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Birth Control For Men Edges Closer
ananyo writes "Developing oral contraceptives for men has not gone as swiftly as researchers imagined in the early 1970s; they suggested at the time that a 'male pill' was not far off. But researchers now report a new way to make male mice temporarily infertile. Although the treatment is not ready for human use, the method avoids some of the pitfalls of earlier attempts. The technique appears to have a much more specific action than previous methods: it impairs sperm production by blocking a protein called BRDT. This protein was singled out as a potential therapeutic target five years ago because it only occurs in the testes, where it is required for the division of sperm cells. If the approach proves safe in humans, it would be an improvement over hormone-based methods of male contraception, which are not completely effective and cause side effects such as mood swings, acne and a loss of libido (abstract). On the downside, however, the compound 'shrank the mice's testes.'"
"No major side effects; it'll only shrink your testicles!"
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
As if there is a single man in the world would would take a contraceptive that shrank their testes....
I don't think this is close at all, more like a story of a drug with horrific side effects that thankfully they caught before human trials.
Its not like most slashdotters are getting any.
I get this strange, uncanny feeling that it won't catch on. From my own experience and opinion, men get squicked-out when it comes to changing one of their body functions. Women are "meh, okay," when it comes to oral contraceptives (in SOME cases--me, it didn't work out at all) simply because they have to put up with major, stupid-ridiculous body issues over their entire lives (menstrual cycles, D-cups, pregnancy, menopause--just to name a few) while a man's changes are more subtle, quicker, and easily controllable (facial hair, voice changes, etc.). It'd be nice to, as Samwise says, 'Share the load,' (har har) but it'd take some time and re-thinking of roles.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
What is this, this putting his wallet in involuntarily? Are you talking about the woman getting pregnant and the man having to pay child support? Well... um, if the man in this hypothetical situation was raped for that there sperm, then sure--he shouldn't pay a red cent. If he wasn't, then he needs to re-enroll in his sixth grade health class to learn that when you stick your junk in a vagina, it may produce a pregnancy.
Seriously. This argument is so old and so tiresome. If you get a woman pregnant, that's your kid. You need to take care of your kid. Is that too hard a concept to grasp?
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
I researched the availability of male birth control after the first time I ended up in the bedroom with a woman who was all "Oh you don't want kids, that's okay, I'm on the pill. No need to use a condom. NO. NO CONDOM! OKAY THEN, BUT USE THIS CONDOM, NOT YOURS! YOURS IS TOO UNBROKEN!"
Sounds silly, right? Apparently it's not that rare, and the older I get (or rather the older the girls I date get), the more common it gets.
So, I had to choose between exclusively dating girls half my age, find a way to put birth control under MY control since I don't want to procreate, or well, just live with it. A lot of guys choose the latter, which I suppose is why a lot of guys become fathers once their luck runs out. I'm not that kind of stupid.
So I just went with the other two options. Girls half my age are usually quite happy when they hear I've had a vasectomy, while a lot of older girls suddenly remember they need to wash their hair this saturday. Sunday. Every day. Every possible day I could ever meet them on, ever. They will have the cleanest hair ever, but they're not risking having sex with an infertile guy. Even though they supposedly are okay with that I don't want kids.
And women are surprised that we're confused by their behaviours...
Anyway I probably would have gone with the vasectomy anyway, but it would have been awesome to have a pill for when I was too young to legally do so. (25 here in Sweden.) So I really do hope that this thing takes off... This time. In difference of all the other ones, that have been in development for decades, and even undergoing human trials.
On the flip side that whole shrinking testes thing is a bit of a marketing problem if it persists in guys. Not for me per se, but generally guys seem to put a lot of stock in their nuts. I mean it's even made the language: "You've got balls." Having smaller balls makes you less of a man. No logic about that either... So most guys wouldn't buy this pill, even if it did work.
And men are surprised that women are confused by their behaviours...
A good way for women then to check if men are using the pill or just don't care!
