10 ms·

The Economics of Male Birth Control

73 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

tempestn 11y ago
One problem with trying to reverse a vasectomy is that backpressure from the blocked vas deferens can cause damage to the epididymides. It would appear that this Vasalgel product would have the same issue. However upon further research [1] (not sure about the source) apparently the block is not complete, but rather relies on spermicide to kill any sperm passing the 'blocked' area. This should reduce pressure and the associated risk. [1] http://www.newmalecontraception.org/archive/risug.htm http://www.newmalecontraception.org/archive/risug.htm
- phkahler 11y ago
  But as the article says, Vasalgel is not RISUG. They block it entirely. I have always wondered why she insisted on making a new product when the one in India had so much testing already. Just take that and start trials - animal trials at first if they must, but that had all been done before.
jakejake 11y ago
I would not be surprised at this scenario - her: do you have protection? him: um, sure. I'm taking that, uh, that pill thing. I can't help but think a male contraceptive that is not visually verifiable by the women is not entirely trustworthy. Perhaps in committed relationships, but not for casual sex. I'm sure we're all nice guys here, but men in general are not exactly known for being trustworthy when they're drunk and about to have sex.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  Gender generalizations aside, there's nothing wrong with the male using vasalgel, the female using a hormonal option, and the male also using a condom. Just makes it even more effective, and everybody involved feels comfortable and relatively safe. Sexual safety is the responsibility of each individual involved.
- datruth29 11y ago
  This doesn't solve the problem of getting an STD, it only protects against the possibility of getting someone pregnant. Condoms are still the best form of protection against that. Vasagel however, can work well in conjunction with condoms.
- stevenmays 11y ago
  Meh. The counterpoint. Her: I'm on the pill. Him: Okay. 9 months later we find out she lied. Both men and women should have access to contraceptives. Saying that one gender is less trust worthy then another is ridiculous.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    Possible, but if you want us to the ignore the hugely differing economic incentives for men and women wrt pregnancy then the discussion isn't going to go anywhere.
    - AlexEatsKittens 11y ago
      >Possible, but if you want us to the ignore the hugely differing economic incentives for men and women wrt pregnancy then the discussion isn't going to go anywhere. What possible incentive is there for a man to impregnate a woman, especially without her desire? I don't think many guys are out there begging to pay child support.
      - scott_s 11y ago
        There is no incentive for man to impregnate a woman. That question, however, takes pregnancy as the given outcome. A man does have incentive to have sex: he likes it. anigbrowl's point was simple: by most measures, pregnancy is more "expensive" for women than for men, so women have higher incentives to not take the risk.
        JupiterMoon 11y ago
        Sorry how is paying 18 years of child support for a child you could easily have no rights to even see not really very expensive?
        scott_s 11y ago
        It is. But it's still not as "expensive" as pregnancy for a woman. I use scare quotes because I don't just mean monetary costs, but all kinds of costs.
- souljaswag 11y ago
  I am though. maybe we can make a website where we "verify" if people are trustworthy before drunken hookups. tryna take home a dude at the bar? just verifyhim we can even call it verifyhim. scan his fingerprint on your iphone and/or use your cameraphone to scan his eyes to verify if he was using the man pill last time he hooked up.
  - LesZedCB 11y ago
    I've heard of that idea before. It wouldn't work for many reasons, the main being "cache invalidation." i.e. it becomes obsolete as soon as somebody has another sexual partner. And at that point, you're trusting users to just update it. That doesn't even mention the privacy issues involved.
  - noxToken 11y ago
    Yes, because I'm sure tons of people will line up to have their fingerprint/eye pattern associated with contraception and their last potential hookup in a 3rd party database. What could go wrong?
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      "Yes, because I'm sure tons of people will line up to have their fingerprint/eye pattern associated with contraception and their last potential hookup in a 3rd party database." Sadly, I am also sure of this.
  - hugh4 11y ago
    Theoretically (not that I think it's necessarily a viable product) could you tell if a woman is on birth control from a blood sample?
- DanBC 11y ago
  For casual sex people should be using two methods of contraception, and one of those should be a standards-compliant condom. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nearly-half-a-million-new-sexual-infections-in-2012 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nearly-half-a-million-new... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hiv-infections-continue-to-rise https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hiv-infections-continue-t... etc
  - breischl 11y ago
