[Ashlee T.]

Why is it that almost universally, birth control is the woman's responsibility? Look at birth control options, the only birth control for men that has remained on the market are condoms. Everything else is done at our expense (both financially and physically!).

I say this as a woman who has been on the birth control pill for almost 10 years. I've switched, and switched and switched. I've gained weight, lost weight, lost hair, gained hair in places I didn't want it, been unimaginably moody, had headaches, sometimes spotted or bled for 2-3 weeks a month, sometimes went months with no period at all resulting in bloating and misery. Why? So that someone could have unprotected sex with me conveniently and not get me pregnant. And at the end of all this, I ask myself, what have the guys I've been with had to go through? Nada. My current bf will say "I'm willing to do something if there's something for me to do...ya know like birth control". Conveniently, there's not. And I'm certain that if a pill was created that caused men even a fraction of the symptoms I listed above, it would be HIGHLY unsuccessful, even for my ever so willing bf.

Makes little sense to me.....maybe someone can shed some light. Women are very complex creatures, with this "cycle" we are all familiar with, that if messed with can cause us loads of misery. Our bodies function on a cycle every month. Mens hormones do not function on a cycle. Their hormone levels do not change based on a cycle, and they are as fertile one day as the next (for the most part). So why put us ladies through all the suffering, when it seems so simple to make something that simply turns off mens "swimmers" only while taking the pill?

Here we are, pumping our bodies with artificial hormones, implanting things into our CERVIX!!!!..........suffering a multitude of short term and long term effects, still trying to stay "sexy" and keep a good sex drive for our men (who seem to have trouble empathizing with our lack of drive), and with ALL the medical expertise in our world today, no one can come up with anything to take some of the burden and pain off the woman?

I'm going off hormonal birth control. There must be a better way. FED UP!!!

Now, I'll climb off my soap box and go have lunch.

[Guest]

A brilliantly done rant. But what you fail to mention is that BC testing for all those side effects were done on men until 1994. It was then that those brilliant scientists that make our BC decided that it would better benefit the product and the women to test them on women. So had you been taking them before 1994 and you experienced symptoms not common with the BC package insert it was because they were not tested on women yet.

So while we appreciate Margret Sanger's look at allowing women to experience sexual freedom without having to rely on a man, we also would like to say "There has to be a better way!"

[Hopeless Dork]

I feel you on this rant. I think with the miracle of modern science ... the best that they have come up with to improve birth control is find different ways for us to absorb it... the pill, the intermittant pill, the patch , the ring, injections, the implants blah blah blah... but the side effects are all the same. The risks of heart attack, blood clots stroke and death. The mood swings, the weight gain, etc etc etc...

I wonder why there hasn't been a pill for a man to take that would make his sperm not viable etc...

Other than condoms and vasectomys and withdrawl the balls in our court and notice all of those male options don't have the threat of blood clots and strokes, of weight gain and mood swings etc...

I'm terrified of taking hormones, I'm terrified of an iud preferating some vital organ or causing heavy bleeding (i'm anemic to begin with) and the other iud that doesn't cause the bleeding has the same hormones as pills.

That leaves me with natural family planning, abastaining during fertile time, condoms and withdrawl. I just want something no hassle, something safe, something effective but its too much to ask.

[sourpuss]

I feel you on this rant. I think with the miracle of modern science ... the best that they have come up with to improve birth control is find different ways for us to absorb it... the pill, the intermittant pill, the patch , the ring, injections, the implants blah blah blah... but the side effects are all the same. The risks of heart attack, blood clots stroke and death. The mood swings, the weight gain, etc etc etc...

I wonder why there hasn't been a pill for a man to take that would make his sperm not viable etc...

Other than condoms and vasectomys and withdrawl the balls in our court and notice all of those male options don't have the threat of blood clots and strokes, of weight gain and mood swings etc...

I'm terrified of taking hormones, I'm terrified of an iud preferating some vital organ or causing heavy bleeding (i'm anemic to begin with) and the other iud that doesn't cause the bleeding has the same hormones as pills.

That leaves me with natural family planning, abastaining during fertile time, condoms and withdrawl. I just want something no hassle, something safe, something effective but its too much to ask.

I'm right there with ya!

[LanaBear]

Although I do agree with you all, I'm not sure if I would leave it up to the man. I wouldn't leave it up to someone else to make sure I didn't get pregnant. I wouldn't even rely on my hubby to take a male version of the pill and I trust him 200%. I would worry myself sick over wondering if he took it, did this, that or the other.

However, this is entirely my personality. I do the same thing with work. I have to be in control and very rarely give my tasks to others if I'm too busy, because, I'm a control freak and I'm constantly redoing things that others do that are not up to my standards.

So, like I said, although I do agree, I get sick to my stomach even with the thought of relying on someone else to do something in order for me not to get pregnant.

[p3375]

agree w/ LB - if ya want it done right, do it yourself. Leave it to the guy and you're gonna be the one carryin the baby!
P

[Ashlee T.]