Meh. Smaller potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Makes the whole thing a bit redundant.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It's estimated that 1/2 of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned. Really, every child should be wanted by both parents. Willing parents are the best parents. If this world only had children that were wanted, the quality of child rearing that each child gets is going to be far better. Population explosion could possibly come under control as well.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
it's called try being married for twelve years.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Have a look at RISUG:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_under_guidance
Development is much further along than this drug, RISUG could be available within the next five-ten years. It's available right now if you're in India and willing to be a guinea pig. No testicle shrinkage, though the Wikipedia article say there might be other drawbacks. The article says that there's no evidence for adverse effects though... which makes me wonder why it brings that up at all.
You see, that's why male contraceptives are a big deal. Currently, the only way for a man to have sex and have any say in whether the woman gets pregnant is either irreversible with some significant probability or ineffective with some significant probability: You can get snipped or use a condom. That's it. Woman can use the pill, and since that's a relatively reliable contraceptive that also doesn't prevent the woman from getting pregnant later when she wants to, it's the most widely used method of birth control. It's however 100% in the control of the woman, who can therefore basically unilaterally decide to get pregnant. So yes, it does take two, but the realities are such that women can and do get pregnant to get a commitment out of men, even if it ends up being just financial commitment.
Perhaps the loss in volume vanishes when the drug is discontinued.
No, you grow a third testicle and people will nickname you ET (extra testicle).
Quiet down and put your nuts in the TSA scanner!
By making your balls smaller it will make other things in that area appear larger.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
On the downside, however, the compound 'shrank the mice's testes
Without commercial potential, what is this going to be used for?
This didn't stop FaceBook going public, did it?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
But researchers now report a new way to make male mice temporarily infertile.
- it's called a swift kick in the balls. It works by blocking the ability to fuck for a little while.
I don't understand... I can't get off unless I get kicked in the nuts. Is there something wrong with me?
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Have you ever seen mice balls?!
If my Rat was still alive I would give him this stuff. I would usually carry him around while at the pet shop and his gargantuan balls always became a conversation piece. Especially to the immature teens.
"That's right...I said it."
I always love how some people are adamant advocates of equality between the sexes, but still think that treating men and women equally is misogynistic.
How is suggesting that women bear full financial responsibility for a child advocating equality?
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
is structured in a way to implies that the government making things safer is a bad thing. It's a loaded comment with a surprising amount of things implied, and the sentiment behind it is why we get stuff like this.
Plus it's ridiculously well documented that the government makes things safer.
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I believe the "parent" was suggesting that when two consenting adults agree not to have children and select female contraceptives as the means to ensure that decision, the female is responsible for applying the contraceptive. This was the agreement. If said female chooses to break the agreement then the resulting pregnancy was her choice, not her male partners choice.
When this or another reliable male contraceptive is available both parties will be able to ensure the agreement is respected without resorting to an irreversible procedure.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
How is suggesting that women bear full financial responsibility for a child advocating equality?
My body implies that it's my choice which implies that it's my responsibility. Without the third part you aren't treating women like adults.
And while making her solely responsible might seem like overkill, it can't be any more absurd than holding him equally responsible for something he has much less control over.
"Have you ever seen mice balls?!"
Yes, back in the day before optical mice we had to clean them (and the rollers) regularly if you want a smooth moving pointer.
Of course this was before most people on this forum were born
now get off my lawn
Women, who now have essentially the ability to get pregnant when they want to, will have to ask a man for permission to become pregnant, maybe even beg for permission to be a mother. Do they actually understand the shift in reproductive power that unthinking feminists have been pushing for for so long? Do they realize they lose control of their own pregancies? No more Tom Brady and Giselle kinda thing. No more babies by philandering pretty-boy candidates. No more rock star accidents. No more (oops) having that second child because you want one and hubby maybe isn't so keen. And can a silly woman who depends on a man to take his pill trust him to do so? No. Think of pregnancy as revenge etc., an act of aggression. Male contraception empowers men in a way that women may not find so "fair." Nobody really knew the society-wide changes female contraception would bring starting in the 1960s. Perhaps we are not really projecting the changes easy male contraception in pill form will bring in the future as its benefits to men become widely perceived by them.
E Proelio Veritas.
OK, then perhaps you shouldn't stick your pecker into things it can get pregnant. Grasping that?
Of course she needs to take care of her kid. And single mothers who don't have the dads stick around DO. Are you saying they don't? Saying that it's a 50/50 deal makes me misandric? I'd say the opposite. Children need a father in their lives, imho, and the world would be a better place if more men stepped up to the plate. it's *getting* better, but it needs work.