    >>standards-compliant condom Wait, there's a standard for that? What is it, ISO-69? Did they also standardize the different sizes and textures? Regardless, I bet it was an interesting working group.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=45589 http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=45589 Slides from the workshop? http://www.path.org/publications/files/RH_condom_wrkshp_session5_en.pdf http://www.path.org/publications/files/RH_condom_wrkshp_sess...
    - wmeredith 11y ago
      69? Haha. It's actually 23409:2011
- girvo 11y ago
  As if some women don't lie about being on contraception...
- adekok 11y ago
  > I can't help but think a male contraceptive that is not visually verifiable by the women is not entirely trustworthy. Uh... how is that different from what we have today? Women take a pill. It's not visually verifiable by men. Surely you can't object to the idea that men have the same choices about the pill as women do?
  - jakejake 11y ago
    Simple. Because the guy can be gone the next day, never to be seen again.
- solutionyogi 11y ago
  I don't know why you are getting downvoted, I upvoted you. A big positive for using condom is that it's easily verifiable by the other partner. However, I can imagine that there is another big market where partners are in a trusted relationship (either marriage or live in partner) and would like to use male contraception.
  - dionidium 11y ago
    I don't know why you are getting downvoted Because he implied that a man's word that he's taking a daily contraceptive is less reliable than a woman's.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Because his post was extremely sexist.
- bradjohnson 11y ago
  >men in general are not exactly known for being trustworthy when they're drunk and about to have sex Jesus, I can only imagine the reaction from HN if you made such a sweeping generalization about how trustworthy women are. How can you verify that a woman is on the pill? Even more, what if she says she has an IUD? How is that verifiable?
  - tibbon 11y ago
    Its pretty trivial to tell if someone has an IUD.
    - bradjohnson 11y ago
      Elaborate please Edit: Nevermind, I didn't realize that there was thread that could be found if you were looking for it. My girlfriend had one put in somewhat recently and I never noticed.
  - jakejake 11y ago
    I'm a guy. I feel perfectly comfortable saying that guys can be absolute pigs.
    - bradjohnson 11y ago
      So can any sufficiently large subset of people, including women.
- tibbon 11y ago
  I don't think that's the point. For random hookups, people really should be using condoms; STIs are a thing. But for couples in trusting relationships, I don't see why men would be less trustworthy than women. Having an extra layer of protection outside of condoms, and being able to not have the responsibility being all on the woman would be really nice. Some women can't tolerate various other forms of birth control for health reasons.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Also it would give the male the same autonomy over their reproductive function that women have.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  What on earth are you talking about? Your post is highly sexist. As a man I want to take care of my own reproductive function. Women can already take care of theirs and a male pill-equivalent product won't change that.
jdjdirn 11y ago
Good old market forces doing thier job. /s
ars 11y ago
The Wet Heat method mentioned in the article is NOT reversible if used for a longer period of time. It was initially thought to be, but it has since been found to cause permanent damage. Also, if you need to resort to conspiracy theories to make your point, your point is probably not correct. "men were interested in male contraception. Why weren’t drug companies interested? And why are they not, still?" Perhaps because the main point of the article that there is no scientific barrier is not actually correct?
- scott_s 11y ago
  I did not see any conspiracy theories in the article. I saw a reasonable explanation of the incentives involved, and why those incentives resulted in no new option for male birth control. There is a scientific barrier, but I think the article provides good evidence that it wasn't until the past two decades that some of the fundamental research related to that has been done. That is, because of the above-mentioned incentives, no one bothered doing some of the basic science necessary.
  - XorNot 11y ago
    Except the basic science still hasn't found what needs to be done. Broadly it's kind of obvious: we either need a truly reversible vasectomy (not possible due to immunological reasons), a method to inactivate sperm production, or a method to inactivate sperm. There are massive biological science barriers to implementing either of those two options - we essentially got really lucky with the female hormone pill that it works at all. It's a blunt, simple instrument that luckily works really well. That's not at all true for men - it will take new advances in technology before we identify any suitable targets.
    - pixl97 11y ago
      >we essentially got really lucky with the female hormone pill that it works at all. Not quite as lucky as you think. The female reproductive system runs in cycles and is in many different states at different times. We happened to figure out how to use the switches that nature already has. Men, on the other hand, have one state. On, all the time, from puberty till death.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- dbpatterson 11y ago
  > The article doesn't mention Vasigel Did you read the article? About half of it is specifically dedicated to Vasalgel.
