5 ms·

It shows 65% being infertile within 4 months and some hadn't become fertile again thereafter. Totally aside from side effects that seems to me to be useless.

anon291 3y ago
It takes about four months for one sperm to form so really any male birth control short of a semen valve is going to have that latency. Is sex education that bad? Do people think it's made on demand?
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  The knowledge(?) that it takes 4 months for sperm to form is certainly not common knowledge. I've never heard it before. I haven't looked it up yet, but I'm definitely questioning whether this is even scientifically accepted
  - brnt 3y ago
    Talk to a fertility specialist sometime. You'll discover many new things that you hadnt heard of yet. It was a great example for me of mass ignorance. Tons of stuff, including this, are very well established, but since we live is such an individualized society where interactions with kids and parents are no longer something that happens at all ages continuously throughout life, and your similarly aged friends for the same reason neither, could it happen that such facts simply never pop up until somebody runs into them. In 30 years, you'll not believe established science about aging.
    - moi2388 3y ago
      It’s actually between 60-70 days, which is 2–2,5 months.
      - brnt 3y ago
        Plus, some personal variability. 3-4mo is a good amount to take into account, if you ever need to.
        moi2388 3y ago
        Variance generally goes both ways. If the true average is 2-2,5 months you should take that as average expected value, not 4 months. Following your logic it’s equally valid to claim 0 months lol
        brnt 3y ago
        No, thats not how calculating quantities with tolerances work. Lol.
        anon291 3y ago
        Without any further information, given what we know about sperm production (it's a physical process for which we're measuring time), the expected distribution is not normal (probably exponential or something). The claim that 'variance goes both ways' is wrong. Variance can only go one way. It can go one way mostly, or it can go bothways, or it can take a U shape. It all depends on the distribution of the events. If we take it to be a simple exponential distribution with mean 66 days, then lambda = 1/66. and variance is 4356 or a standard deviation of 66 days as well. In that case, by month 4, about 83% of men would be expected to have sperm in their semen. To delve deeper, what you're missing here is the idea of skewness and kurtosis. These are the 'higher moments' of the probability distribution function (natural extensions of mean, variance, etc). In particular, the skewness is where you're getting hung up. You assume in your first sentence that the skewness of every pdf is zero (i.e., it 'goes both ways'). That is not generally the case. In particular, the skewness of the 'time to first sperm' distribution must be very positive because it can never be below zero.
        moi2388 3y ago
        Most biological processes are modelled and assumed as being normally distributed due to the central limit theorem. If you were talking about how much sperm they had exponential would indeed be better. But we’re not. Just if they have any. If the average time it takes is 2,5 months, you should expect to wait on average 2,5 months, not 4. That is indeed not the same as asking when do 83% of men have sperm, since 83% is not the average.
- penjelly 3y ago
  the possibility of permanent infertility is a dealbreaker for me, even if its small.
  - pixelpoet 3y ago
    That's the desired effect for me, I'd have had a vasectomy already if it seemed safe enough. Pretty much 100% of the anecdotes you get are people saying it's nothing and they were powerlifting the next day, but then you look up the incidence of chronic ballache...
  - anon291 3y ago
    I think that would be a dealbreaker for most. My only purpose here was to point out that even if you had an on/off switch for sperm production, the latency between starting/stopping the treatment and seeing a cessation/initiation of sperm in the semen is going to be on the order of several months

anon291 3y ago

It takes about four months for one sperm to form so really any male birth control short of a semen valve is going to have that latency. Is sex education that bad? Do people think it's made on demand?

pcthrowaway 3y ago
The knowledge(?) that it takes 4 months for sperm to form is certainly not common knowledge. I've never heard it before. I haven't looked it up yet, but I'm definitely questioning whether this is even scientifically accepted
- brnt 3y ago
  Talk to a fertility specialist sometime. You'll discover many new things that you hadnt heard of yet. It was a great example for me of mass ignorance. Tons of stuff, including this, are very well established, but since we live is such an individualized society where interactions with kids and parents are no longer something that happens at all ages continuously throughout life, and your similarly aged friends for the same reason neither, could it happen that such facts simply never pop up until somebody runs into them. In 30 years, you'll not believe established science about aging.
  - moi2388 3y ago
    It’s actually between 60-70 days, which is 2–2,5 months.
    - brnt 3y ago
      Plus, some personal variability. 3-4mo is a good amount to take into account, if you ever need to.
      - moi2388 3y ago
        Variance generally goes both ways. If the true average is 2-2,5 months you should take that as average expected value, not 4 months. Following your logic it’s equally valid to claim 0 months lol
        brnt 3y ago
        No, thats not how calculating quantities with tolerances work. Lol.
        anon291 3y ago
        Without any further information, given what we know about sperm production (it's a physical process for which we're measuring time), the expected distribution is not normal (probably exponential or something). The claim that 'variance goes both ways' is wrong. Variance can only go one way. It can go one way mostly, or it can go bothways, or it can take a U shape. It all depends on the distribution of the events. If we take it to be a simple exponential distribution with mean 66 days, then lambda = 1/66. and variance is 4356 or a standard deviation of 66 days as well. In that case, by month 4, about 83% of men would be expected to have sperm in their semen. To delve deeper, what you're missing here is the idea of skewness and kurtosis. These are the 'higher moments' of the probability distribution function (natural extensions of mean, variance, etc). In particular, the skewness is where you're getting hung up. You assume in your first sentence that the skewness of every pdf is zero (i.e., it 'goes both ways'). That is not generally the case. In particular, the skewness of the 'time to first sperm' distribution must be very positive because it can never be below zero.
        moi2388 3y ago
        Most biological processes are modelled and assumed as being normally distributed due to the central limit theorem. If you were talking about how much sperm they had exponential would indeed be better. But we’re not. Just if they have any. If the average time it takes is 2,5 months, you should expect to wait on average 2,5 months, not 4. That is indeed not the same as asking when do 83% of men have sperm, since 83% is not the average.
penjelly 3y ago
the possibility of permanent infertility is a dealbreaker for me, even if its small.
- pixelpoet 3y ago
  That's the desired effect for me, I'd have had a vasectomy already if it seemed safe enough. Pretty much 100% of the anecdotes you get are people saying it's nothing and they were powerlifting the next day, but then you look up the incidence of chronic ballache...
- anon291 3y ago
  I think that would be a dealbreaker for most. My only purpose here was to point out that even if you had an on/off switch for sperm production, the latency between starting/stopping the treatment and seeing a cessation/initiation of sperm in the semen is going to be on the order of several months