Yeah, I didn't think to mention the heart attacks, blood clots, strokes etc. That just adds to the rant, HD!

I just know that if it WERE left up to men, there would be much better options out there because I know VERY few men, if ANY that would tolerate the symptoms us ladies have tolerated and suffered with for years and years. Why do we think it's okay for us to suffer ladies? Why do we tolerate it? In what other situation would we accept the kind of side effects we accept in hormonal bc's? NONE!!

Well...I'm done tolerating it. No more artificial hormones for this gal. My life, my health, my happiness.....is worth SO much more. I look at sites like this one where women are constantly suffering some sort of problem with their pill, with their implant, etc and it's really sad. Our bodies are beautiful miracles.....we grow HUMANS inside of us........ yet daily our bodies, our health, and our happiness are compromised while men sit back and kick their feet up and wait for their bloated, headachey, hairy, borderline hypertensive, irritable, exhausted, pimple faced woman to get home and satisfy them. *sigh*

How did I end up back up on this box? haha!!!

[Ashlee T.]

Lana, and P3375 - can't say I don't agree with you all, cause I'm Miss Independent myself and would worry about having to completely rely on someone else. BUT, that's not the point.....the point is that WE tolerate all the bad stuff. If it were left up to them, they wouldn't, therefore things would change, better options would be offered.

I think even if my man were on "the pill", I'd still want to use a cervical cap or diaphragm in case he forgot his pill, but it would certainly be something non hormonal. And you'd be surprised at how much more responsibility a man would feel to pregnancy if he were also held responsible in the birth control.

Think about it...men don't like condoms (and some women too) cause they "feel weird" or "limit the enjoyment"........ so we as woman go above and beyond to make sure they don't have to use them. Yet those of us who take or have taken the pill "feel weird" and have our enjoyment limited ALL the time because of the artificial hormones. But do men care? Nope...cause they get unprotected safe sex.

[Yazwoman]

So many points. I agree with them all. You know what it all boils down to? Of course this is my opinion, but it's all about control. We live in a predominately patriarchal society. Men have more power in government,have higher wages, typically have better jobs and, overpower women in nearly everything in all our walks of life. (Hear of the glass ceiling everyone?) It was not always this way. In fact in early hunter-gather societies, women were the most powerful because they provided the sustainable and essential fruits and nuts, knew all about herbal lore and all that sort of thing. Men feared women's growing power and through this they wished for more power and obtained it. (The Witch Burnings anyone? Totally a holocaust of women in my mind.) Though that is neither here nor there.

Women are also taught to be subservient and 'soft spoken', culturally speaking across the board in this modern age. It's the curse of the good girl. Sure, it's gotten a bit better, but we are still a far way off. Now you think that modern science would come up with something that would help men, whom have less delicate hormonal cycles? Well let's see, most of the scientists with the power are men.It doesn't effect them, for it's 'women who have the responsibility of birth' even though it takes two to tango!

There was a joke going around the internet that said something like, "if men got their periods, it would be like men around a water cooler at work: "I got mine then. How heavy was yours? Etc". It would be like the 'cool' thing. I just have a feeling if they knew what we went through, as women, every month there would be tons of medicines out there and stuff a lot safer.

Birth control methods have been around for a long time, women have had these tools before modern medicines made hormonal pills to take (such as the herb Black Cohosh) Men are typically clueless what women go through every month. We can tell them, but since they don't experience it themselves it's hard to truly convey how we feel.

In some cultures women have to hide to a separate room or house when they have their periods because it's considered 'unclean.' Conversely, in one African culture women were free of curses because they were the givers of life. Incidently in Tantric Buddhism, women also have more power than men though Tantra was devised as a way to step away from conventional Mahayana Buddhism at the time of it's inception.

With all these examples, I feel that the clear thing in my mind is all about control of women's bodies. Now I'm not arguing that birth control is bad, I'm glad that someone is taking care of preventing unwanted children.I wouldn't trust another person to take a pill every day, I feel more confident that I'm taking my own pill. It would be awesome though for a male equivalent so that if one method fails there is another backup. (More than just a condom since many men don't like them) Will it happen despite all this supposed research in the field? I doubt it for at least another 10-15 years. It just figures that such important tasks fall to women, who have been silently enduring the burden of crazy cycles and other such issues in the name of science. It's about control, sad but so true in my mind.

Sorry this is so long, I sort of rambled.

[ItsASecret]

Scientists are working on it, but the proposed mechanism that would need to happen involves inhibition of testosterone which causes undesired effects in males. That is the simple reason why there is nothing out there yet, I have no doubt in the next 10-15 years that there will be some form of male birth control though. Big pharma companies are interested in the billions to be made from the first patent made for such birth control so the work is going to continue. It is not like they are purposely avoiding some type of male birth control just so that human history can remain as 'sorry ladies you still have to do the work'.