I don't know what women you've met in life, but I assure you, I ain't one of them. Neither are many. Have you ever thought that your selection and choices are messed-up and you're honing in on the WRONG chicks? I hooked up with a great guy, a real, 100% geek, while nearly all of my friends decided to moon over the Bad Boys. I get jealous looks from them, especially from the single mother demographic, but I don't say, "Yea, men are assholes," but "Well, you made the choices."
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
I heart you.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Probably more to that story...
"I also think that a father has the right to know if he has a child, so I'm completely in favour of paternity testing"
Absolutely. The only times I'd say "Oh, c'mon," is if it's obvious he's just being a dick. Some men will do anything to get out of that responsibility, even if it takes lying, calling her a 'whore'. But even then, fine, have your paternity test. In that case I'd say that the father would have to pay for it, unless it turned out it wasn't his kid. That's to prevent defaming the woman he's accusing of cheating on him.
I think what a lot of men who bitch and accuse women of "trapping them with a kid" (because women can control the sperm count and what it does after it gets up in her uterus; let's face it, most women who get pregnant didn't have some master plan to keep the guy around. Some? Sure, but...) don't think on is that they've created a human, who will one day know that the man who fathered them saw them more as a trap than an actual person. I can't imagine that kind of feeling, especially if when I turned 18, they'd suddenly want to be in my life. What a hurtful, psych-bill inducing insult, knowing that your entire existence was spit upon by the person who should have loved you most.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
http://www.neystadt.org/john/humor/IBM-Mouse-Balls.htm
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The only way I would agree with you is if it was decided beforehand that she WOULD have an abortion if she got pregnant. I mean... honestly, do you understand what most women go through in having an abortion? It's not a flippant contraceptive, but something that can destroy you mentally, emotionally, etc.
I'm being serious now, really, because the two options you have here is something that involves instant gratification: "abort the baby, done," and "she had the kid, I'm outta here." Do you understand how either one of those can affect you later on in life? Do you really and truly understand that 18 years later, you're going to be loathed and reviled by the person you fathered, or that maybe, just maybe, you might regret the abortion? It's not to say "THIS WILL HAPPEN!" it's to actually think. I'm a scientist at heart, and calculate every single little thing, not just how I feel at this very moment.
In the end, if you don't want a kid, don't have sex on the first date. Maybe not even on the second. Get to know the person you're interested in, let them know how you want things to go and see if you match. Not every woman is out to get you, you know. It's about being selective. I think this about friends of mine that hooked up with losers, thought they were great but ended up being abusive deadbeat-dads that won't take care of the kids they gave life to. I feel for them, but I went for the geeky guy all THEIR 'love interests' teased for playing violin instead of going to keg parties. "Well, you made your choice, even knowing what kind of person they were."
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
ok, then by that attitude, women shouldn't have birth control either.. if they choose to have sex, they should just have to deal with the consequences.. same as the men. fair?
I think it might make the world a better place.
You're missing one important aspect of drug testing: without sufficient testing, we can't actually know that the drug will save 10% of heart patients. Until we've tested the drug in large-scale, well conducted clinical trials and then carefully checked those trials over for the usual drug company shenanigans, for all we know it actually kills 5% of patients that would otherwise survive.
Well... um, if the man in this hypothetical situation was raped for that there sperm, then sure--he shouldn't pay a red cent.
Under current US law, it doesn't make one iota of difference whether he was raped, or even if he was way under the age of consent and the adult woman in question was in a position of power over him - child support is for the benefit of the kids, and everyone knows it benefits kids to be brought up by a kiddy-rapist enough to justify making one of her victims pay for it.
If he wasn't, then he needs to re-enroll in his sixth grade health class to learn that when you stick your junk in a vagina, it may produce a pregnancy.
Seriously. This argument is so old and so tiresome. If you get a woman pregnant, that's your kid. You need to take care of your kid. Is that too hard a concept to grasp?
