill. China and India developed a form of the male pill in the late 70s, depending on the compound gossypol. But it is associated with permanent infertility, among other things. Still, it’s interesting to think about what side effects men will accept, while the side effects for women’s health seem to be totally “tolerated”. There are lots of historical and social-cultural ones why the female pill only took 15 years to develop, while we still don’t have male equivalents. Suffice it to say, physiology is not the reason we don’t have male pills...many of the comments above acknowledge the complicated relationship between pharma marketing and what determines medical “discoveries”.

Casey, according to the webpage i was looking at, which presents a table straight from a textbook, the order is: sterilisation, implanon, intra-uterine system, pill, gold standard IUD, injectable progestogens (i.e. Depo). The pill is less effective than some of the lower-ranked systems under “typical use”, but I find it hard to believe that people doubling up on their contraceptive methods are “typical” users. Careful users might be a better description, no?

But as regards the male contraceptive pill, it’s not our particular idiosyncratic attitudes towards contraception which matter, is it? It’s the drug companies’ knowledge of what the majority of young rogerers will do if a male pill becomes available. And I don’t think they have a great deal of confidence in people’s willingness to double up, especially if the cost is high.

How in the hell did condoms get such a bad rap? They are perfectly acceptable form of birth control. Condoms are 97% effective with correct, consistent use – which isn’t anymore difficult than remembering to take the pill at the same time every single day – and the pill is 99% effective with correct, consistent use. 2% is not what I’d call “much more effective,” as some of you have claimed.

Also, there are many different types of condoms on the market today, many of which actually feel good when used, and they are much thinner than even 10 years ago. And, if you are experiencing a lot of breakage with your condoms, I’d suggest trying a different brand and re-learning how to apply them. User error constitutes most of condom failures. Not squeezing the tip before and during application, for example, commonly leads to breaks.

This whole business about how much better sex feels without a condom (100 times? really? then you are using the wrong condoms) only feeds into the idea that men shouldn’t have to be responsible for birth control because the only form available to them “doesn’t feel good” (and, what? hormonal birth control is such a delight for all women).

It also sends a very mixed message to young people.
“Hey, kids, make sure you use a condom every time – even though they break a lot and don’t prevent pregnancy and they’re feel horrible and sex is 100 times better without them – but use them anyway, every time!”
No wonder teens are reluctant to use condoms. I’ve heard young men complain about how horrible sex is with a condom in one breathe and, with the next, admit that they’ve never even used on. Of course, they’ve never used them, condoms ruin sex!

So, can we stop all of the exaggerations about condoms? Seriously, the last time I heard similar arguments against condoms was from the 18 and 19-year-old anuses that wanted to have sex with me with zero responsibility. Surprisingly, they didn’t get any.

Shorter me:
Condoms are a perfectly fine choice for birth control (they’ve certainly kept me pregnancy and STI-free for 15 of the 20 or so years I’ve been sexually active – still do). And, male contraceptives should get the green light. The more contraceptive choices available to women and men, the better.