To think contraception has been a greater liberator to men than to women?

[Macrodatarefiner]

And for sure, it is a great liberator to women too. Just on balance, men seem to get the better benefit. AIBU?

The woman can always say no though.

Yes exactly this. If a young woman wants to find a partner, and wants to wait before having sex - she is going to struggle to find men who don't expect her to put out

I've been on hormonal contraceptives for nearly 30 years. The benefits to me have been enormous. Mainly, remaining childfree and the lack of periods (I estimate I've had less than 10 years worth of periods in this time). This has saved me a lot of money and a lot of time. I've had more freedom and more choices as a result.

Yes, the men I've chosen to have sex with have also benefited from this, but ultimately the benefits to me have been far more significant.

I think it’s very telling that contraception is debated in this way primarily in terms of what it means in terms of women’s sexual behaviour outside marriage / long-term partnerships and not in terms of freedom from the constant childbearing which was their fate before it was available.

But that’s life. Not all freedoms provide everybody with exactly the outcome they personally want - but what they do provide is the opportunity to have a choice about it.

Indeed.

What a strange thing to say. How are men getting more benefit? Men aren't the ones who get pregnant, carry a baby, and then are (often) left by their partner to cope with raising a child alone.

I really don't understand where you are coming from with this OP.

It seems incredibly obvious that women get a greater benefit from contraception.

I don't understand how men benefit more. Women have to carry a child and then raise that child for 18 years. Men, as we can see, can skip raising or even paying for a child if they don't want to.

During my adventurous youth, I didn't want to get pregnant and was very glad I had contraception. I very much benefited from not having unwanted children.

Well that’s good isn’t it? You want someone to have the same viewpoint as you.

I don’t understand how waiting to have sex benefits women? Most women I know want to be able to have sex with someone when they want it. What’s the alternative, wait for a guy, get frustrated because you want to sleep with him, then have to marry them as you don’t want to wait any longer, then get saddled with being pregnant every year if you want sex more than twice in your relationship. Also saddled with a man you just wanted to have sex with, but are now enmeshed with because of the children.

Sounds an awful deal for women!!!

I do think the OP has a point in that the availability of modern contraception has tended to put the onus on the woman to "take precautions" whereas in the days when the options were a condom or non-PIV sex it was more on the man,

That said, I think the benefits of the variety of contraception available to women* are worth it even if they also benefit men.

Where they *are available, let's not forget that modern, effective contraception is not available to all women, everywhere. Probably not even the majority, globally.

P.S. Wouldn't this be a great topic for the Feminism: Chat board?

🌵No tumbleweed emoji, have a cactus!

(Edited for formatting)

OK, can't seem to edit the formatting, the asterisk should be at the start of that sentence and no bold.

The onus was always on women to take precautions: by not “leading him on” or “giving it away” or “keeping your legs closed.” Or using toxic chemicals to douche after sex, or procuring a backstreet abortion. The only difference was that if those precautions failed, women also had to rely entirely on a man taking precautions such as effectively withdrawing before ejaculation, or using a condom, (or not denying that he was the father and just walking away in an age where there was no way of proving who was.)

And if you were a married woman, good luck getting your husband to “take precautions”, when sex was considered his marital right and he didn’t want to use a condom.

I often think this. I especially think when husbands suddenly announce they don't want children or that they only want one. The wife is in agonies because she wanted/expected more. However, because of contraception the husband thinks he can still expect unlimited sex but with no children as a consequence. Of course they hardly ever offer to get a vasectomy. Whereas years ago, if you had sex, pregnancy was a very real possibility every time. Of course, women were the losers when they were constantly pregnant. But the agonising now caused by men who just want lots of sex but no responsibility...that feels like a very real benefit to men. Of course women are evil if they consider having an 'accident' because men should be entitled to consequence free sex, never mind that for many women of child bearing age, having kids is a central purpose of getting married at all. Just musings really - I appreciate lots of women don't want children. But in my experience, it's mostly men who delay and aren't that bothered.

I doubt that many women who were sexually mature and active before the advent of easily available contraception would agree with you. I certainly don’t.

Just read any thread on Mumsnet about men who won't commit and you'll see that this is true. The negative impact to women is at a societal level. When was the last time you heard of a woman who didn't sleep with a new man by at least the third date? It's just expected.

Women like sex but I don't think in aggregate that they really want to have lots of sex with different partners with no love and commitment.

Obviously contraception + social norms encouraging commitment from men would be best... but that's not the world that emerged.

Individuals are responsible for their own fertility. If men don't want children, get the snip, don't expect women to carry the burden of their fertility.

Contraception is not a female only issue.

Has access to contraception increased male entitlement? I think yes it has.

Why isn't there a male pill? Because mens bodies are valued more than women's. Men aren't expected to take full responsibility for their fertility.

Men's bodies are not tampered with to the same extent.

Exactly. I came of age in eighties Ireland with legislation about contraception still profoundly bound up with the Catholic church’s position on it (basically, ‘no’) and with a termination involving a struggle even to get access to reliable information about abortion before travelling to the UK in time to have one and bleeding into a pad on the ferry home. That was the reality of life before easily-available, reliable contraception for women, and no one who lived through it wants to go back to the ‘good old days’.

There’s one under development. The social reality is that how many women really want to be totally reliant on a man saying “oh yes, I take my pill reliably every single day” when the risk to her if he’s not being truthful or can’t remember when he has forgotten is so much greater than in reverse?

I don't think any woman I know would trust a man who said he was on a pill.

You would still take responsibility for your own contraception. It wouldn't negate the need for the female pill or move responsibility onto men. You might end up with fewer pregnancies, because you would have few instance of failures due to things like sickness interfering with the female pill, but I doubt it would help on a statistically significant level.

I don't think men get a greater benefit. The argument that men can sleep around without (much) risk of getting a woman pregnant doesn't hold much weight. Maybe it's a benefit to the man, but it's also a greater benefit to the women who don't get pregnant by a man who behaves like that.

The argument that it means it's harder for women to "trap" a man by getting pregnant is pretty offensive. If there are men who don't get "caught out" by a woman "trapping" them because of contraception, that's good all round. Getting pregnant should be primarily for the benefit of the baby, not as a lifestyle choice.

I can't think of any good reason why men get a greater benefit from contraception than women do. Women are the ones who are left to pick up the pieces when a man shags them then leaves. If fewer unwanted pregnancies result, that is better for women. The man probably wouldn't care too much either way.

Are you living in a Jane Austen novel?

Your entire premise seems to be based on a belief that sex is a favour granted to men by women. A woman should withhold the favour until the man can assure her of security when she gets pregnant.

Meanwhile, the man may have sex with other women who've got no choice: they have always been 'liberated' from fear of pregnancy. Think about how different today's world would look if conquering armies hadn't been able to repopulate new territories in their own images by raping women.

Most young women like consensual sex and relish the opportunity to choose partners without fear of pregnancy. Those who wish to delay consummation are free to find young men of a similar mindset - they exist!

Not to mention waiting to have sex with the guy, having to get married in order to do it and then find out that he is absolutely useless in bed and isn't willing to do anything about it.. No thanks.

Absolutely. It was one of my main reasons for having sex early on when I started seeing someone. Who wants to fall for someone who is a disaster/inept/selfish in sexual terms?