Men won't use this. Why should we, women take a pill and scientists are trying to hand us some strange hybrid of a cybernetic device and hellish medival torture machines.

If it can't be done with pills or non-penile injections , I don't want any part of it. I would really like a daily pill, like the deal women have, but this is unnacceptable.

Birthcontrol needs to be easy or people won't use it. anything that require implantation is too hard to enter into widespread use. The inherent chance of infection when you cut into tissue means that the horror stories that come from this will kill it dead in a couple of years.

I read a while ago that birth control for men is never going to take off (despite the best wishes of many researchers). The article I read suggested two reasons:

1) men won't take it for protection in casual sex, since they aren't likely to be the ones getting pregnant;
2) drug company surveys suggest that amongst couples in committed relationships (which apparently form a large part of the market for the OCP), if the man takes on the new pill the woman will stop using hers (the pill being so effective that they don't both need to take it). So even if men selflessly offered to take up the burden, the company will lose one customer for every customer they gain. They don't want to spend bilions of dollars on research for that outcome.

That seems like pretty faultless economics to me, so I'm not expecting to be popping any pills any time soon...

I dunno. I'd use this. My wife is too forgetful to reliably take the pill, a vasecomy is too permanent and neither of us are fans of condoms (ribbed for her pleasure my ass).

I'd be more than happy to "selflessly" assume the burden of birth control for the two of us. Just like I selflessly help her with laundry, cook, clean and raise our daughter and how she selfishly has a career.

Not to be a prick, it just frustrates us both when people pat me on the back for doing what she's expected to do everyday just because I have a penis.

Don't get me wrong, penises are great. One of me best friends is a penis. Just sometimes it's like a mood ring that you can't take off.

Ahem. So, yeah. This birth control thingy looks fantastic. Where do I sign up?

-Mike

sorry... antipodean alert ... 'selfless' was irony ... I just didn't think to mark it out as such

Um, ouch. "Through a hole made in the scrotum"? Please tell me that's not as painful as it sounds.

I think men would welcome birth control as long as it doesn't look as scary as the IVD. I keep hearing the argument that men don't care about birth control because they're not the ones who get pregnant, but I disagree. It's probably true that women care MORE than men do about preventing (or ending) accidental pregnancies, but
that doesn't mean men don't care at all; most, if not all, of the men I know are very actively interested in not getting anyone pregnant. Men like to have problem-free sex as much as women do, so I suspect that men who really and truly couldn't care less are in the minority.

The company needs to find a better way to describe the product, hopefully one that doesn't include the words "hole" and "scrotum."

But hey, it's encouraging that this and other "male contraception" is being developed.

Yes, that's probably true, but I think everyone knows that in casual sex arrangements no woman is going to trust a man who says he's on the pill. And the drug companies don't care about the non-casual sex arrangements because they lose one customer for every one they gain.

Also it's probable that in the post-HIV world, non-condom contraceptive devices and pills aren't going to be as successful a s the pill was 30 years ago. Before HIV the pill was a massively liberating phenomenon, which probably helped the drug companies market it; now, similar inventions for men would have to be aimed only at men in relationships, where there is already a perfectly decent alternative.

No, I think a chemical contraceptive for men will only become available if it has a very convenient steroidal side-effect, like muscle growth. "Yeah mate, I'm on the pill, but not 'cause I'm vain - it's for the missus."

"Birthcontrol needs to be easy or people won't use it. anything that require implantation is too hard to enter into widespread use."

Right. Because we all know how easy it is to use diaphragms (hint: it's not), and devices like Norplant and the IUD never require implantation. And the Pill was so very safe during its first few incarnations.

What you're actually saying, soullite, is that men won't shoulder any of the inconveniences women have put up with for years. That may true, but it's not reasonable: it's an example of sexist entitlement.

It is like a vasectemy, only reverasable? Awesome. I definitely prefer this to a pill I would have to take every day and which would mess with my body chemistry.

Eg, people use condoms and OTC more often than other forms of BC. You can argue thatthey don't do it for ease of use, but you can't pretend everyone uses a diaphragm. Even if you do, it's a fallacy of composition to assume that everyone does.

I'm not making excuses, and I'm sorry you can't take some random person on the internet for their word. I'm going to assume you have your reasons. I don't know you, and you don't know me. That's all we really know about eachother.

soullite, I can't figure out what your second paragraph is supposed to mean.

Where on earth did I pretend everyone uses a diaphragm? Where on earth did I say that I use a diaphragm? YOu can infer from my post that I have used one, but that's about it. I named four different methods of birth control that women have employed over the years quite regularly, each of which carries with it the inconveniences and risks that you claim men would never put up with. I stand by the assertion that men feeling like they somehow have the right to demand birth control free of all the difficulties women have had to deal with is an example of entitlement.

Condom sales took off after the advent of HIV. As far as I know, barring the now-defunct sponge, they are the only method of OTC birth control around.

I'm sorry, I'm all for effective male contraceptives which take the pill-pressure off women, but they lost me when they said "inserted via a small hole made in the scrotum".

*Cross legs*