This is big. This is the future of contraception, because it works, it's incredibly cheap, it has (almost?) no side effects. All current solutions are a joke.
Hormone-based contraception feels like something from the middle ages. It has serious side effects, it has "harmless" side effects that aren't even related to the pill anymore after years of intake, but still an annoyance (migraine, headaches, yeast infections, high blood pressure, ...)
Non-hormonal contraception has its own negative aspects:
- Copper IUDs can cause a lot of pain, inserting them isn't that easy, they are ethically troublesome (eggs can be fertilized after ovulation, but the copper IUD prevents nidation)
- Natural family planning methods are way safer than many people believe (the sympto-thermal method), but don't allow unprotected sex during fertile days
- Condoms are way safer than many people believe as well (as long as you use the correct size) and won't go away because of STDs, but are a bit annoying in relationships
And there really aren't any other alternatives right now. The state of contraception in 2017 is incredibly sad and RISUG is the first attempt, which truly can disrupt (and I don't use this word lightly) the entire industry.
It will require some social shift. Men must be willing to take responsibility for contraception, but it's already happening: Recently, the pill for men was stopped because of side effects, but the men were disappointed. They WANT to have alternatives to condoms.
Me and my partner were planning on me getting a vasectomy in a year, when her implant runs out.
We've had to bring that forward a year because one side effect is also a symptom of cancer or polyps.
After removal, she experienced a huge lift in energy levels and greater stability of mood.
I have 2 children so a vasectomy isn't so bad an idea. Even still, it is an invasive and permanent treatment and I'd prefer something less so. Nobody likes the thought of a scalpel down there. Even a physician who wants to get it done.
As a father of two: Said procedure is incredibly harm- and painless.
I understand the fear, but I've seen people (even here) spread a lot of FUD about it. If you prefer something else: Sure! If you're merely uneasy about the process: Don't be, it's so common, fast and easy.
Isn't that a normal response to a voluntary procedure? Fear? Uncertainty? Doubt?
Mine hurt for more than a month. It's worth it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but hate it when people go around telling everyone that it will all exactly be the same. It ain't. Muzzle velocity is lower and the ammunition is visibly no longer standard issue. Further, the recoil action is quite a bit less intense. There's a lot of psychological stuff going on in this mind space, and discounting people's feelings about what is ultimately a primal urge is just foolish.
My vasectomy a year ago left me in chronic pain on one side, and with a significant reduction in enjoyment of sex. I have spent thousands of dollars on treatment, and will soon go for a reversal, which will cost around $12k. I'm not sure what I'll do if it fails, but orchiectomy is on the table. Vasectomy was the worst decision of my life.
There is a real risk of chronic pain, which can be devastating, and it is much more common than the literature would have you believe.
Pro tip: go to a place that does the no-incision variety and then make sure that's what you're getting. Just the first part isn't enough. Just because you read that they take the same amount of (doctor) time and so assume that any place offering them must only do those, and that if they didn't they would surely offer you a choice, don't neglect to double check.
Source: all too painful personal experience (guess what doesn't always work on the first try? That's right. Local anesthetic.)
Thank you :) Don't get me wrong, I'm not frightened away from it. I have a GP appointment on Tuesday for a referral. I think it'll be some time on the NHS but no doubt less time than this contraceptive becomes available.
> We've had to bring that forward a year because one side effect is also a symptom of cancer or polyps.
Can you please elaborate on this, or link me something? Without going into too much detail, my partner has an implant, and has been having a cancer scare recently. I would really like to know more about these side effects of the implant, which as you say, are also symptoms of cancer / polyps.
I hope it all goes well for your wife today. I know it must be a really anxious time for you both. The above happened to us in the last week so the terror of the prospect is still fresh.
That's not entirely true... I'm not saying it's even CLOSE to as easy or as cheap as collecting sperm, but woman are able to have their eggs collected and frozen for future use.
True, but women have to take drugs to stimulate egg production for harvesting. These drugs have side effects. My sister in law went through hell during multiple rounds of IVF.
Spanking one (or many) out in a cup at a collection center has virtually no risk to the man.
I think the GP mentioned that because this subthread discussed a "permanent" solution for men. Storing sperm might be a workaround for future "wouldn't it be nice.." regrets. An insurance.
I'm not aware of mainstream (or any, really) permanent solutions for women, at least not to replace contraceptives (medical reasons - like cancer - for an invasive surgery don't count).
So, if women usually don't decide to become sterile (?), the process to collect and store eggs seems less relevant.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Women can have their eggs frozen and undergo tubal ligation. That's pretty analogous to vasectomy and frozen sperm, albeit quite a bit more invasive.
Hi. I'm against vasectomies and all contraception because my religion (Catholic) teaches they are gravely sinful, but aside from this, I've read that some very small percentage of men have recurring pain for years following vasectomies- something to Google/ think about if you're considering this. Like the top commenter said, another option is Natural Family Planning - the Symptothermal method taught by the Couple to Couple League, which sells a home-study course) boasts an effectiveness rate rivaling hormonal contraceptives for couples who follow the guidelines. This does require periods of abstinence, which sucks sometimes, but is otherwise free and side effects and free for both couples. Another Symptothermal way is Daysy, which my wife and I haven't tried but looks cool since it does all the charting/rules for you. God bless and best of luck.
> "You really can't extrapolate from this paper," says David Grimes, an obstetrician-gynecologist and vice president of biomedical affairs at the nonprofit public health organization Family Health International. "Naive readers see these results, and they think [STM] is the greatest thing since laptop computers. The researchers on this paper went back and cherry-picked this data from an ongoing study from the past 20 years. They chose the users who were the best users for this method."
and there aren't any references there at all. Besides, the requirement that a couple perfectly adhere to the rules is pretty ... unergonomic.
(caveat: I'm of course not remotely anti-contraception, but it was a fun couple of searches)
When my wife and I decided to have our first child, we did basically the reverse of this method (ie, had sex exactly when this method would tell you not to). And we were expecting after the first month. So, the predictability is there; it's just the usability that makes this method not a reliable form of birth control.
> Copper IUDs [...] are ethically troublesome (eggs can be fertilized after ovulation, but the copper IUD prevents nidation)
That's only if you have some outdated religious beliefs (to put it kindly).
If you look at nature ~50% (various research points to 40% to 60%) of fertilized eggs are lost before a woman's menstruation cycle. So half are lost without attaching to the uterine wall and anybody noticing it.
There is also IVF that fertilizes many more eggs then end up being used / viable.
So the whole ethical concern about copper IUDs and preventing nidation is a misguided at best. And more realistically, it is a harmful and outdated belief clocked in arbitrary religious rules ... meant to exert control over women and families.
> If you look at nature ~50% (various research points to 40% to 60%) of fertilized eggs are lost before a woman's menstruation cycle. So half are lost without attaching to the uterine wall and anybody noticing it.
That strikes me as a bit of an unfair argument. I can't speak for all religious people, but for many there's a huge difference between losing fertilized eggs 'naturally' and inducing this outcome. Within their world-view, this distinction makes sense.
> So the whole ethical concern about copper IUDs and preventing nidation is a misguided at best. And more realistically, it is a harmful and outdated belief clocked in arbitrary religious rules ... meant to exert control over women and families.
While I agree on the arbitrariness, and while I'm not religious anymore, I once again don't think it's fair to argue that 'realistically' these beliefs exist to exert control. I'm sure many people have used religion to exert control, but most of the deeply religious people I know can do a decent job arguing why they believe what they do, I just disagree with their axioms.
> That strikes me as a bit of an unfair argument. I can't speak for all religious people, but for many there's a huge difference between losing fertilized eggs 'naturally' and inducing this outcome. Within their world-view, this distinction makes sense.
Why should that be that the case? Their intent is already to lower fertility, and with IUDs, sometimes that (unintentionally) happens with identical symptoms to naturally "failed" implantations. ;-)
Just adding on to this with an anecdote. My mother had something called norplant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levonorgestrel-releasing_impla..., it has been rebranded recently and there were class action lawsuits filed in the late 90s and early 00s due to awful side effects that were not listed) and had ovarian cysts later in life due to this device (she also had emotional problems while she was on them). It became completely debilitating to her health and required extremely invasive surgery to rectify (and prevent from ever coming back). It was actually shocking how much different she was after the surgery. The cysts can be extremely painful for up to a few weeks if they don't burst (her's didn't burst at ALL). She is more energetic after her surgery than I've ever seen her, despite being almost 50. Please be careful if you are gonna use these kinds of things and understand the risks (I know my mom's case is exceptional and not necessarily indicative of normal problems/use).
There's Parmesus Vasalgel that is going through trials in the US, based on this tech. Also, a startup whose name I forget is developing the same kind of tech. They were part of YC Fellowship Batch 3.
