A male contraceptive…
Hands up if you automatically associate the words ‘male contraceptive’ with a condom?!
I know that I did.
This isn’t a blog about gender so, for the purposes of this post, when I say men, I mean people with a penis.
A condom goes on a penis… So that makes it the man’s responsibility, right?
Wrong.
I think there has been such a negative stigma attached to someone who carries a condom - that they’re being presumptuous, that they’re expecting sex, that they’re sleeping around…
Except I think that carrying a condom really shows that - regardless of your sex or gender - you are promoting and encouraging safe sex.
And yet despite the age-old banana lesson that seems to be the only part of sex education from school that anyone can remember… It’s actually quite astounding how many people, men included, still don’t know how to properly use a condom.
PLUS condoms are not just for penises. You can actually get internal condoms for vaginas too. In heterosexual, cis gendered sex they obviously protect against unwanted pregnancy - but, for everyone, they also play a REALLY important role in protecting against STIs too.
STIs are not what this post is about either - that’s a whole other conversation, one that I’m sure we will be having again soon.
So let’s get to the point…
I obviously have a lot of conversations, almost daily, with people who are taking, considering taking or coming off of hormonal contraceptives. Women (in this case, people with vaginas).
As a result of those conversations, the next question that is almost ALWAYS asked is… why do men not have to take these?
Why is there not a male contraceptive pill?
Why is there not a male contraceptive anything?!
I might have an explanation.
This is actually a conversation that came up during my training as a Sex Educator and provoked, as you can imagine, quite a heated discussion amongst the group.
Apparently (I say this because I am not a researcher or a scientist) the main reason is because the risk of a woman getting pregnant and going through childbirth is significant enough to warrant the potential risks and side effects of a birth control pill, for example. However, since men don’t have the risk of pregnancy and everything that comes along with that, it means that the safety standards would have to be MUCH higher because there is no comparative risk that it is protecting them from.
There are other arguments that suggest men are at a greater risk because they produce sperm all of the time - whereas women produce only one egg throughout the whole cycle. However, knowing what I know and what I teach, it really concerns me how little importance is attached to the rest of the cycle.
Even in pharmaceutical medicine, there is evidence that certain drugs are more or less effective at different times in the menstrual cycle because of the fluctuating hormones. This has also been attributed as a reason for not testing on women (or even female animals) and it is only relatively recently that more research has started to be undertaken to evidence the impact that certain medicines could have for women as well as for men.
Yet, the only other contraceptive option for men is still currently only a permanent vasectomy.
Research is being undertaken into new, innovative technology and a proposal for a reversible male contraceptive device - COSO - actually won the James Dyson Award in 2021. Although it is not currently in development, it is exciting that new options are, at the very least, being considered.
So this is really just the beginning of the conversation.
Something that I personally hope will gain a lot more traction over the coming years and decades to really challenge the social norms from a bygone era and pave a new way forwards…