A Welsh scientist working on a new male pill wants to reduce the burden on women of protecting against unwanted pregnancies.
Prof Chris Barratt is leading research on a non-hormonal drug which prevents sperm cells from reaching an egg.
His team at the University of Dundee has received significant funding from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation.
“It’s been a very poorly researched topic for 40 or 50 years,” Prof Barratt said, but society has changed.
His team’s research could see men given a gel or a pill that would affect the sperm cell, effectively disabling its function.
Instead of targeting the production of sperm, his research focuses on slowing the sperm cells’ swimming action down and making them similar to those in infertile patients.
There have been several attempts at this over the years and at the final hurdle they always fail because men refuse to deal with any of the side effects (but are happy for us to continue to do so), and/or with the toxic idea of it being “emasculating”.
And if it ever did get past those hurdles, it might work for couples in a long term trusting relationship, but I, nor any other woman I know, would trust some random guy to have either taken the pill and/or be honest about it. If “stealthing” is a thing, believe that people would lie about taking a pill. Even if it had to be taken on the spot, some people would come up with ways to fake it. I’m not going to risk it, and I’m in the UK where we still have semi-reasonable access to abortion, I can’t imagine anyone with more restricted access being willing to…
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male BC requires stopping essentially thousands of sperm, while female BC only requires stopping one egg from attaching. That’s why female BC is physiologically “simpler”.
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risk is relative. For example, woman’s BC risk is weighed against childbirth, because childbirth is dangerous. That’s why women’s BC has a relative advantage. Childbirth isn’t something that men face, which is why men’s BC has no relative advantage. That’s why the bar for BC is strict with men. It’s because the situations are different.
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(related to point #2) trust and liability. If the man lies about taking BC, the woman ends up pregnant. The risk and responsibility lie on the woman.
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the reason why the BC responsibility typically falls on the woman has to do more so with the nature of our bodies and how far people want the sexual process to travel.
For example, we could just make it so that every man wear a condom during sex. But there are both men and women who don’t like that, because they want to “feel a more natural sex”. Condoms interrupt the natural process right at the start. What’s ideal is that as much of the process happens normally, and it is only stopped at the end to prevent fertilization. Following that logic, the sperm travels towards the egg and you wanna stop it right then before the end (for example, a cervical cap perhaps).
Women are on the receiving end of the sexual process, so if the couple doesn’t want a condom, or if they want the sex to feel as natural as possible, logic follows that the “stopper-plug” would be in the woman, because the finish line of fertilization takes place inside a woman.
If the couple is ok with a stopper plug closer to the beginning of the race, just use a condom then.
I’ll address your comment now.
Your first paragraph honestly comes off as quite toxic and bitter now that I’m reading it again. Everybody has bodily autonomy and the right to refuse anything, and the reason is irrelevant. You have 3 choices.
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The woman accepts the BC,
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the man accepts the BC, or
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both refuse and just decide that you can’t have sex.
You don’t want female BC that’s fine. Nobody here is shaming you for your choice. If you don’t want it that’s fine. But the same standard applies to the men you’re choosing to date. If they don’t want it, that’s the end of that conversation. Move on to option 3. What you don’t have is the right to scold or shame your partner because they don’t wanna take something they aren’t comfortable with. You should accept option 3 if the first two aren’t available.
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