It’s going to change EVERYTHING.
The world will not be the same when it inevitably arrives. No, I’m not talking about global warming, or the next recession, or war with Iran or China. I’m talking about new male contraceptives which are currently being developed.
Most exciting is the development of a non-hormonal male birth control pill (NHMBCP) by Prof. Haim Breitbart of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. The professor claims that the pill, when it arrives, needs only be taken once every month, or every three months depending on dosage, and being non-hormonal has no side effects and is also harmless to long term male fertility (being easily reversible upon not taking it). (1) (2)
Of note also is that the Israeli effort is only one of several different kinds of developments taking place concurrently in different countries globally, with a focus on producing a male birth control pill. Such efforts are apparently underway alongside traditional native non-medical approaches in China, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Africa, USA and U.K. (3) (4) (5) (6)
Scour the internet, as I did recently, looking for feminist commentary on the topic of the imminent non-hormonal male birth control pill (NHMBCP) and chances are that you’ll find a huge and telling silence. I say huge because I can think of no other aspect of sexuality and reproduction that feminists aren’t talking about. Female birth control, conception, childbirth, abortion, adoption – they’re all covered extensively from a feminist point of view with articles, academic papers and blogs easily accessible. All of this, yet when it comes to the topic of the non-hormonal male birth control pill, and other forms of male only contraception – wall to wall silence.
Something is up. Something very big I figure.
The answer as to why such a silence exists seems fairly obvious to me as it’s contained within the very name of the product itself:
Male non hormonal birth control pill.
Strip some of the words away and you’re left with two words that will surely strike fear into the heart of feminist ideologues – “male control”. I don’t think this is some frivolous exercise in semantics either.
“Male control” – anathema to feminists, who as we know are all about creating and maintaining female supremacy. A fact borne out (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) and skillfully elucidated time and time again on this website and borne out by their willfully ignoring men’s plight whilst actively seeking further female advantages plus being silently and tacitly complicit about that process as well. No wonder they are verbally frozen. They know the jig is up.
Here’s a quick list of what’s on offer for feminists with the advent of the NHMBCP –
- Male pill = end of paternity fraud
- Male pill = reproduction on men’s terms
- Male pill = massive drop in the numbers of women being able to become single parents by choice as a lifestyle funded collectively by men
- Male pill = scarcity of sperm. Sperm banks already can’t meet demand. This will create much more male ‘fertility value’.
- Male pill = increased male political power as men will be able to hold out on reproducing with biologically ticking women everywhere – until men are granted long overdue human rights translated into laws and social conventions which treat men as equals.
Now, I don’t think the NHMBCP will be the magic bullet that totally slays feminism. However, I’ve thought about this topic many times over the last year or so and do strongly suspect though that it will go a long way towards that end. I’ve reasoned out but a few of the enormous social ramifications of its inception and want to offer some thoughts to open up discussion. I’m glad to see that amongst a few men at least that discussion is apparently already underway. It seems the timing is ripe, as men’s concerns regarding reproductive rights is starting to be voiced online.
Here are a couple of examples from recent blog threads discussing the NHMBCP –
“The most important point with all of this is now Men can control their own reproductive fate. Now THEY can avoid parenthood for as long as they wish. They cannot be tricked, duped, or fraudulently trapped into unwanted parenthood. HE can now be in control of his reproduction. And don’t say that he can be in control right now. It is simply not that easy when a woman states that she is on the pill – and she may be. But suddenly turns up pregnant.
In a recent survey in Great Britain >40% of women surveyed indicated they would LIE to their “partner” about birth control if they wanted to have a baby. This is FRAUD! But unfortunately this is legal. And THAT is why this Male Birth Control pill is so important”. Davidtoo (2)
“This is the beginning of Men’s equal rights in reproduction. Vasectomies are not recommended to young men by medical professionals. With the current state of family law, I predict birth rates will plummet!” Denis (2)
“This pill is going to be the great equalizer for men! Just as “the pill” was revolutionary by giving women control over procreation, finally men are going to get the same. Finally males will have an option to prevent us from being tricked, lied to, and trapped. Far too many men and children in the United States are being exploited for financial and other gain by our incredibly sexist and bigoted society that places no value on fatherhood”.
