New male pill

[Hoardasurass]

So scientists are starting trials on a non hormonal contraceptive pill for men (non hormonal due to side effects in hormonal pills).
Now if we ignore the fact only an idiot would trust a man to actually take it as its not as if the man faces the consequences of him forgetting, but wtf are they doing this for men but not women? Shouldn't they be working on a female non hormonal contraceptive pill as women are being actually harmed by the current options
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/13/british-men-first-in-the-world-new-male-contraceptive-pill/

I’m delighted with it, it’s about bloody time frankly. Also just anything that helps anyone make choices and have control over their own fertility is a good thing.

But yup the men who couldn’t possibly take the hormonal contraceptive because of side effects 🙄.

The amount of men who have told me they've "had the snip" when they've been trying to pressure me into having sex without a condom is staggering. Most of the time I didn't even express any interest in wanting sex with them, I was just chatting to them and it's part of their prelude patter. Especially in my twenties this used to happen a lot in clubs and other party environments.

It will just change to "I'm on the pill".

Same shit. Different verbiage.

There are far too many men who refuse contraception because they see virility as a sign of masculinity. There are men who make a show of putting a condom on then pull it off and try and enter you and think you can't tell the difference. There are men who want to impregnate women. There are men who don't care if they impregnate a woman but have a fetish for infecting people with STDs. There are a lot more men out there with these sick fucked up fetishes than women.

The problem of men's sperm and its detrimental effects on women is not on the same scale as the small amount of women who "trick" men into unwanted pregnancies. If we can't get them to use condoms for fear of a pregnancy, the STD rates will start to climb again especially amongst vulnerable women who aren't in a position to actually check their sexual partners, e.g. younger women being groomed, exploited or trafficked. Women with lower levels of education or understanding of things. The women who will be harmed the most by this are the ones who will be ensnared with it.

I would trust my partner to take it but TBH I'm happier using condoms.

The people who aren't worried about this lack imagination and experience with what a lot of men are like out there.

With my tinfoil hat on, I also don't trust that Big Pharma or the medical system is particularly pro-woman and therefore if they fudge the effectiveness in the clinical trials as they have with loads of other medications to get them through approval and to get the NHS to buy it, women are the ones who will suffer.

I also don't trust that there isn't a political agenda here aimed at increasing the birth rate.

The world we live in depends on systemic disempowerment of women and our capitalist society also depends on a constant stream of new consumers being born or immigrating from weaker economies to stronger ones. The left tend to do it with immigration but there are now identified issues with this, particularly around whether people are "net contributors" or not. The right are trying to do it with spreading "fear of being outbred" especially amongst white people, this is a big agenda in America's conservative Christian communities (hence all the really large families - look up "large families on purpose" as a concept) and they have shown they have deep enough pockets and enough political sway to ban abortion in many states. The concept of a male pill is their wet dream. Imagine this hitting the US market at a time and in a place when women can't get an abortion when they are lied to.

We'll all be barefoot, pregnant and back in the kitchen in no time.

Excuse me?????
At what point did I say I continued to engage in intercourse with someone refusing to use protection?
Did you fall on the keyboard and autocorrect just typed that or did you actually just try to slut-shame me?

Why?

That was another man trying to force their way into women's spaces and tell us all how to be women from a "meninist" POV.

Yawn.

@WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports your 2 posts up there (21.11, and 21.16,) have so many good points, I wish I could like and thank them 100 times each!

Hmmm, very likely! And as I said I agree with so many of your points. I even said on this thread (yesterday) that I wouldn't trust men to take this pill, but a few posters thought differently! They can think what they like, IMO very few men could be trusted to take the 'male pill...'

Men will say anything. The ultimate is "Don't worry love, my family has been sterile for generations".

My partner doesn't remember to book his next haircut when he's AT the barbers.

He would not remember to take the pill.

😆 Exactly!

