New male contraceptive jab , 100% effective and lasts two years.

Thinking back to my teenage and dating years, all the boys carried condoms all the time. Maybe times have changed, but boys/men were very much in charge of contraception back then.
It was only when things progressed to being more serious i.e. trust of no STIs, that the pill would be used, and responsibility passed to the female.
Men have always had the option of using condoms, soon maybe they'll have the option of using a contraceptive jab too.

We are all responsible for our own fertility, so it's no bad thing that you wouldn't trust a man - that contraception is for his benefit, not yours, just as I use contraception for my benefit, not for my partners

That makes perfect sense. I don't really follow the complaints that it is always women's responsibility.

I think that it can only be good to allow men to have similar reproductive control to women - obviously in a relationship you decide whether you can take the risk of just one of you using long-term birth control, but at the moment, that one person is always the woman - letting it be either is clearly a step forward.

We are all responsible for our own fertility, so it's no bad thing that you wouldn't trust a man - that contraception is for his benefit, not yours, just as I use contraception for my benefit, not for my partners.

Indeed they could, stones.

Yep Vestal, I agree it's a two way street!

I guess, Vestal, my position is either you trust them enough to have not-STI-protected-sex, or you use a barrier method. If you're sleeping with someone you don't trust to be honest about the injection you'd have to insist on condoms anyway I'd have thought.

If you've got the kind of husband who wants to impregnant you against your will, then sadly, I suspect the availability of this contraception will make little difference.

My first thought was I'd do this in a hot minute and freeze a couple of swimmers in case of emergency for the future. Then again I am a single father who was explicitly lied to about birth control in an attempt to trap me. A one off injection could save decades of figurative ball-ache. I'll be advocating for it strongly with my male peers. Fantastic news.

I am a bit surprised how many people here wouldn't trust their DH to have this done / feel they need to take their own precautions.

I am not married - if I was, I would probably trust my husband, as otherwise I wouldn't have gotten married - but observation on the mumsnet forums and how many women report being impregnated against their will by their husbands, I would, theoretically, not think it wise to be too trusting.I would think it wise to require a certificate.

I thought there had already been such a thing a while ago, and the men did not object to the needle, but complained about the side effects (which were the same as those for the pill, and the bulk of it was only imagined by the men, i.e. the placebo group complained, too)

0nline, I do not really believe this claim that men do not choose to have children. It is like this rumours that women are the ones who want to get married. In fact, abusive men very much like to marry women and get them pregnant; this is a known fact.

Decent men quite likely are not the driving force behind family planning because pestering a woman to endanger her health and wellbeing to gestate some babies would be a very shitty thing to do, and if you're not Henry VIII, you'd be reluctant to do that.
Doesn't mean they'd be too lazy to remove a contraception decive if they were offered the opportunity to become fathers.

I suspect that most men who "accidentally" become fathers are in fact very happy to spread their genes (there's this ego factor about it, wasn't there this guy who worked at a fertility clinic indirectly raped dozens of customers by impregnating them with his sperm instead of their husbands'?), but would like to avoid the responsibility that tends to come with it. Which they do by not using condoms / not using condoms correctly, and then acting all surprised if a pregnancy results.

Nevertheless, it would of course be interesting to observe what happens when the "I hate condoms" and "vasectomy is too final" excuses were taken away.

I do not think there will be a significant decrease in the number of wanted pregnancies; or even overall pregnancies. I'd guess that the men who previously used condoms because they're no fucking idiots would get the jab and be happy about being able to not use condoms with their long-term partner ... while the irresponsible idiots who didn't use condoms before will not get the jab, either, and quite likely still complain if they become fathers "unexpectedly".

It would just all be a bit more obvious to the onlooker what is going on.

It could be an interesting change in male/female dynamics if men could choose complete autonomy over having children. Obviously, any new/short-term relationship should use condoms, but men having access to birth control would make a difference. Some changes would be positive, others negative, and it would come down to how much of a jerk/idiot/bitch/insert your chosen insult here a person is as to how things change.

0nline having a coil inserted is not voluntary if you can't take hormones and have a partner who can't or won't use condoms/get the snip. Unless you are advocating abstinence in marriage.
Having a coil inserted is invasive and unpleasant, if you are really lucky you can have some kind of nerve issue and feel faint/sick/cramps for a couple of days.
Yet men are very used to minimising this as it's expected the woman will deal with contraception.
It will be interesting to see how many men step up for this injection if it's introduced, and how many are happy to let women continue to bear the brunt of sorting out contraception and it's adverse effects.

What?! All I meant was that it seems a comparable level of discomfort, so it's not such an extreme procedure as to be off-putting to men who might choose to have it. I don't know where you're getting this stuff about pressurising anyone from?

Having a coil inserted is voluntary and should absolutely be free from pressures such as "you should be able to cope with an invasive procedure on your genitals that you are distinctly not keen on ... cos men have discomfort with vasectomies you know !"