I predict a massive decline in the birth rate, and a much, much, happier life for men” Cyberxen (2)
I think these men are possibly recognizing something related to an evolutionary psychologists view of male and female sexuality too. That view is that historically it’s been the case that women produce only a few hundred eggs during their entire lifetime, whereas each man produces billions of sperm daily. Thus the argument goes that females are much more sexually valuable and males much more expendable as one single man could, if need be, impregnate thousands of women. According to the theory, this situation has become further exacerbated by further “egg scarcity” compared to massive sperm production due to the advent of the female oral contraceptive pill and other female only contraception. Currently there are 11 contraceptives for women whilst there are only 2 for men – condom or vasectomy. (6)
But here’s the thing I reckon (feminists are hugely silent about this) – What if the situation were, in a way, reversed?
Imagine a world in which millions of men decided to use the NHMBCP. In effect they are willfully, albeit temporarily, making themselves infertile until such time as they decide that social and political conditions are safe enough to breed. What we have then is a scenario in which sperm becomes scarce and eggs relatively plentiful. Men’s reproductive value goes up, women’s reproductive value plummets. Men then go from being the reproductively weaker and less valued sex to being at least equals or even arguably dominant. That idea intrigues me a lot.
Feminists are fools and despots. We know that.
They obviously overlook and don’t appreciate that it was overwhelmingly male brilliance which invented the technologies and systems – democracy, electricity, home appliances, transportation systems, birth control, modern medicine, telecommunications, etc. that freed women from their historically very limited sex roles. I think now, however, they are also tellingly silent about how male invented technologies will inevitably free men up from their own sex roles in the near future too.
I imagine some of this meshes with the huge current social and political drive to get masses of young women educated and on professional career tracks too. For their future under the Western feminist model is very probably not as wives and mothers – not when the power to become such is more and more in the hands of men. Men who are choosing relationship and fertility strikes as weapons for male emancipation (Think MGTOW and Japans millions of young male “grass eaters’). Women’s response is another story though, and frankly not one I’m much interested in discussing as I prefer to think about men’s future rather than the future of women. Women can sort out their own paths. They have more than enough support to do so.
I think this issue must also mesh with mounting concern about the environmental sustainability of having 7 billion humans and rising on the planet. Consider this from Scientific Progress publication –
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…men’s autonomy is also diminished by the fact that they are usually not responsible for contraception. For many men, neither of the two currently available male contraceptives is well-suited for their contraceptive needs: they want a long-acting, reversible contraceptive. The lack of such options forces many men in monogamous relationships to rely on their partners to contracept. Even when men choose to use the condom, given its high failure rate of 16 percent for typical use, they are still not able to regulate their reproduction as effectively as women, for many female hormonal methods and IUDs have failure rates under three percent. To further decrease the probability of pregnancy, some couples use both the male condom and a female method. But even if men contracept, they are often dependent on women to also use contraception if they want to use a method with a high success rate (and they are not yet ready for sterilization).
This dependence on women reduces men’s reproductive autonomy. Men have to trust that their partners are correctly and consistently using contraception. If a pregnancy does occur—either unintended by both partners or when the woman decides to stop contracepting without telling her partner—men have no recourse. Men cannot mandate that women get an abortion. Regardless of the circumstances under which the pregnancy transpired, men are still held socially and financially responsible for any children they father. In some ways it seems unfair to hold men responsible for children they did not want when they are ill equipped to prevent pregnancy.
What men need in order to successfully control their reproduction is the one type of contraceptive they are missing (and that women currently have – Long Acting Reversible Contraception), LARCs. Indeed, the development of male LARCs would enhance men’s reproductive autonomy by enabling them to do what women have been doing since the advent of the female pill: effectively regulate their fertility outside of all sexual activity and without their partner’s participation or knowledge. Scientists have been working on developing male contraception for the last 40 years and keep saying that these contraceptives are just around the corner. So why are there still no male LARCs? (6)
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So will future life for men soon be a LARC? Will we be literally as well as figuratively taking the red pill?
References –
(1) http://nocamels.com/2011/02/male-birth-control-taking-the-pill-no-longer-just-for-women/
(2) http://www.israel21c.org/health/a-birth-control-pill-for-men
(3) http://www.newmalecontraception.org/oral.htm
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_contraceptive
(5) http://theweek.com/article/index/217608/male-contraceptives-coming-to-a-drug-store-near-you
http://scienceprogress.org/2009/08/autonomous-contraception/