Untrue, actually they both use the same system (and almost identical formulation). The difference being the focus on the FDA process and US market that vaselgel is taking, you can see the cleverly worded non-answer on their own FAQ, quoted below. They do "filter" the vasdeferentia and not block it. This is actually preferential as it can alleviate a small chance of pain or sperm granulomas after a vasectomy, also quoted below.
Although Vasalgel and RISUG® are based on the same concept of using a polymer gel injected into the vas deferens, the formulations are not the same. And RISUG has been developed and tested in India over multiple decades, while Vasalgel is being developed in the United States to conform to the latest FDA and international codes of production and safety.
And
only a small percentage of men who have had a vasectomy experience chronic pain (1-2% according to the American Urological Association). Our current understanding of Vasalgel is that fluids can pass through the gel, but sperm cannot. This will likely reduce the incidence of back-pressure. Sperm granulomas are formed when the vas deferens is severed in a vasectomy and sperm leak into surrounding tissue. Since injection of Vasalgel does not involve cutting the vas deferens, this should not be an issue.
Notice the non-answer below:
Our understanding is that Vasalgel works by blocking or filtering out sperm. In the past, RISUG (a different product) was described as working by shredding sperm by an electrical charge process as they went past the contraceptive that lined the walls of the vas deferens. Vasalgel makes no such claims.
I remember reading about this maybe 6 years ago. What was memorable was that the gel was even cheaper than the syringe. It's sad how slow these things move and that we're not going to have that in North-America for a good time.
I wish it could go faster, but the truth is this is exactly the sort of thing that should go slowly. It is much better for birth control to have a certain effectiveness, after all. Since this is an injection, probably best to have good tests with longevity as well. It isn't bad to go back every couple years for this, but this is the sort of information one needs to know upfront.
Unfortunately, finding this initial stuff out takes time.
A problem in the US is that the company that wants to sell this is the company that needs to pay for the studies required to make it legal. However because it is so cheap, it's difficult for the company to make a profit. The same thing can be found with many supplements. For example, N-acetylcysteine has shown to be helpful in several forms of addiction and mood disorders, but because it is so cheap, no company will front the money needed to make it a medication. We need to change the system so that the research is paid for by the government somehow, in my opinion.
The US has orphan and rare disease programs that give bonuses to companies for tackling rare issues but you're right that we currently have a hole in the system. I wish there were a non-profit drug foundation that could go after stuff like that but I'm not aware of one.
One nit though: A ton of research is funded by the government, including drug research. We just don't have a federal program that requires commercialization of research to pay a royalty back into the program. If we did it would be a nice virtuous cycle, assuming some research continued to lead to viable products over time. Some universities have such programs in place for obvious reasons.
> However because it is so cheap, it's difficult for the company to make a profit.
Why does it have to be cheap for the consumer? They can charge $5k for this (honestly a bargain) even if the gel and syringe cost $5 to make. Isn't that what patents are for?
Many of these drugs are cheap because the patent has expired. Many times, it's not until the patent has expired that they learn the new use for the drug, but by that point, they can't make money off of it.
It shames me to think that we have a for-profit healthcare system.
That is most definitely an issue, but not one that is so much tied to the regulations making things take longer. My solution would be to reimburse the R&D costs directly (to help with risk) in addition to having govenrment-financed labs whose sole mission is to improve medicine in general. I'm not sure how this stuff works in other countries: I'm from the US and don't know all the ins and outs of the healthcare system here yet.
It'd still take some years to get some things to market, however, because some things need studied for a longer time.
This kind of thinking is harmfully simplistic. When you rely on rules of thumb ("this sort of thing should go slowly") to make public health decisions, you are going to harm people.
In the US, we suffer from an insane degree of regulatory medical conservatism. No one else in the world takes as long to approve life-saving medications as the FDA, and this is not rational; it's a reflexive political reaction to the Thalidomide disaster that isn't grounded in sound reason or statistics.
Here is an extensively cited analysis demonstrating that the FDA's extreme standards kill vastly more people than they save.
As a quick aside, your source also advocates for free-market healthcare and rejects national healthcare legislation and Medicare under the guise of individual choice.
It has _also_ published such gems as "The Scientific Case against the Global Climate Treaty" and “New Perspectives in Climate Change: What the EPA Isn't Telling Us”.
In light of that, I'll take their advocacy with a grain of salt.
---
On topic, while I can't comment on the EMA specifically, during my (extremely) brief period working alongside a medical device manufacturer, fear of FDA was oftentimes the primary motivating factor in keeping them honest.
While that's entirely anecdotal, when there are _significant_ financial incentives on the table people's morals tend to get more than a little flexible. Pharmaceuticals represent an area with _significant_ financial incentives, and, while I do agree that the FDA takes more time than is strictly necessary, it's a little fallacious to say they "kill vastly more people than they save" through regulation.
It'll be tens of dollars in India but hundreds of dollars here. It would probably be close to the same price to fly to India, have the procedure, and fly home. Plus you get a nice vacation out of it. If this becomes mainstream there I'd do it in a heartbeat, I've always wanted to visit New Delhi.
I wonder how this would effect STD rates in areas with bad sex ed? I could see a lot of people thinking 'don't need a condom because I can't make someone pregnant now'.
Not that this product is a bad thing, very useful for people in monogamous relationships.
So India in general has an extremely progressive acceptability for sex education. We have ads on national TV promoting condoms (by the govt. With Bollywood jingles) as well as female contraceptives.
You can pretty much walk into any govt hospital (which are not much to look at) and get free contraceptives and contraception operative procedures.
We have a huge govt funded initiative around sanitary napkins, which is also considered a marketing case study in general [1]. Remember this was done through schools.
The contraception debate in the US (including abortion) seems weird.
India does have a significant proportion of female foeticide for cultural reasons, which is why it is banned in India to do prenatal sex determination. This has entered the cultural psyche to such a degree, that my friends who have conceived in the USA, will explicitly tell their doctors to not tell them about the gender (yes. An Indian citizen can be arrested upon entry to India if it can be proved you paid for sex determination outside of India).
However the impact of contraception innovation in India reaches far beyond it's shores. We are the largest supplier of generics and contraceptives to several third world countries including Africa.
"India has more married women with an unmet need for family planning than any other country, and social stigma and a lack of privacy in stores has kept condom use to less than 6 percent."
Progressive acceptability maybe - but it appears Indians have very poor compliance, at least with condoms. Here's some data from the UN in 2015. India does OK compared to the rest of the world in regards to contraception. Most contraception use in India is by permanent sterilization - which is likely BTL (bilateral tubal ligation).
Young, educated people in Indian urban centers are essentially a demographic that doesn't need to be targeted because they're almost always sensible enough. Take away any of those three conditions, and the need for proper education among that group becomes harder -- as does the difficulty of reaching, convincing, and actually implementing any sustainable "culture of contraceptive use" among them.
It's what you'd expect where adults, especially lower- or lower-middle-class adult women, will almost never talk about sex, resorting to grown-up versions of "wee-wee", or oblique "that time of the month"-ish circumlocutions, if they do at all.
India also has a pretty grim history of adult men being forced to undergo (often botched) sterilization during the infamous Emergency declaration in around 1977, with a significant number of casualties. This kind of history obviously muddies the waters (as if the almost-institutional cultural reluctance to engage with these matters wasn't enough).
I must say, though, that there are more TV ads than ever, and even the occasional billboard (which residents' unions will often try to shutter on the grounds of "public morality") for condoms or contraceptive pills. AFAIK (and it's no wonder why) the government doesn't advertise morning-after pills at all, but Indian Big Pharma does (and, again, I doubt how many of the people who'd actually benefit from the ads see them or act upon the information). Unlike the situation in the US, here the driver is some kind of ill-defined "decency" rather than the threat of swift retaliation from an enraged petty deity: not that it makes much of a difference.
The TV based ads are almost entirely targeted towards the rural demographic. I'm not saying it's enough ...And whatever limitation exists is a consequence of lack of funds rather than intent.
The condom issue has been well known for decades. Since the 60s, contraceptive health in India has been entirely focused on women for this same reason .. as a way to give them the choice instead of asking men.
The compulsory sterilization was an extremely tiny slice of history..For which the political party in question is being punished TO THIS DAY.
You are right about the colloquialism around talking about sex. Actually it's funnier than "wee wee". There is a cultural bias against women being "impure" at a certain time of the month - and then being disallowed in the family kitchen. The marketing campaign around this was a version of "don't touch the pickle".
Point being - this is not unusual. But the Family Planning bodies in India are now masters or crafting the marketing and the messaging to bring the conversation out in the open.
They did this very successfully with contraception in villages by organizing women committees..And for sanitary napkins in schools.