And IMO you only agree with the principles embedded in the above if you apply it to humans, rather than just one sex.

Inserting a coil isn't exactly a fun procedure, so surely men could be expected to cope with a few moments of discomfort?

Tbh the concerns about reversibility wouldn't be a worry as we are 99 percent sure we are finished having babies and dp is nervously contemplating the snip as his other option.

I think it will be younger, childless men that will need to see the reversibility issue improved before they will consider it. If it is improved to the point where the risk of sterilisation is neglible then I can see a good number of parents being enthusiastic about their teenage sons having it.

I can also see legions of teenage boys baulking at the idea of a needle anywhere near their willies. I guess uptake would depend on how well doctors could honestly sell a "fast & painless" promise when it come to insertion.

I can understand why men would find the mode of insertion of the gel off putting. I wouldn't want a needle anywhere near my fluffy bits. We've used condoms just fine for 16 years and I'd stick to them rather than get a jab anywhere, let alone there. But DH & I have not always been the poster children of effective condom use. As the existence our 16 year old "Chianti Baby" son demonstrates. So I do think long term, "not dependent on good decision making in the heat of the moment" contraceptive options for males is a good thing. Just a shame it comes with an obviously off putting mode of insertion.

Perhaps the pay off over improved autonomy over becoming a parent will encourage significant numbers to get past the sharp things in penis aspect ?

One thing to consider is the impact on the birth rate. I think there is a popular belief that women tend to be the greater driving force behind family planning, with men sometimes being more ambivalent and going along with it in a "path of least resistance" way. If that has any basis in fact, a change of dynamic where a significant number of men have to be wholly pro-active in making the choice to have a/another child (having to choose to go through a removal process) may result in a notable drop in the number of conceptions.

I wish this was available now! I remember as a teen in the 90s learning that male contraception was being developed, but here I am, heading towards the end of my fertile years, and we are still waiting! It's so frustrating as it would be perfect for us now. Tbh the concerns about reversibility wouldn't be a worry as we are 99 percent sure we are finished having babies and dp is nervously contemplating the snip as his other option.

I would trust my DH, batteries. I'm not sure most respondents mean their DHs, do they? Rather, a man they were sleeping with who said it.

I don't like using condoms. It's not just whiny men it's whiny women too. Condoms don't feel as nice as barrier-less sex IME.

I am a bit surprised how many people here wouldn't trust their DH to have this done / feel they need to take their own precautions. My pregnancies have been to produce children we both want, contraception is to prevent children neither of us want. I totally trust my DH and we would make a decision on contraception based purely on which methods has least side effects, which considering my reaction to hormones puts him in the frame.

This could be an excellent choice for couples who would otherwise make the decision with a heavy heart for the man to have a vasectomy. I don't really want DH to have one, it feels so final. But we need long acting contraception and he thinks it's the best solution.

It could certainly be used as an argument to overcome reluctance-"it'll be fine- I've had the shot".

I'm reassessing my earlier agreement with this. It makes sense for men individually and independently of their partners to have the same level of choice and control and coming back to what I've always thought that I have always thought of contraception being my responsibility.

I agree re condoms.

I'd be concerned that this would give men even more of an entitlement to sex and women's bodies.

Also seems to be downplaying the risks of sti's, with the prevelance of pronography showing no condoms as the norm and a generation removed from the adverts of the 80s that showed AIDS as a death sentence, will they believe condoms are obsolete?

No, I didn't think it was the same - hence my qualifier in my original post. But the point still carries - i.e. that what is acceptable for men vis a vis side-effects differs from what is acceptable for women in both the eyes of researchers (or, more to the point Big Pharma who expect to make money from this) and of men. In other words, I have some sympathy for Ovaries earlier post, having negotiated whingy men in my life who complain that condoms spoil it or make them itch etc. (poor dears).

The effects of 'the pill' (noting that there are different pills) on women's mental health have long been speculated. Here is a link to a study that provides some evidence that the pill causes depression in some women.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/03/pill-linked-depression-doctors-hormonal-contraceptives

If this is a physical blockage in the tubes, that's more intuitive than a hormonal solution, I think, mary

But still clinical trials to come.

At the gut level, I just don't trust this.

Women naturally have fertile and non-fertile times--hormonal contraception workings by taking advantage of this cycle and tricking your body into thinking it's in a non-fertile phase all the time. And we only produce one, perhaps two eggs a month.

Men produce millions of sperm in every ejaculation and they produce them all the time, so I feel that the process of getting this to stop completely is likely to be more invasive and less effective/reliable.

I think this could be useful for guys who are in non-permanent relationships and are already using contraceptives worried about contraceptive failure. But I think that will be its main role.

Yes the New Scientist one is an actual hormonal injection to prevent sperm production. The one in the OP is more physical I think.