- Albright 11y ago
  Do you mean Vasalgel? The article is nearly an advertisement for it. Has a diagram of how it works and everything.
- scott_karana 11y ago
  Huh? The article mentions both Vasalgel, and the Indian precursor, RISUG. Sounds like you didn't read it?
jkot 11y ago
Male birth control is not happening, it is not just economy but also politics. There are a few methods known since sixties, with less side effects than female hormonal contraception, but those are all banned.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  It looks very much like it is happening. I have to travel to another country to get a procedure done? Oh well. Medical tourism has been a thing for a while.
  - Raphmedia 11y ago
    Male non-invasive birth control isn't happening right now. It wouldn't be viable to travel to other countries to get birth control pills monthly.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > Male non-invasive birth control isn't happening right now. Research continues, no? Its going to be available sometime soon (3-5 years), even if I have to get pills mailed from India or China every month (or I go on a medical tourism trip to have the Vasalgel procedure done). If I'm worried about the reversibility, I'd have some semen cryogenically preserved. I'm also not too worried with how quickly protocols are being developed to coax stem cells to grow into reproductive tissue.
      - caio1982 11y ago
        I've been hearing that it will be available "sometime soon" for the last 20 years.
- BeefySwain 11y ago
  >There are a few methods known since sixties, with less side effects than female hormonal contraception Such as?
caio1982 11y ago
I think this part nails it: "Any new product they could introduce would be likely to cannibalize their existing products. After all, one reason for a man to want to use a reversible contraceptive is so his partner can stop taking the pill." Little economical incentive to cannibalize its own market. That makes so much more sense than conspiracy theories preventing this from happening. I disregard real "scientific barriers" here because I believe capitalism would have driven science to where it wanted anyway -- hell, there's very little stuff in the world that won't see any meaningful progress after 50 years of research.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  I doubt that's actually true for most use cases, though. I think for most people it offers security for the male only. People always want to keep their own sexual health under their own control. I would be hesitant to say that most sex happens in relationships between two long-term exclusive partners. Therefore, there would be many people still interested in taking the daily pill or other birth control options for their own protection, instead of taking their sexual partner at their word. Also, if you find the fact that economics or whatever has prevented male birth control, consider donating to the Parsemus Foundation who is actively working on the Vasalgel product. http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/ http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/
  - caio1982 11y ago
    Well, that was one reason only. I'd include myself in the group of paranoid sexual partners too, by the way. Still, I believe the economical incentive is missing here, as the industry might just think there are plenty of crappy alternatives and yet people complain very little about not having a male pill. Why would they bother in cannibalizing their own products then?
    - LesZedCB 11y ago
      They currently make $0 per year from males. I don't pay for my SO's birth control. I asked her if she would stop taking hers and she said no. Interestingly, she's no longer on daily pill, but a method that's effective for 3 years. There's also the IUD which lasts as long as Vasalgel, though is pretty invasive. Those option exist for women, but they are afraid to cannabalize their own product? I'm not convinced those numbers add up.
radarsat1 11y ago
Could Vasalgel be used in fallopian tubes? Why are there not more options for mechanical, reversible birth control for women that don't involve hormones? The economics of regularly-taken pills seem to disadvantage everybody (except the drug companies.)
Mz 11y ago
I think "economics" does not begin to explain why this is the way it is. I think it is far more complicated than "well, companies have no financial incentive to develop this." Condoms are not just birth control. They are protection from STDs. Hormonal birth control has a lot of side effects. If a man has certain side effects, sex can simply not happen. Then, what's the point? You can skip the drugs and just not have sex. Done. Many people are incredibly uncomfortable discussing birth control in "casual sex"/dating type situations. It is far easier to assume it is on her or use a condom. The heat the testicles method provides no proof it is being practiced and no means to show he is temporarily sterile. Plus another comment in this discussion indicates it was eventually shown to cause permanent damage. Her giggling comments about sex suggest she has no clue what sex is like for a great many people. Her saying that the withdrawal method is something where he has to do it but she has to not protest because it feels too good -- a lot of women do not have orgasms from penetration. There is enormous amounts of shitty stuff that goes on behind closed doors for a great many couples and this woman sounds like she has no clue what the landscape looks like in that regard. I am just flabbergasted.