Well, India is different I think because it's a matter of national importance. I guess the Indian government really has no other option besides forcing the idea of contraceptives onto the population. This is not a bad thing, but I just want to clarify that overpopulation is a very strong motivator, and is something that few countries in the world have to deal with.
Few Western countries. Population is a huge problem in much of Asia. We should all praise the success of Bangladesh in addressing the problem so quickly, they really dodged a bullet there.
There are two India's if you look only from rate of population growth. The four southern states have a similar accrual rates that of the west, and rate of increase in the "northern" states.
To quote the article referenced below:
"..Nine Indian states (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra) had fertility rates less than the replacement level of 2.1.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu, at 1.7, had lower fertility levels than Norway and the Netherlands, at 1.9 and 1.8 respectively."
I can't see how it would have a positive effect. HIV infection rates in the gay community have shot up in recent years unfortunately as people have become complacent with condoms. Without the risk of pregnancy one can only assume the same thing will happen in the straight community.
>HIV infection rates in the gay community have shot up in recent years unfortunately as people have become complacent with condoms.
This is not accurate in the US. HIV diagnoses among gay men have increased less than 1% from 2010-2014 according to the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/
To be fair, the straight and gay communities are really just opposite sides of the same fish tank, not two fish tanks, as a metaphor for compartmentalizing the sharing of diseases.
Keep in mind that receptive anal sex carries a risk of infection 18 times higher than that of receptive vaginal sex. Moreover, receptive vaginal sex is twice as likely to result in infection as insertive vaginal sex.
There's a correlation between substance abuse (not addiction) and infections.
> “Chemsex is a rapidly emerging pattern of drug use, not just amongst men who have sex with men as often assumed, but heterosexual patients as well,” Dr Richard Ma of the Royal College of GPs’ Sex Drugs Group told the Telegraph.
[https://www.rt.com/uk/320758-chemsex-hiv-outbreak-doctors/]
I see this as something related to the bar/disco/club culture rather than something linked to condoms.
Poor people are typically less educated and (I guess) are not as well informed about STDs as more affluent people. In countries without a proper healthcare system they are probably also less likely to get STDs treated.
Unwanted children are typically not good for getting out of poverty.
There can be a huge social stigma about walking into sexual health clinics. I'll provide an example.
In my city, the old STD clinic was in a random building with mixed use (commercial, health, residential). The clinic was on the 5th floor and not marked. You only really knew it was a STD clinic if you had an appointment there. The clinic moved into a new building and were lucky to expand into a large space. Like many new buildings, way finding is important and the waiting room was marked with Sexual Health Clinic and the elevator level was marked with Sexual Health Clinic. Even though you don't need to use your own name at this clinic, they saw a huge decline in visits since it was quite obvious when someone was attending the clinic. People didn't want to be seen in the Sexual Health Clinic.
There's likely a subset of men who wear condoms when sleeping around so they can decrease their risk of babies (a measure so they don't have to trust that the woman they're with is both on the pill and taking it regularly). They might not wear them if this contraceptive decreases pregnancy risk in a similar way. STDs may not seem risky enough to merit condoms for a portion of this subset.
This smaller subset would be at higher risk of STDs if they adopt use of this contraceptive and stop condom use while still sleeping around. If the trend continued, the incidence of STDs would increase, which would change the risk factor of STDs, which would sway a subset back into condom use.
Sounds like interesting option, but 98% efficiency seem pretty unreliable, so I will still be at risk 2 times out of 100 intercourses when not counting other factors.
Personally I consider immediately after having second child vasectomy, though if wife would agree I would do it already now (one child is more than enough for me) plus store sperm in bank just in case if changing mind, since I heard reversing vasectomy ain't that successful. Seem safer with 0.15-1% failure rate than this method.
> Sounds like interesting option, but 98% efficiency seem pretty unreliable, so I will still be at risk 2 times out of 100 intercourses when not counting other factors.
Efficacy for contraceptives is almost always measured per year. That is, of every 100 couples using this method for a year, two will become pregnant. As the article says, this is about the same level as (perfect use of) condoms.
seem very inaccurate since every couple has very different frequency of sex per year, some couple can have 100 intercourses, other will have 20 and they have same odds according some average couple?
The inaccuracy would depend on the sample size of the test groups. It might be useful to get standard deviation, or maybe the methodology excludes outliers?
This seems quite perfect in theory. Not invasive, lasts for a long time, just one shot and then you're done... I hope the clinical tests will bring good news for that project, because this is something I would do if it comes on the market one day.
Technically I beleive the only efficient systems are those where it is known a priori who employs birth control. That basically means it must be the responsibility of one sex or both. I agree with you: both sexes may be overkill but is the only fair option.
I don't get it - what does that kind of fairness buy you or society? If it's enough when one side takes contraceptives, what logic argument is there that the other side must do the same? Economically (time, resources, even environmentally; the pill and condoms eventually end up in our water or the sea) this does not make sense.
Ah yes should not have forgotten redundancy being good. Fairness is obvious: cost of procedures, risk of side effects, time spent in operation, etc is born by both parties.
> Stories like that encourage Guha to persist with the project, he said, even though patents on his invention have long since expired and he won’t see any personal financial gain even if it takes off worldwide.
Hm, in America you can get a patent term extension due to regulatory delays in bringing a product to market at other agencies, such as the FDA
The reason is that they don't know it exists. Condoms are OK, but for that drunken one night stand, not necessarily good enough. Female birth control has the problem that you have to trust your partner (spoiler: not everyone is trustworthy.)
When my son has his first girlfriend and if it is getting serious, I would get this done for him if it was available.
But this is an easily reversible vasectomy, with an even less invasive initial procedure (a couple of injections rather than a keyhole surgery).
Men don't generally get vasectomies until they (think they) are done having children. This would be a reasonable procedure to have when you are young, have it reversed when you are settled and want to have kids, then have re-done (or get a vasectomy) when you're done.
1) Vasectomies are a surgical procedure, this is an injection. Opening up the male contraceptive market to those unwilling to undergo surgery but willing to get an injection is HUGE.
2) Surgery requires healing time, this doesn't.
3) The risk of injection is significantly less than the risk of surgery.
4) LARCs - Long Acting Reversible Contraception, those that work for an extended period of time without user action but are reversible when pregnancy is desired, are pretty much the holy grail of contraception. Currently we have IUDs and implants as the only LARCs. The Depo Provera shot is sorta-kinda LARC-ish, it requires user action 4 times a year. This is intended to be reversible with a second injection, eventually.
5) Adding more contraceptive options, especially for men, is pretty much never a bad idea. Choice is good. Even with all the options there are my spouse and I have not found not a single option that is ideal for us. THIS would be absolutely ideal for us and I'm stoked to hear about it.
> 1) Vasectomies are a surgical procedure, this is an injection. Opening up the male contraceptive market to those unwilling to undergo surgery but willing to get an injection is HUGE.
> 2) Surgery requires healing time, this doesn't.
> 3) The risk of injection is significantly less than the risk of surgery.
> 4) LARCs - Long Acting Reversible Contraception, those that work for an extended period of time without user action but are reversible when pregnancy is desired, are pretty much the holy grail of contraception. Currently we have IUDs and implants as the only LARCs. The Depo Provera shot is sorta-kinda LARC-ish, it requires user action 4 times a year. This is intended to be reversible with a second injection, eventually.
> 5) Adding more contraceptive options, especially for men, is pretty much never a bad idea. Choice is good. Even with all the options there are my spouse and I have not found not a single option that is ideal for us. THIS would be absolutely ideal for us and I'm stoked to hear about it.
> 6) Its much cheaper!
2) it's not like you would have that much sex after children it could not wait for healing
Just to note, vasectomies are no walk in the park, and should be treated as final rather than a simple contraception option (though they can be reversed, just not easily).
While you can go back to day-to-date activities after a few days, there is still extra time to heal fully. Pain can hang around for a long time in some cases—even years. Infection is also a big concern, so take it should be taken very seriously.
With all of that said, a vasectomy is a much better and simpler option than female sterilization for a majority of people and has a high success rate.
Just to add, I don't want my comments to scare any males considering the option. If you are at the time in life to stop having children, and you have no condition preventing the procedure, it's really the best option and will more than likely not have any issues. It sometimes doesn't even require pain medication.
Just to note, I'm seven days post-op on this procedure :) And while I did not take any meds, I was happy to be sitting in bed with an ice pack watching March Madness. So there was definitely discomfort.
This isn't a vasectomy...it's a gel injected into the vas deferens which does not block the flow of sperm, but reacts with the negative charge of the sperm to render them infertile. The gel may also removed with another quick injection to flush.
>About 540 men have received it in India, where it continues to prevent pregnancies in their partners 13 years after treatment
Disregarding that, this is such a non-issue that you're being downright silly. Women have IUDs and implants and don't suddenly "forget" they have them.
Ignoring that there's absolutely no reason not to bring this to market because there's a small chance of user error. That's like saying "condoms shouldn't exist because you can run out."
Not only that, but even when a woman is in obvious pain and having issues which only a hysterectomy will solve (ovarian cysts) - if she is under 30 or so, they won't give it to her.
My wife and I made the decision not to have children a long time ago. In the meantime, she's had times where she went into the hospital ER for pain caused by ovarian cysts. She attempted to inquire about a hysterectomy from her doctor after these episode, only to be rebuffed about "what about having children later", etc.
To this day she still has problems, but it has waned greatly now that she's approaching menopause. She'd still like to do it just to stop having a period, but it's no longer the crazy amount of pain that it was.
I found it frustrating for her that as an adult, she was being restricted from making choices about her own body to improve her health and quality of life.
Stupid question but why would a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) prevent cysts from forming on the ovaries? The ovaries are the hormone producing organs.
well technically she can make choice about her body, but nobody can force doctor to perform the procedure, so unless she can do it by herself then bad luck
and yes i am aware you could sue such doctor or hospital, bit it's just too much have to force someone to do something they don't wanna do
Really? I went to a clinic that specialized in it, and there was no problem at all. No patronizing, very comfortable, made sure I was aware of the difficulty of reversal, but made no effort to dissuade me. The operation itself was very professional and fast and other than a few days of soreness during recovery, there were no adverse effects after a week.
how much it cost in US? though i am from EU but i would be curious if it's covered by insurance since it has nothing really to do with my health and it's just my wish for my own convenience, i should really talk to my own general doctor i haven't seen in almost 20 years or maybe i should contact some reproduction clinic
i am more worried about cost of freezing sperm since i am relatively young and you never know
Have you tried? I got one fairly easily at the age of 22. I was actually armed to the teeth with debates and arguments for my doctor, but when I asked him to perform it, he shrugged and said "Okay, I can fit you in two weeks from now"
Testosterone will also do this. There are long release esters so you only need an injection every few months. Even with a bimonthly shot, it costs about $10/mo. (On mobile, but there was a study in China with T undecanoate showing amazing effectiveness.)
Downside is that in the US, testosterone is, hilariously, Schedule III. But 5 minutes with Google should have you sorted. Can get OTC in other places.
... Obviously my comment was meant as a suggestion to look into things and note the availability of a well known substance that already accomplished birth control in men. It wasn't intended as a "read this comment and start injecting yourself".
You're of course free to attempt to convince a doctor to prescribe. Or you can buy the drugs and get a $100 blood test to verify it's real as well as do a fertility test. It's just an affront to liberty to pay a gatekeeper to allow you to change your own hormones.
Should I have children, I see myself walking my teenage son to the clinic to get this done. A rite of passage of sorts.
It is difficult to understate the importance of bringing only wanted children into this world, and that both parents agree on it. The cultural importance of this invention will be revealed in time, I hope.
Keep in mind that even though unwanted pregnancies could be a problem giving your teenage son this option will also give him the false impression he's immune to STDs which a condom could have prevented.
I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I can't fathom a parent who would go through the effort of getting their child on birth control, but not having a discussion about STDs and safe sex.
"Kids" are going to have sex, we should take every opportunity to provide them with a means to do it as safely as possible.
It's simple really. Teenagers tend to take more risks. A possible pregnancy is a good reason to use a condom, as a side effect a lot of stds are also prevented. Removing the pregnancy possibility from the equation removes the need for condom use.
Yes, I know when I was a teenager, getting a girl pregnant seemed like a FAR worse outcome than getting AIDs and dying. I'm not sure if you think teenagers lack basic reasoning skills, or if this is actually your personal reasoning skills being projected onto all teenagers.
STD risks are generally overstated. There's basically three practical categories:
1. Herpes. It's usually on the level of "slightly annoying" rather than catastrophic. Pretty much the biggest downside of having herpes is the obligation to tell sexual partners that you have herpes.
2. Things that die to antibiotics. Syphilis, Chlamydia, etc. You get them, you get sick, you get treatment, you get better.
3. HIV/AIDS. Treatment is much better than it used to be for this, but it's definitely still the scariest one.
Basically, getting tested regularly is probably enough precaution. You'd feel more regret over picking up an STD than putting too much effort into avoiding STDs, so it makes sense that people over-invest in this area (see also: hiring decisions).
>Basically, getting tested regularly is probably enough precaution.
Maybe I'm reading your comment entirely wrong, but this sounds ridiculous? What even is regular testing anyway? I should suddenly be just fine going on tinder or taking men from bars home and not require any condoms, instead just check myself every month and take a bunch of medication if things did go wrong? Or do you mean me and my partner can have sex in our monogamous relationship without condom but instead a regular checkup?
I see the first idea as a terrible idea, and the second as - while safe - a little excessive after the initial checkup when you both are ready for it.
Default to using a condom, unless your partner has a recent STD test (as measured by your estimate of their number and promiscuity of sexual partners since the STD test). I'm not saying to go to an orgy and have unprotected sex with everyone there.
It's probably difficult because you don't have children and therefore lack the experience necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
That's not to say your partial understanding is not valid, it's just incomplete.
Not only am I adopted (thus not "wanted"), but neither of my children were planned and my wife and I initially couldn't agree. From my real world experience, and not speculation, it only takes one person to "want" a child, and biology literally has nothing to do with it. I'm also not angry, sad, or pained with regret; it's impossible to generalize how individuals will respond.
All of that said, I'm all for increasing the availability and effectiveness of birth control, and hope that children make their way to an environment of love and nurturing. So, what really can't be understated is the importance of parents and guardians being emotionally equipped to respond to those responsibilities in a way that is positive to all involved.
Maybe I'm misreading your comment, but it seems like you're missing the entire point of GP.
No one is attempting to cast aside unwanted children. We're trying to prevent conception from happening in the first place for people who are not ready. In this sense, there would be no need for adoption (optimistically speaking), because the only children conceived were done so with intent. It takes out the whole, "Oh crap, I'm not ready aspect," (again, optimistically speaking), because both parties would have had to agree that they were attempting to have children.
To reiterate, this is optimistically speaking. There are always instances where parties agreed but then realize mid- or post-pregnancy that having a child isn't for them for any number of reasons. Contraceptives won't fix that. I'm not trying to trivialize your experience nor your feelings. I just think that you're addressing something completely different.
> It's probably difficult because you don't have children and therefore lack the experience necessary to develop a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
> That's not to say your partial understanding is not valid, it's just incomplete.
Thank God somebody who understands everything has shown up to set them straight.
So are you saying that, despite the effort, time, and money it takes for adoption, your adoptive parents didn't want you?
That doesn't make any sense.
While it might be true that your birth parent(s) didn't want you, there might be reasons why that is so; of course, I can't speak to that as I don't know your situation.
What I can say, though, is that my parents wanted me when I was adopted. I can't really say why my birth mother (let alone whoever my father is/was) gave me up for adoption (what I was told as a child, doesn't sit completely right with me as an adult - I'll never know the truth, though - and that's ok). But I do know that my adoptive parents spent a lot of time and money to keep me (I was a foster child before that, at 2 years of age). That and the rest of my life growing up makes me know that I was wanted.
Perhaps I'm just misinterpreting what you wrote; if so, I apologize.
To be honest, I think children adopted very early in life would have better childhoods than children raised by their birth parents because
p(parents are generous/caring/loving | parents are the type of person to adopt a child) > p(parents are generous/caring/loving | parents bring pregnancy to term)
In addition, for adopted parents, we know that both parents want the child. Whereas with birth parents, we know that the mother wanted a child but we do not know if the father did.
> Whereas with birth parents, we know that the mother wanted a child [...]
I can think of many situations where this wouldn't be the case. Poor women in states with restricted access to abortion (requiring multiple visits to a clinic that's hundreds of miles away for example); women trapped in controlling relationships where leaving could be physically risky; teens who get pregnant for socially immature reasons and end up not wanting the child.
I don't have your experience, nor do I really know what it's like, but here's a perspective I thought of after reading your post.
Your birth parents may not have wanted you, putting you for adoption. However, you were wanted in a different sense, chosen for adoption by whomever adopted you.
-shrugs- Don't know what point I wanted to make, just a thought
Religious or other social reasons aside, the fact that s/he was brought to term indicates that he was wanted in some sense by his birth parents. Late-term abortions are most typically done only in the case of a grave medical issue (for the fetus or mother).
Instead, what may have happened are situations changed for the couple. Maybe a nasty divorce occurred, or one of the partners abruptly left the relationship for reasons? Or maybe the father suddenly died? Or lost his job (or she did - or they both did)? Or any one of those coupled with already having other children. Any one of those, and other reasons, could be the case. Had something like that happened late in the pregnancy, where a legal late-term abortion wasn't available or allowed, then adoption might be the only choice for the parent(s).
That doesn't mean s/he wasn't wanted by the birth parents, but that they instead (perhaps) loved the resulting infant so much that they decided adoption would give a better chance for life than keeping him/her. Maybe that was the wrong choice, maybe not.
Oh, there are a ton of people complaining that female contraception encourages people to have sex they shouldn't be having. It's not usually framed in terms of STDs, but I'm pretty sure the STD argument here is just a cover for a moralistic argument anyway.
Argue it all you want, just don't try to force it. If you're going to argue for sexual restraint but want to let people make their own decisions on it, you're going to have to work really hard to distance yourself from e.g. the people who fight against the HPV vaccine because they're more concerned with premarital sex than with cervical cancer.
It's really rare to find anyone who merely wants to argue for it. Most either keep it to themselves or try to impose their morals on others.
I think we can all guess how that came about. Back in the day there was no contraception and the church was at the center of community life. Imagine the inconvenience and heartbreak to everyone involved from unwanted pregnancies! Especially those from teenagers, who I'm sure were pressured into suddenly abandoning their own ambitions to become unwitting parents. Pre birth control of course church leaders would council people to simply say no to pre-marital sex. Sure it'd be difficult for some, but I'm sure avoiding any unwanted pregnancies was worth it for everyone involved, and better for the community at large.
Fast forward a few centuries and that (very practical) advice has become 'word of god' moralistic. Now with modern birth control we have better ways to avoid pregnancy than abstinence. But (unsurprisingly) the church's practical advice hasn't caught up with modern technology.
Not all of them. Buddhism, for example, disagrees with several abrahamic religious conclusions on moral issues. Hinduism, I believe, has a caste system which doesn't exist as a moral controversial issue in abrahamic religions but is still a controversial issue in modern times for which Hinduism is a popular religion in the region.
Abrahmix religions and Hinduism generally disagree on several moral issues, such as how many gods may be worshiped.
Pray tell - how does one determine whether a religion is "real" or not? Furthermore, are you positing that of all of these "real" religions, that they all speak to the same truth regarding humanity and it's relationship with their deity(s)?
Oh yeah, it's great how every religion came up with the exact same views on how many women you should marry, how you should treat people who worship different gods, what kind of food it's OK to eat, whether religion should be subservient to the state or vice versa, and so forth.
"Morals are a good thing" whose morals, exactly? Let me guess, yours happen to be the correct ones?
Sex outside of marriage is wrong because it might result in STDs or children you can't care for. And technology which solves those problems is wrong because it might encourage sex outside of marriage. /s
Might have something to do with those men who preach virtue having a tendency to be incriminated in soliciting illegal male prostitutes or fondling children.
Also regardless of political correctness, the US at least doesn't seem to have any problems ruining young people's lives in order to appease to religious groups demanding to dictate what consenting adults can and can't do to their own bodies.
I mean, one would think that anyone with the minimum sense of logical thinking would understand that it is way easier to prevent 1 (as one, singular) single egg to get fixated in the uterus during the course of 28 days, than to prevent millions (as in > 1000000) of spermatozoids to be produced every single day.
But perhaps it's just me that actually looked at the obvious numbers...
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss female contraceptive side effects. I know it's anecdotal but my wife quality of life improved a lot after she stopped taking them. And it was not brand related because she used like 4 different ones.
No, but he's saying that the "pill" that you're talking about, in quotes or not, is completely different from what's described in this article, so it's irrelevant.
It also has literally nothing to do with the thread in question, which is discussing whether one should advocate for these kinds of contraceptives when they may increase the rate of STDs.
The reality is that it's a lot easier to block the sperm than the egg. The former just requires a bit of intestine, or latex if you feel like being modern. Zero side effects too, at least for those without allergies to the material.
The article disagrees with you. It references a study that says 30% of women stop using the pill due to adverse side effects. Fewer than 10% of men in the male pill study stopped use due to adverse side effects.
It's certainly obvious with minimal logical thinking. But when you think about it a little more, you realize that such an argument doesn't actually make sense.
I agree in the sense that an STD only has to impact your life whereas a child is virtually guaranteed to consume vastly more resources and go on to impact society at large.
That said, you may be surprised to learn you can live a pretty normal life with a child.
I could argue that I live a better life without children. Others could easily argue the opposite, though.
My wife and I made the decision not to have children a long time ago, and we don't regret it in the slightest. What we have found, though, is that our friends and co-workers continue to have on-going "problems" with their children.
Issues of sickness, parent-teacher and other school things, dealing with unruliness or other behavioral problems, the on-going costs of raising kids, finding daycare, time off for activities - or simply picking the kids up from school, having to get a more expensive (larger) car(s) because of having a kid (or more kids)...it just goes on and on, all the way through (and sometimes beyond) high school graduation and college. If the parents are lucky, the kid goes to college and moves away. But increasingly, that doesn't seem to be the case - we hear and see about many parents (friends, co-workers, and strangers) whose children stay at home, without a job. So they (the parents) continue to complain about that, wondering when their children will leave, or get a better education, or whatever.
It's gets tiresome after a while; it is also tiresome that you want to tell them about something you bought, or something you're doing or going to do (a vacation, higher education, a new job opportunity, or a business venture) - but you sometimes have to hold back, because you know that you're just throwing it in their faces that "this is what I have, and you don't because you're dealing with your kids".
...then there's the relief we've seen on our friend's and co-worker's faces when they (finally) say that their children have bought a house, and have moved out, or have a job, after graduating college or high-school or whatever; they look like a burden has been lifted from them (while at the same time a bit sad - I imagine because of their kids no longer being around - I can empathize with that).
It seems like children are a double-edged sword. Are there good times and good (great!) experiences to be had with children? Surely! I'll never know the thrill or excitement of teaching my child how to ride a bike, or use powertools, or how to code, or any number of other experiences (and there would be many). But with that loss, I also won't ever know the debt and trials children put parents through, the loss of time and energy, the fear when they don't come home on time.
I and my wife have chosen this; to say our life is abnormal because we came to that decision based on many discussions is to devalue our ability to make our own adult and independent decisions. Similarly, I can't honestly criticise someone for having children. All I do ask is to quit complaining about the decision(s) you made. Because that is the adult thing to do.
Don't misunderstand "normal" as meaning "good," or "abnormal" as being "bad." I have no problem with your life (I mean, why would I) and what you say about children being a double-edged sword is absolutely true.
The fact is, just by the numbers, having children is normal. But that doesn't mean you should do it!
What are you going to do with your extra money, sleep, and free time? You don't have to worry about the dating pool when you are married, something you should couple with who you are having sex with. Also the dating pool shrinks with age regardless. On ability to travel: most people eat sleep go to work go to the bathroom and spend time with their families (another reason the dating pool shrinks so significantly). And I don't know what kind of peace of mind you get by living for your own pleasure. If you're not dedicated to raising others up, either your kids or in some kind of missionary work, then not really sure you can say you're living your life and are doing anything worthwhile.
> most people eat sleep go to work go to the bathroom and spend time with their families
> I don't know what kind of peace of mind you get by living for your own pleasure
> If you're not dedicated to raising others up, either your kids or in some kind of missionary work, then not really sure you can say you're living your life and are doing anything worthwhile
Are you unable to look at life through any lens other than your own? There are lots of different types of people in this world living a myriad of different lifestyles, many of which offer plenty of personal satisfaction, add real value to the world, and should be considered worthwhile. Having kids and doing missionary work might personally give you a sense of self worth, but that doesn't mean there aren't other paths to finding self worth/meaning that aren't just as valid. Your worldview is not the only one that matters.
Not to mention, some people can't have kids (I know this is not super relevant to a discussion on birth control). Are their lives completely devoid of meaning?
Yes, having kids brings meaning to a lot of people's lives. It's certainly not the only way to lead a fulfilled life, though. In fact, with populations booming everywhere, I'd say it's a good thing that less people want kids.
I know of many people who DO have kids who are constantly bitching about how annoying it is to have kids. They smile through their teeth and say it's the best thing they've ever done, but it's obvious they're reading the script society has handed them while silently thinking "what the hell have I gotten myself into?"
> I don't know what kind of peace of mind you get by living for your own pleasure
The peace of mind that my non-existent children cannot get hit by a car or get cancer or get killed in Iraq or any of the myriad worries that are at the forefront of every parent's mind.
> On ability to travel: most people eat sleep go to work go to the bathroom and spend time with their families
I'm lucky to have a lot of opportunities by living in a first world country with a high salary and a strong passport. It seems wasteful to give them all up just to live like 'most people'.
Fear of it not being as reversible as it was supposed to be would be a pretty good reason not to use this one.
If you're married, with children, and looking for an alternative to vasectomy, that risk is lower in the sense that should the reverse procedure not go as expected, it would probably be less crushing than the same experience as a newlywed.