That's just it. He didn't 'get her pregnant.' Both of them got her pregnant. So, if she's going to have the unilateral say in taking the fetus to term, then, by default, she should be solely responsible for it. With power comes responsibility, with no power, comes none. Ideally, she should have to enter into a contract with him (or get married) for financial support/fatherhood, but otherwise he should have the same right of refusal she does. This keeps the table balanced and encourages children only when both parents are truly ready to be parents, financially and mentally. It prevents her from using the kid as a battering ram to get him to commit when he's clearly not ready to, which happens a lot in today's society. This would eliminate a ton of highschoolesque melodrama that surrounds pregnancy today. Dr Phil would go out of business which would be a benefit to everyone..
The rules you're conforming to come from a time when women didn't have a choice. It was fair as women, especially pregnant ones, weren't allowed to work all that much and were very dependent on men for support. Today, things are very different, and it's about time that women gave up the privileges of chattel status if they want out of it.
sorry, I shouldn't have broken my statement into two posts, but it happens.. there's another reply somewhere on this poor excuse for code
Here is one example of this. There's more on google too.
"You are only young once, but you can be immature forever." -www.animemusicvideos.org
I don't see how my saying that a man should support his child means that I think total absolutes about women getting everything they want with no accountability. I'm honestly trying to find the words to say to this, because I'd said I wasn't going to say anything else (I've raped this topic comments-wise today), so I want to make everything clear in these "final words". Or what I HOPE are final...
Never once have I said anything about women getting everything and men getting nothing, but that doesn't seem to matter; to some men, it seems that anytime someone brings up a disadvantage in the 'Woman's World', they jump up and start pointing fingers, saying "we have it bad, too!" What's funny is that while I have a small feminist side, I see the bullshit that goes on on my side of the court. I could give examples, but I've been too wordy already. Fact is, I try my best to be a reasonable, well-rounded and deep-thinking individual. I can shoot off the mouth and be opinionated, but if no one did that, there wouldn't be anything interesting on the internet.
We DO have a little more responsibility. And in a lot of cases, that's what fucks us up the ass without the benny of a reach-around. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't. If you're a pregnant teenager, some schools will try to bar you from attending but let the baby-daddy (gah, hate using that, but it seems right here, dunno why) roam the halls without repercussion. If we choose to abort when the man doesn't want us to, we're baby-killing bitches. If we choose to keep the baby, we're money-hungry bitches. If we choose to not have sex on the first or second date, we're labelled prudes. If we DO have sex on the first or second date, we're sluts. We do have options, and we DON'T have options, simply because we can be vilified for any one of them. Saying this, I'm not trying to play the tearful, "WOE IS ME, I'M A WOMAN!" card, it is what it is. How do we win? Give the man the decision entirely? Compromise, when it's already too hot to touch? What about the families on both sides, do they have a say? I DO side with women on this issue a little more, yes, because the products of both abortion and pregnancy will stay with her forever. I know the latter well; I had to have a c-section, because my son was born at 11.6 pounds, no lie. I've never recovered from it, even when I joined a gym and went through serious fitness and dieting routines. I'd never take it back, however. All this doesn't mean the man doesn't get a say in what happens, but it IS hard to say how it's finalized, as yes, the woman is the most affected. Sorry... you might not like it as a man, but it's just fact. Sometimes I don't like it either, because I'm a person who wants to be completely impartial, even in things like this. But I always keep coming back to the "who's affected the most by this?" point.
The best solution is what a lot of men (and some women) do not want to hear: this can allllll be avoided in NOT having sex with someone on the first, second or even third date. This goes for both sexes. If Jane and Joe have sex on the first date and Jane gets pregnant, neither one of them can bitch about the decisions being made on either side, whether or not the woman's insisting on it being her way. If Jane got to know Joe, she'd learn he didn't want kids and would want an abortion be done and nothing but. If Joe got to know Jane, he'd learn that she didn't want an abortion, even if it was with some guy she just met. Would this seriously kill anyone? I'm not talking "Wait for marriage," crap, just KNOW the person you're going to sleep with before you sleep with them. Neither side can feign ignorance. And it doesn't even have to be a two-hour lecture on 'Why Joe Doesn't Want Kids: Part VII, Money'... just, "Not without a condom--too young for kids *wink*" or the like.
It's not hard. In the end, it's 50/50, because someone else isn't responsible for another person, no matter how deceitful the man or woman may be. If a man has sex (especially unprotected sex, taking her word tha
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin