Okay. This article is going to unfold a little backwards, because I don’t want to bury my favorite part of it. Which is not the part about male birth control. That’s awesome, but the baboon fucking aspect is so much better.
Yes, to see if a new form of male birth control was effective, scientists gave it to a bunch of dude apes and had them fuck a bunch of chick apes to see if any of the females got pregnant.
That, my friends, is why science is awful and amazing and terrible and hilarious. Like, what happened if this shit didn’t work and all these apes had all these babies they didn’t want. Or, conversely and more importantly, what if these women baboons wanted babies? That why animals have sex. To get pregnant. And they didn’t know the ape guys they were screwing weren’t capable of getting them pregnant. That’s so fucked up. Imagine doing that to people. You’d be jailed. Humans!
Anyhoo, here’s the relevant paragraph, from The Daily Beast:
Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated.
I doubt those women are happy about this shit.
Anyhoo No. 2, what are we talking about (inverted pyramid for the win)? We are talking about Vasalgel, a new, potentially awesome form of male birth control.
Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube.
At any time, you can get another injection which would dissolve the blockage and get you back to making babies.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Finally, dudes can be the people responsible for stopping the sperm that makes babies from getting into women. This possibly should have been our responsibility all along. Especially now, because the world of women’s birth control is a fucked up place.
[T]he potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself.
Sounds delightful! Thank god I’m not a woman. Vasalgel, though, doesn’t mess with testosterone the way the pill messes with estrogen. So, basically nothing bad happens to you. (Except maybe something in 30 years, but who knows? Science!).
Additionally, if safe, effective birth control was made widely available for men, it could eliminate the field of shit women deal with when it comes to their bodies.
If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
Good stuff! I personally think it would be cool to have a world where men had a similar sexual responsibility as women. I hope you do, too.
The injection is beginning human trails next year, and if all goes well, could be available in three years.
Shoot me up.