Ranting is not something I like to do while I am writing. I ramble and nothing really seems to flow. However, there is little I can do when it comes to this topic than rant about it so I'll try to keep it together.
Avoiding pregnancy has always, in my opinion, fallen on the shoulders of women despite the fact that pregnancy is a two-way street. Women are expected to go on birth control such as the pill, shot or implant. Sometimes we are even expected to be the ones who provide the condoms and if we don't have them it's somehow our fault that no birth control is available. And with new presidential -elect Donald Trump claiming that he wants to de-fund planned parenthood which will make it more difficult for women to get abortions, suddenly the pressure is on even heavier.
When I first heard about male birth control I thought it was an amazing idea. Simply because there really isn't much a guy can do to protect himself from getting a woman pregnant aside from either carrying condoms -- WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD NOT JUST ONE SIDE OF THE EQUATION -- or chopping off their goodies. This would even out the playing field a little it and give both parties an equal share of the work when it comes to birth control.
This new form of birth control was to come in the form of a shot given every eight weeks and it would basically hinder the production of testosterone and the production of sperm. To me this sounds a lot like a vasectomy without the scissors, and it sounds like a great idea because it is WAY less permanent than that.
Let me break down the study: Couples were instructed to use non hormonal birth control methods such as condoms while the men were receiving these shots. They had the men give sperm samples to test whether or not the shots lowered their sperm count, and then continued to give sperm samples in order to test how long it took for the levels to rise back up to normal.
The shots also did not effect the births of babies conceived during the trials -- yes some people got pregnant not every study is perfect. And yes there were a few people who had negative experiences. One man experienced a severe bout of depression -- hormonal changes can cause that -- and another experienced an irregularly fast heartbeat when the shots stopped being given but that was chalked up to an intentional acetaminophen overdose.
Ultimately the study was stopped because there was a link between this hormonal shot and depression. However, the same can be said about female hormonal birth control but the world still expects us to grit and bear it.
There were complications after the study ended. Most men returned to normal fertility in a few weeks, but for others it took much longer. One man didn't return to normal until four years later -- I don't care if it makes me insensitive or if it means I'm going to hell, I thought that was pretty funny and yes I laughed.
Overall I think it was silly to stop the trials for male birth control simply because a few guys didn't feel good while they were taking it. Female hormonal birth control does the exact same thing but that apparently doesn't seem to be an issue for anyone.
To be honest I didn't realize how long these studies have been going on. To hear that some guy took four years to recover was strange because I only recently heard about any such trials going on. I feel like this is similar to the men who were given the chance to experience labor pains and almost crapped their pants in the process when they felt the agony many women go through during childbirth.
Male birth control is hopefully somewhere within our reach. It would be nice for someone else to also be responsible for pregnancy proofing themselves, and if it's as simple as temporarily diluting your joy juice then I think more guys should be all for it.