73 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

One problem with trying to reverse a vasectomy is that backpressure from the blocked vas deferens can cause damage to the epididymides. It would appear that this Vasalgel product would have the same issue. However upon further research [1] (not sure about the source) apparently the block is not complete, but rather relies on spermicide to kill any sperm passing the 'blocked' area. This should reduce pressure and the associated risk. [1] http://www.newmalecontraception.org/archive/risug.htm http://www.newmalecontraception.org/archive/risug.htm

phkahler 11y ago
But as the article says, Vasalgel is not RISUG. They block it entirely. I have always wondered why she insisted on making a new product when the one in India had so much testing already. Just take that and start trials - animal trials at first if they must, but that had all been done before.

jakejake 11y ago

I would not be surprised at this scenario - her: do you have protection? him: um, sure. I'm taking that, uh, that pill thing. I can't help but think a male contraceptive that is not visually verifiable by the women is not entirely trustworthy. Perhaps in committed relationships, but not for casual sex. I'm sure we're all nice guys here, but men in general are not exactly known for being trustworthy when they're drunk and about to have sex.

LesZedCB 11y ago
Gender generalizations aside, there's nothing wrong with the male using vasalgel, the female using a hormonal option, and the male also using a condom. Just makes it even more effective, and everybody involved feels comfortable and relatively safe. Sexual safety is the responsibility of each individual involved.
datruth29 11y ago
This doesn't solve the problem of getting an STD, it only protects against the possibility of getting someone pregnant. Condoms are still the best form of protection against that. Vasagel however, can work well in conjunction with condoms.
stevenmays 11y ago
Meh. The counterpoint. Her: I'm on the pill. Him: Okay. 9 months later we find out she lied. Both men and women should have access to contraceptives. Saying that one gender is less trust worthy then another is ridiculous.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  Possible, but if you want us to the ignore the hugely differing economic incentives for men and women wrt pregnancy then the discussion isn't going to go anywhere.
  - AlexEatsKittens 11y ago
    >Possible, but if you want us to the ignore the hugely differing economic incentives for men and women wrt pregnancy then the discussion isn't going to go anywhere. What possible incentive is there for a man to impregnate a woman, especially without her desire? I don't think many guys are out there begging to pay child support.
    - scott_s 11y ago
      There is no incentive for man to impregnate a woman. That question, however, takes pregnancy as the given outcome. A man does have incentive to have sex: he likes it. anigbrowl's point was simple: by most measures, pregnancy is more "expensive" for women than for men, so women have higher incentives to not take the risk.
      - JupiterMoon 11y ago
        Sorry how is paying 18 years of child support for a child you could easily have no rights to even see not really very expensive?
        scott_s 11y ago
        It is. But it's still not as "expensive" as pregnancy for a woman. I use scare quotes because I don't just mean monetary costs, but all kinds of costs.
souljaswag 11y ago
I am though. maybe we can make a website where we "verify" if people are trustworthy before drunken hookups. tryna take home a dude at the bar? just verifyhim we can even call it verifyhim. scan his fingerprint on your iphone and/or use your cameraphone to scan his eyes to verify if he was using the man pill last time he hooked up.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  I've heard of that idea before. It wouldn't work for many reasons, the main being "cache invalidation." i.e. it becomes obsolete as soon as somebody has another sexual partner. And at that point, you're trusting users to just update it. That doesn't even mention the privacy issues involved.
- noxToken 11y ago
  Yes, because I'm sure tons of people will line up to have their fingerprint/eye pattern associated with contraception and their last potential hookup in a 3rd party database. What could go wrong?
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    "Yes, because I'm sure tons of people will line up to have their fingerprint/eye pattern associated with contraception and their last potential hookup in a 3rd party database." Sadly, I am also sure of this.
- hugh4 11y ago
  Theoretically (not that I think it's necessarily a viable product) could you tell if a woman is on birth control from a blood sample?
DanBC 11y ago
For casual sex people should be using two methods of contraception, and one of those should be a standards-compliant condom. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nearly-half-a-million-new-sexual-infections-in-2012 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nearly-half-a-million-new... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hiv-infections-continue-to-rise https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hiv-infections-continue-t... etc
- breischl 11y ago
  >>standards-compliant condom Wait, there's a standard for that? What is it, ISO-69? Did they also standardize the different sizes and textures? Regardless, I bet it was an interesting working group.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=45589 http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=45589 Slides from the workshop? http://www.path.org/publications/files/RH_condom_wrkshp_session5_en.pdf http://www.path.org/publications/files/RH_condom_wrkshp_sess...
  - wmeredith 11y ago
    69? Haha. It's actually 23409:2011
girvo 11y ago
As if some women don't lie about being on contraception...
adekok 11y ago
> I can't help but think a male contraceptive that is not visually verifiable by the women is not entirely trustworthy. Uh... how is that different from what we have today? Women take a pill. It's not visually verifiable by men. Surely you can't object to the idea that men have the same choices about the pill as women do?
- jakejake 11y ago
  Simple. Because the guy can be gone the next day, never to be seen again.
solutionyogi 11y ago
I don't know why you are getting downvoted, I upvoted you. A big positive for using condom is that it's easily verifiable by the other partner. However, I can imagine that there is another big market where partners are in a trusted relationship (either marriage or live in partner) and would like to use male contraception.
- dionidium 11y ago
  I don't know why you are getting downvoted Because he implied that a man's word that he's taking a daily contraceptive is less reliable than a woman's.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Because his post was extremely sexist.
bradjohnson 11y ago
>men in general are not exactly known for being trustworthy when they're drunk and about to have sex Jesus, I can only imagine the reaction from HN if you made such a sweeping generalization about how trustworthy women are. How can you verify that a woman is on the pill? Even more, what if she says she has an IUD? How is that verifiable?
- tibbon 11y ago
  Its pretty trivial to tell if someone has an IUD.
  - bradjohnson 11y ago
    Elaborate please Edit: Nevermind, I didn't realize that there was thread that could be found if you were looking for it. My girlfriend had one put in somewhat recently and I never noticed.
- jakejake 11y ago
  I'm a guy. I feel perfectly comfortable saying that guys can be absolute pigs.
  - bradjohnson 11y ago
    So can any sufficiently large subset of people, including women.
tibbon 11y ago
I don't think that's the point. For random hookups, people really should be using condoms; STIs are a thing. But for couples in trusting relationships, I don't see why men would be less trustworthy than women. Having an extra layer of protection outside of condoms, and being able to not have the responsibility being all on the woman would be really nice. Some women can't tolerate various other forms of birth control for health reasons.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Also it would give the male the same autonomy over their reproductive function that women have.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
What on earth are you talking about? Your post is highly sexist. As a man I want to take care of my own reproductive function. Women can already take care of theirs and a male pill-equivalent product won't change that.

