Male Birth Control Study Ends Early Because Guys Are Babies
If you’ve been keeping up with the latest in tragic birth control news, you probably saw that the whole reason that women are plagued with the pill and not men is because dudes “couldn’t handle” the side effects.
That news was shitty, but this decision was made in the 1960s, and we’d hope that men today wouldn’t be such whiners, right?
LOL, who are we kidding?
New studies done at the University of Edinburgh found that a new form of male birth control was over 96 percent effective. Amazing! But the study unfortunately ended early because 20 men dropped out due to “side effects,” according to Broadly.
What side effect could be so bad that it would cause big, strong men to drop out of a groundbreaking birth control study? Mood swings, otherwise known as the exact same fucking side effect that women have been dealing with since the pill’s creation in the 60s.
From Broadly:
The study recruited 320 men between the ages of 18 and 45. Over the course of 56 weeks, participants received regular injections consisting of two hormones— progestogen, which lowers sperm counts, and testosterone, which reduces the effects of the progestogen (progesterone also reduces testosterone).
Of the 20 men who discontinued the study, 14 cited changes in mood while the other six men discontinued for either “acne, pain or panic at first injections, palpitations, hypertension, or erectile dysfunction.”
While some men couldn’t handle the same side effects women have been dealing with for years, researchers still viewed this experiment as a major win for male birth control. After all, 96% is pretty damn effective.
Unfortunately, the study author voices the concern that we probably all had: are men actually going to take it upon themselves to get these progestogen shots?
“At the end of the day, it’s going to be a matter of someone taking it, and if they find the side effects too bad, they’re going to stop taking it and look for something else,” Anderson said to Broadly. “It’s a matter of trying to improve the option choices so that people find something that works for them.”
Hm yeah, I mean, women have been dealing with birth control side effects — including clinical depression — for years now. Why should guys have to get used to the side effects when they could just place the burden on the women in their life?
Besides, condoms have been around since the 1850s, and so many guys still refuse to wear those things because they’re “uncomfortable.” Gee, being a dude sounds so hard!