Freezing sperm costs on the order of $200-400 per year depending on how far you pay in advance. Worth paying if you're getting a vasectomy, but probably not worth it for this kind of (hopefully) temporary BC.
I think what most people usually miss when dismissing the "condoms fail" argument is that while it's indeed unlikely that condoms literally break if properly used (they're stress tested to ensure a ridiculous level of quality so while possible that's still extremely rare) "user error" is not exactly unlikely. It's also extremely likely that user errors will be reported as condom failures instead.
You're right, it does. It highlights the strange special status sex is given, and the awful consequences caused by that special status.
I can't think of many other situations in which (all else equal) a parent would choose to increase a child's risk of life-altering mistakes because reducing that risk would not reduce other risks as well. Don't tell Becky to brush her teeth; she might just fall down and break them out anyway.
Everyone's child is a special snowflake, but we know abstinence-only education is a failure at reducing unwanted pregnancy and STDs. What it doesn't fail at is increasing human misery by weaponizing moral choices about sex.
It highlights that people bring up arguments like this to shame people out of having sex, but refuse to consider that something as simple as comprehensive sex education would contribute greatly to solving the aforementioned potential problem.
I don't think I don't deserve them tbh, I was being super glib/lazy. I interpreted the parent as implying that was going to be "job done" for getting a child prepared and it struck me as odd.
Personally I would preach Condoms over pills (although I freely acknowledge they can fail, and indeed suspect it's even more likely when teens are the ones using them).
Its not one or the other, you preach the virtues of using both. I did that (condom and pill) with all my sexual partners before I got married and it wasn't uncommon among my peer group from what I saw.
Just like you can and should preach the value of abstinence and the consequences of sex to your teen while also teaching about safe(r) sex.
Indeed, the cultural "importance" will be revealed in time. However, I fear not in the way you intend.
There used to be a time when we as a society valued things like self-control, discipline, and tradition. No more.
What you are alluding to here is a world where we are ruled by our emotions and our basest desires without the fear or potential for having to deal with our actions. To divorce sex from children is to misunderstand intimacy, the family, and the entire underpinning of our society.
EDIT: Yeah, I know conservative positions on HN are ways to make your Karma go down, but hey, that's what forums are for right, to have your opinions regarded as trolling instead of interacting with them, right?
Marie Stopes would like a word with you from beyond the grave.
Seriously, we've had modern birth control for a century. Not only has society not collapsed but a whole number of hidden evils have been abolished (Tuam passim), and needless poverty avoided. It's our perfect anti-Malthusian weapon.
This is Hacker News in the 21st century. Tradition alone is a terrible reason to do things. I'm astonished that your comment seems to have been upvoted here.
Edit: I'm trying to keep it civil but I'm really disappointed not just that this appears on HN but it's sitting at the top of its thread tree not greyed out at the bottom.
There are valid points to be made about HN being a bit of a bubble but I'm pretty comfortable pointing out that this is a forum for intellectual honesty and you're really showing none of that. These are tired arguments (ramblings really), to the point where I'm almost convinced you're trolling.
I don't agree with nvahalik in the slightest, but I can't see any signs of intellectual dishonesty, or trolling, either.
Unless you can make a case that your values are objectively more correct than his, you two are just holding two different sets of values.
Of course society has to deal with lot's of different sets of values of lots of people, but we have democracy to accommodate for that. Simply calling people trolls for having different opinions helps nobody.
Lack of intellectual honesty? I'm sorry, was there anything I said that was false? Instead of responding to my list of illustrations all you can do is say that I'm trolling?
It's ironic because I've been thinking of writing a piece on how there are different types of reasoning, from strictly rational to the more empathetic (human?). So I cringed a bit myself writing that, because I feel a lot of HN commenters share a very specific type of "thinking" that only works for a small percent of the population and assume it applies to everyone. I see a lot of failure to empathize here, is what I'm saying.
And yet I still feel comfortable dismissing everything you said. It's not even empathetic or emotional reasoning, it's just delusional and the underling assumptions are completely unfounded. There's a problem for religious thinkers (I've checked your previous comments), which is that they aren't searching for answers, they have answers and need to twist everything else to somehow reach them. So long as you're doing that, almost everyone here is going to see through you right away.
Even if we find ourselves at a fairly fundamental level of disagreement with other community members, it's important not to let that cross into personal incivility, which this comment at least verges on.
Before birth control, it was an accomplishment one could be proud of to have children at the right time. It required stable relationships and self-control. Your family and church would give you a lot of respect if you succeeded, and contempt if you failed. It was a test that separated the virtuous from the lazy, weak, and sinful.
When such hardships are made optional by technological or social progress, most find new challenges to conquer but many regret their loss.
Birth control is old news in the Western world. But the cycle will repeat with new technologies. Suppose you're serious about fitness, you spend hours every week spinning and cross-fitting, and your abs are rippling. And tomorrow, a pill is developed that lets everyone be perfectly fit with zero effort. What do you get for all your hours at the gym? Can you imagine being bummed that everyone else is getting for free what you worked so hard for? That might give some idea what pre-birth-control nostalgia is like.
> It was a test that separated the virtuous from the lazy, weak, and sinful. When such hardships are made optional by technological or social progress, most find new challenges to conquer but many regret their loss.
And it used to be that, in order to eat food, you had to work 12 hours a day under the hot sun, which was great because only the righteous could be fed.
Now anyone, even those born to a weakling family, can get a job as a software developer and spend time chatting on Hacker News, and still feed a family. It's shameful.
Trust me, the only people with pre-birth control nostalgia are misguided men who are still alive because a) they didn't die in childbirth and b) don't have to have a period every month. I suppose you think that life before the polio vaccine was better too because not winding up in an iron lung is an accomplishment and how DARE someone just get a small needle in the arm without having to put in years to avoid dying a slow, paralytic death?
The problem with this lovely wheat-from-chaff heuristic is that "failure" results in the introduction of a new human life into a world that may not be prepared for it and will be strained ecologically for its existence. I would much rather have a world where the lazy, weak, and sinful pop pills towards an ecologically sustainable population than one where the virtuous are lauded for bringing five or six new people into existence, but, you know, at the "right time".
Me too. The failure mode of pre-contraceptive society (unwanted children) was terrible. But human nature is what it is, and many people are willing to accept terrible externalities in order to have a means to display their comparative virtue. The recent attack on universal health care in the US is an example. Many voters seem to desire a world where people who have their financial shit together will live, and others will die.
For a clear-eyed view of these less inspiring aspects of human nature, read Sapiens and Homo Deus by Harari.
I don't think you understand just how painful some women's periods can be. I take birth control NOT to have unbridled sex, but to live my life normally without excruciating, debilitating pain every 23 days.
Okay, I'm going to interact with your opinion: it's based on a mountain of lies and fallacies and that's why you're being downvoted.
> There used to be a time when we as a society valued things like self-control, discipline, and tradition. No more.
Is that also the time when people died from rubella and mumps, or when women weren't allowed to vote? Usually an appeal to a bygone era is a secret yearning to go back to a time when the holder of that view had more power over others who now have equality.
> What you are alluding to here is a world where we are ruled by our emotions and our basest desires without the fear or potential for having to deal with our actions.
Yeah, because humans /never/ let themselves get ruled by emotions for the first ~100,000 years of history. /s
> To divorce set from children is to misunderstand intimacy, the family, and the entire underpinning of our society.
And yet, I (a man) had some lovely martinis with my poly boyfriend last night before falling asleep with him. Today, I'm being productive and contributing money to our gorgeous house, and contributing to both my local economy and my various levels of government by paying a decent portion in taxes. Tonight I think I'll spend time with friends and our lives will all be that much better for spending time together.
But please, tell me more about how my lack of child-bearing sex is ruining society.
> Usually an appeal to a bygone era is a secret yearning to go back to a time when the holder of that view had more power over others who now have equality.
I don't agree with the GP at all, but I think you're reading something that just isn't there.
Nah, sex is for pleasure or for children (and pleasure), depending on how you practice it. Self-control is still very much valued (at least in my society). The self-control bit is using the available contraceptives when you're only having sex for pleasure.
Many people do not want a family. We have a sizeable population problem and many unwanted children are already born into poor conditions.
Safe sex is important, but "self-control", implying denying oneself sex, is a choice you can make, but certainly most would not. The "tradition" in the past was (still is in many places) patriarchal oppression and to expect or TAKE sex, forcefully if necessary. Colour me unimpressed by tradition.
Check out the CDC stats. Teenagers today are actually abstaining from sex at higher rates then ever before and the teen pregnancy rate has dropped by HALF over the course of the last 25 years. So tell me about the other magical time where there was more "self-control, discipline, and tradition" among teenagers than now?