jdjdirn 11y ago

Good old market forces doing thier job. /s

ars 11y ago

The Wet Heat method mentioned in the article is NOT reversible if used for a longer period of time. It was initially thought to be, but it has since been found to cause permanent damage. Also, if you need to resort to conspiracy theories to make your point, your point is probably not correct. "men were interested in male contraception. Why weren’t drug companies interested? And why are they not, still?" Perhaps because the main point of the article that there is no scientific barrier is not actually correct?

scott_s 11y ago
I did not see any conspiracy theories in the article. I saw a reasonable explanation of the incentives involved, and why those incentives resulted in no new option for male birth control. There is a scientific barrier, but I think the article provides good evidence that it wasn't until the past two decades that some of the fundamental research related to that has been done. That is, because of the above-mentioned incentives, no one bothered doing some of the basic science necessary.
- XorNot 11y ago
  Except the basic science still hasn't found what needs to be done. Broadly it's kind of obvious: we either need a truly reversible vasectomy (not possible due to immunological reasons), a method to inactivate sperm production, or a method to inactivate sperm. There are massive biological science barriers to implementing either of those two options - we essentially got really lucky with the female hormone pill that it works at all. It's a blunt, simple instrument that luckily works really well. That's not at all true for men - it will take new advances in technology before we identify any suitable targets.
  - pixl97 11y ago
    >we essentially got really lucky with the female hormone pill that it works at all. Not quite as lucky as you think. The female reproductive system runs in cycles and is in many different states at different times. We happened to figure out how to use the switches that nature already has. Men, on the other hand, have one state. On, all the time, from puberty till death.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dbpatterson 11y ago
> The article doesn't mention Vasigel Did you read the article? About half of it is specifically dedicated to Vasalgel.
Albright 11y ago
Do you mean Vasalgel? The article is nearly an advertisement for it. Has a diagram of how it works and everything.
scott_karana 11y ago
Huh? The article mentions both Vasalgel, and the Indian precursor, RISUG. Sounds like you didn't read it?

