>From: Scott Badger <w_scott_badger@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Re: MED/SOCIETY:'100% success' for male pill trial
>Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 12:07:46 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Terry Donaghe <Terry@Donaghe.com> wrote:
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_836000/836436.stm
> >
> > "Edinburgh University scientists say the first
> > clinical trials of a male contraceptive pill
> > suggest it is 100% effective, with no harmful
> > consequences. "
> >
...
>But after discussing the idea of a male
>pill with lots of different women, I discovered that
>the (then) prevalent attitude was that it didn't
>matter if there was a male pill because men could not
>really be trusted to take it. I heard things like,
>"Well, if I was living with the guy and I actually saw
>him take it then I guess it would be OK, but if I'm
>just dating some guy, I'm not going to take the chance
>of getting pregnant on his say-so that he took the
>pill. I'd have to take my own precautions to be on
>the safe side anyway." The article says only 2%
>wouldn't trust their partner to take the new pill.
>
Where do you live?
I have heard this a lot since moving to Utah and I thought it was derived
from the marriage-oriented culture here. But it seems to be the general
assumption that men would not bother to take the 30 seconds per day which it
takes to take a pill, because they secretly want to get women pregnant so
they can get married and have a family. This is really, really
counterintuitive. Most women I know want to have children one day, many of
them soon - do most men want to have children?
>One concern that a friend of mine expressed is that
>those men least likely to take the male pill are the
>ignorant, the stupid, and the lazy while those most
>likely to take the pill are on the other end of the
>spectrum. Not particularly good news for the gene
>pool. This friend of mine also suggested that men
>will now have even more of a propinquity to engage in
>meaningless sexual encounters and women's psyches will
>continue to harbor resentment toward themselves, men,
>and society in general because of this behavior.
>
Who was it here who suggested a genetic engineering solution by which people
are born (or made to be, through gene therapy), infertile, and then have to
take a fertility pill to replentish whatever chemical their bodies have been
made unable to produce in order to have children. This is an excellent idea,
and I hope a gene therapy solution will soon be in the works. I have another
idea which may or may not be workable, I dont know - but a vasectomy which,
rather then simply severing the tube and letting the ends heal, puts a
"switch" between both ends - some kind of pump, or better yet, a tube which
can switch from open to contracted states chemically. By a remote control,
or by taking a pill (one time), you turn the switch to open or closed to let
sperm pass through, depending on whether you want children or not. Problem:
people are still fertile up to a month after a vasectomy from sperm leftover
in the tubes and I'd expect this to be an issue here too. I think this would
be a small problem, as people would not be changing their minds once a week
about having children.
I pondered the idea of learning how to do this myself and building my own -
knowing how I am with building things, I would end up with a foot-long
length of rubber hose extending from my scrotum.
>Sometimes it seems like this notion that recreational
>sex is a bad thing is primarily propagated by those
>women who continue to perceive the need for a
>long-term commitment from a man before they can feel
>comfortable in a relationship and this appears to be a
>carryover from the days when women depended heavily
>upon men's resources for their well-being and the
>well-being of their children.
That's certainly half of it...
The other half comes from men - guys who will lose respect for a woman and
think of her as a "slut" after she sleeps with him. I think this is less
common today, but certainly in the past (from what I have read and observed
of some old people), the idea is that a good woman, the kind who you marry,
is one who doesn't really like sex too much but will "let you" do it to her,
as a matrimonial duty. These are the kind for having children with. The
other kind is the kind for having enjoyable sex with, and are often
prostitutes. This attitude is expressed very well by a character in "Summer
of Sam" if you've seen it (a pretty bad movie, actually). You would also be
familiar with it if you know anyone in a frat. If you ever see a book called
"Deviant behavior" (sociology book) look up the number of men who have lost
their virginity to prostitutes today, compared to thoe who did in the 1940s
- I don't remember the statistic but it's the opposite of what you would
think.. severalfold higher in the 40s. Also, often people who are arrested
for prostitution (some cities publish this data in papers) are very
conservative, traditional types of men.
>My hope is that the male
>pill will indeed take us a step closer toward a more
>relaxed attitude toward our sexuality, but not a more
>relaxed attitude toward the responsibilities of
>marriage and/or family. We really need to get past the
>paradigm where women sort men by the size of their
>wallets and men sort women by their potential for
>sexual gratification. I have to admit though, these
>hopes are probably unrealistic on my part.
Also required are cures for various STDs.
Ideally: full cures and vaccines for HIV, herpes, and HPV, (are
cures/vaccines for the latter two being worked on anyplace?) as well as a
wider testing for bacterial STDs.
>
>What are some of the other Male Pill issues being
>debated?
>
>Scott
>
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