By the way, we've been controlling our fertility since the sexual revolution which started around half a century ago. Since our society hasn't collapsed in 50 years I can assume additional and safer options to control our fertility won't bring a collapse.
We've been controlling our fertility since the beginning of recorded history. There's a plant, silphium, that went extinct in the ancient Near East because it was overharvested as an effective abortifacient.
> There used to be a time when we as a society valued things like self-control, discipline, and tradition
No, no there has never been a time. People in the past were just big liars. People have always done whatever they want. The only difference today is that many people have the option of being honest about it
There is a lot of social commentary on this thread.
Unanswered however is, "How will this affect relationships between men and women"?
The "MGTOW" crowd laud this development, arguing that once control of fertility is in the hands of men rather than women (a woman can always "forget" to take the pill)... something good, as they define it, will happen. (IANAMGTOW - I am not a MGTOW)
In terms of total fertility rate, what does this mean for a country/nation when one population group greatly restricts having kids in terms of moral suasion, societal acceptability, etc. while offering money to those who do have kids? e.g. upper middle class (children discouraged, at least beyond 2 kids) vs. other classes in society (have a bunch of kids).
Living in the USA I have often heard complaints along the lines that we seem to be "discouraging the smart and hard-working people from having kids, while paying stupid people to have them".
How is any of that different from the contraceptives that already exist?
Further, your notion of "Idiocracy" (believing that the "smart hardworking people" have fewer kids) doesn't match at all with the fact that IQ keeps rising in every generation in the US, and fewer people are poor or jobless than they were in the 50s or before.
The monotonic IQ increase can be attributed to improved nutrition and schooling. However, most evidence suggests that intelligence is genetically heritable to a large degree. Improved nutrition only goes so far; a really healthy pig still won't have human-level intelligence. At some point, we would expect selective pressure towards being less intelligent to catch up with us. Or, looking at it another way, we might be a lot smarter today if we had both the nutritional and educational advances of the last few centuries and a birth rate that wasn't higher in lower-intelligence populations.
Being poor or jobless has vastly more to do with (lack of) technology and access to resources than it does with your position on the intelligence distribution.
I would point out that you are relying on government statistics for your "poor or jobless" point - and many have pointed out sources of bias that call those stats into question; and also, you are assuming that the Flynn effect will be ongoing rather than just reflecting a topping-up due to better nutrition and more widespread education.
You quoted "USA/UK have lost as much as 14 IQ points since Victorian times" and cited a tabloid article.
Presumably the reason that the parent commenter thought it appropriate to to mention that it was a tabloid article was because it used the standard tabloid technique of putting a sensational notion in a headline that is almost entirely unsubstantiated in the text.
You offer as support several links, mostly just proving that people exist. But your first link, with actual information, completely refutes your statement. [1] It refers to the effect that IQ has risen by 3-10 points per decade for several decades, and in the past few years it "may" have leveled off, or dropped by 1.5 points.
The actual author of the study has said that leveling off is to be expected, and any "decline" is quite likely noise due to chance.
But regardless of whether the 1.5 point decline in the past couple years is true, the entire article the opposite of the claim that we have lost "14 IQ points since Victorian times," since you cannot reconcile that with the Flynn effect actually being discussed in the article.
Combing down through the tabloid article, almost every other study refers to a decline of "about 1 point." Your headline claim is one single interesting (though bizarre) study that uses reaction time to try to estimate IQ, and tries to compare it to reaction times in studies from the Victorian era. [2] As you can imagine, published responses to this article from other scientists has been that of skepticism, to put it mildly. [3]
I covered this in my original statement with the comment about "topping up" the Flynn effect.
The rest of your comment doesn't apply to my point, seeing as I was pointing out that it was easy to find the actual people at the actual uni's quoted, via simple Google searches, and that their published papers did in fact make the various claims.
Thus the original response of "this is from a tabloid" added no value.
I think the only value it sought to add was to point out that the source cited was, in fact, a tabloid. I don't mean that in the sense of "it's a trashy, tabloid-like article". It may be that, or it may not be. But what I can say for sure is that it appeared under the masthead of The Daily Mail, which is, literally and uncontroversially, a tabloid.
It's not a conspiracy theory to point out that there are a lot of men out there who are living lives of poverty due to child support payments due to supporting a child they had absolutely no voice in deciding to carry to term. This at least offers them some protection.
Sadly, among wealthy and famous men, there are even cases where the woman uses the contents of the used condom to impregnate herself - and then successfully sues for child support.
Like female BC, this is something that is completely invisible and does not rely on an external or mechanical method of prevention.
That sound more like urban legend, I would be surprised if pregnancy like that would even be possible. Anyway, you should use condom during random sex encounters due to risk std anyway. Nothing wrong with combining them with something else, absolutely do it. But this new contraceptive wont prevent std whether hiv or syphilis.
You've never heard of people relying on withdrawal? It was still pretty popular when I was in college three years ago, usually when the woman got nasty side effects from hormonal BC.
It doesn't even make sense. Women have the possibility to abort a pregnancy while men have no say whatsoever (in regions where the big pharma companies are coming from). So the argument that women would do more for male birth control is somewhat strange considering they have all the power in their hands right now.
That's adversarial thinking. If the man and woman are in a trusting relationship, the question changes from one of "power" to responsibility.
Today, most reversible contraceptive methods (pill, rhythm, IUD, abortion) rely on the woman owning responsibility (one which they may be unwilling or unable to carry out). Male contraception relieves women of that burden.
You would think so, but... there are women (maybe a lot of them) who think the loss of power over conception would be bad for women [0]. Read the column. I don't know about you, but it gives me a very queasy feeling. Like there is some subtext that this woman believes she should be able to force parenthood on an unwilling partner.
You are right, but that's not what the article the GP linked is about. It's based on two (IMO very flawed) arguments, one, that men having the option of birth control forces women to trust them (which may be true, but is a problem faced by men today), and two, the – quite creepy – belief that women should be able to unilaterally decide when a couple starts having offspring. (As if men were not legally beholden to care for their offspring.)
The argument in the first paragraph of that article addresses the issue of having to choose between distrusting partners, or being vulnerable to those who lie about using birth control. There's maybe some merit in that, but today, men face the same problem.
The rest of that article is… creepy. That's way more than subtext.
> At the moment it is the woman who retains control over the moment at which that melting in the bones feeling is allowed to over-take the firm "no this would ruin my life" feeling in the head.
Is not the whole point of contraception insurance againt emotional losses of control?
A lot of sex happens outside of trusting relationships. The woman with whom I lost my virginity tried to trick me into being the father for a child that wasn't mine. It most likely isn't representative but as a polyamorous man, with financial stability, I can assure you that a lot of women I've met would gladly have an "accident" with me. I sleep easier knowing I had a vasectomy.
I don't deny that, but the majority of women are not so manipulative. The GP's blanket claim "the argument that women would do more for male birth control is somewhat strange" would assume that the majority of women are so immoral. They most certainly are not.
The thinking may be adversarial but it's equally valid. That you think you are in a trusting relationship doesn't mean that trust is well-placed or even mutual.
It's not an either-or question. Both statements about male contraception are true: it relieves women of the responsibility (by allowing couples to decide to place the burden on the man) but it also gives control to men that previously only women had.
Giving men power of their own birth control does not lessen the power women have, except in the case of coerced trust (i.e., "trust that I have birth control since it's now possible, even though I really don't"), or in the case of wanting the power to deny contraception, which I think many would agree seems unethical, given the legal responsibilities men have to their offspring.
It doesn't lessen the power women have, it just gives the same power to men. Specifically we're talking about the power to decide whether to risk conception (assuming it's not mutually desired) or not in advance to the sexual encounter.
Yes, lying about contraception in order to trick a man into getting you pregnant is unethical, but it's not unheard of. Women are humans (duh), some humans do unethical things, some of those humans are women, using pregnancy as leverage.
Personally I wouldn't think this behaviour is very widespread (although I have heard women joke about it being an option -- not implying any of them would actually consider it) but considering the significance of the consequences, I think it's understandable why some men might value this risk far greater than its actual prevalence would suggest, regardless of whether this risk assessment is rational or not. The tired meme of the poisoned M&M springs to mind.
Most women would like to avoid getting pregnant by accident, even if they have the option to abort an unwanted pregnancy.
This method seems to have no side effect and would reduce the chance with another contraceptive method with 98% success of prevention would make the odds of pregnancy within 1 year negligible (and they only go down over time)
The article claims that since the executives of pharma companies are rich, white men they would not be inclined to threaten their manhood by using this contraceptive and therefore don't see a market to bring it to.