jkot 11y ago

Male birth control is not happening, it is not just economy but also politics. There are a few methods known since sixties, with less side effects than female hormonal contraception, but those are all banned.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
It looks very much like it is happening. I have to travel to another country to get a procedure done? Oh well. Medical tourism has been a thing for a while.
- Raphmedia 11y ago
  Male non-invasive birth control isn't happening right now. It wouldn't be viable to travel to other countries to get birth control pills monthly.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    > Male non-invasive birth control isn't happening right now. Research continues, no? Its going to be available sometime soon (3-5 years), even if I have to get pills mailed from India or China every month (or I go on a medical tourism trip to have the Vasalgel procedure done). If I'm worried about the reversibility, I'd have some semen cryogenically preserved. I'm also not too worried with how quickly protocols are being developed to coax stem cells to grow into reproductive tissue.
    - caio1982 11y ago
      I've been hearing that it will be available "sometime soon" for the last 20 years.
BeefySwain 11y ago
>There are a few methods known since sixties, with less side effects than female hormonal contraception Such as?

caio1982 11y ago

I think this part nails it: "Any new product they could introduce would be likely to cannibalize their existing products. After all, one reason for a man to want to use a reversible contraceptive is so his partner can stop taking the pill." Little economical incentive to cannibalize its own market. That makes so much more sense than conspiracy theories preventing this from happening. I disregard real "scientific barriers" here because I believe capitalism would have driven science to where it wanted anyway -- hell, there's very little stuff in the world that won't see any meaningful progress after 50 years of research.

LesZedCB 11y ago
I doubt that's actually true for most use cases, though. I think for most people it offers security for the male only. People always want to keep their own sexual health under their own control. I would be hesitant to say that most sex happens in relationships between two long-term exclusive partners. Therefore, there would be many people still interested in taking the daily pill or other birth control options for their own protection, instead of taking their sexual partner at their word. Also, if you find the fact that economics or whatever has prevented male birth control, consider donating to the Parsemus Foundation who is actively working on the Vasalgel product. http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/ http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/
- caio1982 11y ago
  Well, that was one reason only. I'd include myself in the group of paranoid sexual partners too, by the way. Still, I believe the economical incentive is missing here, as the industry might just think there are plenty of crappy alternatives and yet people complain very little about not having a male pill. Why would they bother in cannibalizing their own products then?
  - LesZedCB 11y ago
    They currently make $0 per year from males. I don't pay for my SO's birth control. I asked her if she would stop taking hers and she said no. Interestingly, she's no longer on daily pill, but a method that's effective for 3 years. There's also the IUD which lasts as long as Vasalgel, though is pretty invasive. Those option exist for women, but they are afraid to cannabalize their own product? I'm not convinced those numbers add up.

radarsat1 11y ago

Could Vasalgel be used in fallopian tubes? Why are there not more options for mechanical, reversible birth control for women that don't involve hormones? The economics of regularly-taken pills seem to disadvantage everybody (except the drug companies.)

Mz 11y ago

I think "economics" does not begin to explain why this is the way it is. I think it is far more complicated than "well, companies have no financial incentive to develop this." Condoms are not just birth control. They are protection from STDs. Hormonal birth control has a lot of side effects. If a man has certain side effects, sex can simply not happen. Then, what's the point? You can skip the drugs and just not have sex. Done. Many people are incredibly uncomfortable discussing birth control in "casual sex"/dating type situations. It is far easier to assume it is on her or use a condom. The heat the testicles method provides no proof it is being practiced and no means to show he is temporarily sterile. Plus another comment in this discussion indicates it was eventually shown to cause permanent damage. Her giggling comments about sex suggest she has no clue what sex is like for a great many people. Her saying that the withdrawal method is something where he has to do it but she has to not protest because it feels too good -- a lot of women do not have orgasms from penetration. There is enormous amounts of shitty stuff that goes on behind closed doors for a great many couples and this woman sounds like she has no clue what the landscape looks like in that regard. I am just flabbergasted.