Women can take pills, have implants, or use condoms or caps. At the moment men can only use condoms. Surely it's better for all of us that there are more options available. Why is it a bad thing?? If I don't want to get pregnant I control my own contraception, (in my case I used a cap and a condom - and later a coil because I couldn't take hormones). I'd be delighted if DP could also take something - belt and braces!

And men should have that control. Just as women should. The sooner the better.

And you don't need to trust him YOUR body is YOURS to be responsible for just as his sperm is HIS and this gives him more control over whether HE wants to father a child. I'm fairly sure that if he really does not want a baby he will remember to take the pill. (How do you think men with chronic illness "remember" to take their medication? They are not idiots)

The problem of men's sperm and its detrimental effects on women is not on the same scale as the small amount of women who "trick" men into unwanted pregnancies. If we can't get them to use condoms for fear of a pregnancy, the STD rates will start to climb again especially amongst vulnerable women who aren't in a position to actually check their sexual partners, e.g. younger women being groomed, exploited or trafficked. Women with lower levels of education or understanding of things. The women who will be harmed the most by this are the ones who will be ensnared with it

I don't really understand this argument as a counterpoint to the positivity of male contraceptives though, nor do I understand the poster who said along the lines of "it's all well and good for women safe in the UK to be all cavalier about this".

Surely the point is women in those situations where they are vulnerable and being exploited by men are already experiencing that subjugation? Men who treat women like shit and have access to vulnerable women don't need to swindle those women with a contraceptive pill. They already have the power in those situations. I'm just trying to understand what your understanding and perspective of the world is where men who are already abusing women or live in parts of the world where women are treated as subservient to men would need to suddenly start lying about being on the pill, as if those women had any choice in the matter in the first place. It seems like a skewed argument based on looking at an unprivileged situation through the lens of privilege and being sheltered from that reality.

Obviously I agree that men being "tricked" into pregnancy is a bad take.

this is absolutely the circumstance for which vasectomy is designed! I can highly recommend ! if I was the man in this situation, I'd go for vasectomy rather than wait for a medication which would have to be taken probably for years and which may have side effects

@SnowflakeSparkles I think you are looking at empowerment and disempowerment as an "all or nothing" situation when I would argue it's not. The spectrum of power and disempowerment is layered and nuanced, and has a lot more complexity than you are attributing to it. Your reasoning seems to come from the position that women are either completely disempowered and have no say over anything at all, or that they are completely empowered and can have a say in everything and give and revoke consent at will and define the terms of engagement with any males.

The vast majority of women occupy various points between the extremes of this scale, including ones who live abroad or are ensnared in the sex trade. The women at the extremes of the scale will be largely unaffected but the ones in between are often in positions that are prone to change, and their level of disempowerment can be shifted negatively with relative ease by men, something this new male pill could open the doors to for the reasons I outlined above.

None of us occupy an absolute position of power or disempowerment relative to all men everywhere, the position changes relative to who we are interacting with and the circumstances of that interaction.

I'd give you a worked example from when I was trafficked in my twenties, but the male who slut shamed me could still be hanging around so I'm afraid I don't want to give him the wank fodder he craves.

Does that help clarify the position I'm coming from? I know it's a bit abstract, I don't know if there's anything academic written about it anywhere.

I think there will be a dramatic fall in the birth rate
also a lot of “ unexplained infertility “ as men often cave in to pressure of having kids for a quiet life even though they really don’t want to they’ll take this and say nothing

Thanks, I do appreciate your perspective and I absolutely agree there is lots of nuance, I do feel it’s more the “UK women” comment that I feel was coming from a place of just wanting to dismiss the concept of the pill and attributing a not very considered argument to the reason.

As someone who tries to approach things with an intersectional feminist mindset (though I’m in the baby steps of my journey), I have become aware that at least in online spheres, it definitely is a thing that happens.

Im so sorry that you were slut shamed on this thread; I didn’t see as the post was deleted. I don’t use the mumsnet feminism board often anymore, as it seems mostly full of trans related thread, but the last few times I have posted I have noticed an uptick in male posters who don’t seem very feminist at all.