After reading the article, I agree. The shaming is just how they're trying to get Big Pharma to take it up, but you cannot convince someone to reduce their salary willingly.
this seems like yet another bash at the white male, but if you think of it there's already vasectomies and if you're rich you'll have a few children followed by a vasectomy. this is for the poorer individual that doesn't want the burden but might want to reverse it, which is more appealing to the non-rich-guy. and maybe in india* you can still be seen a virile as it's reversible. *i don't know about indian culture.
I don't know, the assertion in the article makes little sense. The white part shouldn't play any role at all in this; easily reversible male contraception has been a dream of many for a long time. These companies want to maximize profits, and it's obvious that they aren't limiting their products and procedures to what they as middle-aged men would want. If they were, there'd be no products or procedures for women.
I think it's far more likely that these companies don't want to fund trials as it won't be nearly as profitable to them as current contraceptive options. If this was a pill instead, I have no doubt that the companies would champ at the bit for it. I think it's not coincidence that they could only find a non-profit to fund the trials for this specific product/procedure.
I can imagine the early adopters: male actors, athletes and other men of high social value as a way to enjoy sex without the chance of unwanted offspring.
Or, just normal people who don't want to have a kid before they're ready? I'm 24 and plan on getting this pretty much as soon as it's available in the US. What's so hard to believe about an average guy wanting this, who isn't part of the stereotypical "cool kid" clique?
"Indeed, various apps have done for sex in the NBA what Amazon has done for books. One no longer needs to leave home to find a party. The party now comes to you. And lifestyle judgments aside, the NBA road life is simply more efficient -- and less taxing -- when there aren't open hours spent trolling clubs.
"It's absolutely true that you get at least two hours more sleep getting laid on the road today versus 15 years ago," says one former All-Star, who adds that players actually prefer Instagram to Tinder when away from home. "No schmoozing. No going out to the club. No having to get something to eat after the club but before the hotel."
The court doesn't enforce that the woman spends all the child support money. So if you get impregnated by a rich enough man it can certainly be a meal ticket for life.
Why do you assume that anyone who wants to have sex will be seeking out not only contraception, but an experimental, first-of-its-kind contraceptive?
I want to (and do) have sex and I never use contraceptives. Were I interested in curtailing the birth of my children, even before I was married, I would absolutely NOT use a drug that is brand new.
Ultimately this needs to be recognized as a convenience thing. Condoms are a very effective, extremely low-risk option. They require no modifications to your biological system and reliably prevent pregnancy (not to mention STDs).
Even drugs like "the pill", now old-school, put people at risk for scary complications that sometimes happen and significant undesirable side effects that frequently happen.
We all love science and technology and that's great, but drugs are risky, and effects are often not visible until they've been in public use for some years. There are a lot of really sad examples of this, where some widely-prescribed drug has a little-known side effect or misunderstood risk profile for some patients, and it can, and literally has, resulted in death.
One should consider the risk involved when weighing "Would I rather take five seconds to slip on a condom, or inject myself with this experimental and/or brand new drug?"
I'm sure there will be early adopters, but as someone who wants to have sex, there is no way I will be among them.
Old urban legend, that is notoriously hard to find any evidence of, and just so happens to nicely dovetail with the "Redpill" ideas about crazy, manipulative women.
If you didn't know the man in question, which would you find more likely: that a woman emptied a condom in herself in order to secretly make herself pregnant, in order to claim alimony; or that the couple failed to practice safe sex correctly (either through omission or due to an accident)?
If you step outside your bubble put your ear to the ground so to speak, you'll find the world isn't so black and white.
I have a friend who's a family attorney and I wish he was exaggerating about all the fucked up cases he tells me and his colleagues have. Women pulling every trick in the book in order to have a baby with an unwilling partner (of which include lying about being on birth control, and in one case, digging in the trash to get a used condom and attempting to get pregnant that way) more common than you think. In almost all instances, men are completely blindsided and then sucked dry by the courts.
You don't hear these kinds of talking points from feminists though. Equality in the court system simply isn't a priority to them.
>Around 10% of U.S. men reported ever having an intimate partner who tried to get pregnant when they did not want to or stopped them from using birth control. Around 9% of U.S. women reported having an intimate partner who tried to get them pregnant when they did not want to or refused to use a condom.
There are forums out there were women discuss best ways to entrap a male into paying support. If state also pays good benefits this is a way for these women to make living.
Condoms have certain failure rate, so I would find it most probable they were unlucky.
In any case, given that it takes few months of trying for women to get pregnant, the lady with this plan would have to expect to empty a lot of dried condoms. Kinda unlikely idea.
Unlikely. Sperms die rather quickly in plain air (read: not inside a vagina). Even in a vagina, they die quickly if the cervical mucus isn't perfect (because of the acidic pH environment of the vagina) – and it's only perfect a few days before/on ovulation day.
at first it doesn't seem as convenient as a pill but I don't think any man would want to "oops i forgot my pill", or say they took it but didn't and if they did that it's not fair on the woman isn't it.
- I'm not paying money to have needle injecting chemicals with unexplored potential (longterm) side effects into my private parts when the potential success rate is that of a condom. Condoms kind of work.
- "The pill" is a bit more than just a contraceptive. A variety of issues, ranging from skin problems to hormonal imabalances are regulated through the pill, which quite efficiently normalizes outliers in female hormone levels alongside acting as a contraceptive.
The pill is rarely "just" a contraceptive. It reduces menstrual pain significantly and allows women to forego the pleasure of planning for a week of unnecessary discomfort every month.
Every woman I've been sufficiently intimate with to have such conversations describes the daily pill as a small price to pay for all the benefits it comes with.
A male vasectomy is 800 bucks and certainly reversible.
I've known a lot of women to stop taking hormonal birth control because of the side effects. Everything you stated are definitely the potential positive effects of hormonal birth control, but it certainty isn't the actual experience for a lot of women.
I'm male and would gladly to take a birth control that doesn't effect me on a hormonal level, especially if it meant my partner could could stop taking a hormonal birth control. Also just of respect of sharing the burden, sounds like it would be way easier to have this injected into my vas deferens and last 13+ years then to have to remember to take a pill every day.
Many women also have problems with hormonal birth control. It essentially changes their character every day which many are not comfortable with. There are numerous cases of women no longer finding their partners attractive after stopping the pill. On top of that it's really bad for the environment. While some women might take it for the side effects, many don't, and they would be better off not taking it.
On the other hand every girl I've been sufficiently intimate with has told me they don't use the pill because it causes the exact issues you describe it helping. The pill is not for everyone.
Forgetting your comments on the pill, I'm glad you say that condoms and vasectomies would work for you, but did you consider that you might not be representative of all males?
For my part, as a man who is done with having kids, but is not ready to get the "snip" yet, a side-effect free injection would be greatly preferable to an operation that sometimes takes months to fully-heal from, or a lifetime of condoms.
I have taken the pill for years I feel like I am ruining my body. I have side effects. I switched brands, I switched to the shot (that was much worse), every one is awful. I put up with it because I won't risk unwanted pregnancy. It's the less of two very evil evils.
You're also ignoring the large population of women who the pill is contraindicated for. It also requires regular doctor visits and requires you to to remember to take it.
I'm not saying it's great for some women, it certainly is. People also take it for non contraceptive reason. Not great for everyone and not for me.
Have you considered getting a copper IUD? I switched to it 8 years ago (I'm 29) and I'll never look back. The side effects of the pill weren't so bad for me but they were enough to get the feeling it's not a good thing to mess with the hormones in my body, and I'm not good at remembering to take a pill every single day.
Having my normal cycle back and not having to worry about my contraception for whole years is so worth the discomfort when inserting/changing it.
His tone is very "Male contraceptive is ridiculous because it already works just fine for women! Here's some shitty anecdotal evidence to support my claim!"
I'd classify that as patronizing, and as a male, I had the same reaction to his comment as the responder...I've known lots of women, partners included, who avoided the pill because of its horrible side effects.
Hormone-based contraception feels like something from the middle ages. It has serious side effects, it has "harmless" side effects that aren't even related to the pill anymore after years of intake, but still an annoyance (migraine, headaches, yeast infections, high blood pressure, ...)
Non-hormonal contraception has its own negative aspects:
- Copper IUDs can cause a lot of pain, inserting them isn't that easy, they are ethically troublesome (eggs can be fertilized after ovulation, but the copper IUD prevents nidation)
- Natural family planning methods are way safer than many people believe (the sympto-thermal method), but don't allow unprotected sex during fertile days
- Condoms are way safer than many people believe as well (as long as you use the correct size) and won't go away because of STDs, but are a bit annoying in relationships
And there really aren't any other alternatives right now. The state of contraception in 2017 is incredibly sad and RISUG is the first attempt, which truly can disrupt (and I don't use this word lightly) the entire industry.
It will require some social shift. Men must be willing to take responsibility for contraception, but it's already happening: Recently, the pill for men was stopped because of side effects, but the men were disappointed. They WANT to have alternatives to condoms.